A Conversation with Mystery Author Frédérique Molay

with Frédérique Molay

We are delighted to welcome back mystery author Frédérique Molay to Omnimystery News.

Last week we featured an excerpt from Frédérique's second Paris homicide mystery (after The 7th Woman) Crossing the Line (Le French Book) with Chief of Police Nico Sirsky. The ebook format is published in July 2014, with the trade paperback following in September.

Today we have the pleasure of talking with her more about her series.

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Omnimystery News: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included into your Paris Homicide series?

Photo provided courtesy of
Frédérique Molay

Frédérique Molay: My paternal grandmother loved American TV series, which we used to watch together. Her Ukrainian heritage stayed with me, leaving its mark on my hero, Chief of Police Nico Sirsky, and his world. There is a little bit of that grandmother in Nico's mother Anya. I miss her, which is probably why I created Anya. She has my grandmother's blue eyes and flamboyant Slavic personality.

As for Sirsky, who heads up Paris's famous elite detective team, the brigade criminelle, he's inspired by my favorite comic superheroes, which have always fascinated me. He's both likable and an entirely positive figure, even as he must face the ups and downs of modern life and human cruelty. At the same time, he and his team are based on very real Paris police detectives I have met.

I would add that my father also influenced me a lot, because he is passionate about photography and movies. When I was little, he took me to the movies a lot, and he was a surgeon. I attended my first operation when I was eleven. I still remember the smell of the electric scalpel cutting into the human flesh. My heart was pounding, I could feel the anxiety throbbing in my temples, but I didn't want to disappoint my father by fainting. I managed to keep my eyes wide open, and at that moment, I realized how tenuous life was.

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?

FM: On May 14, 1992, I had just finished school. I was working as a political reporter for a national French magazine. When I heard that Mary Higgins Clark was planning to come to France to promote her novel Loves Music, Loves to Dance, I did everything I could to set up an exclusive interview with the queen of mystery writing. I pulled every string I had, until I got to spend a full half day alone with Mrs. Higgins Clark, who shared with me a little bit of her recipe: you need a good plot and a good love story. Later, I learned that you write well about things you know about, in one way or another. You have to give something of yourself.

And what advice would I give in turn? "Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight of them while pursuing them." That's not me, but Oscar Wilde. In addition, you need to work. Writing is like playing the piano — you need to practice on a regular basis.

OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I write mysteries, which means …".

FM: I write mysteries, which means that I have two people inside me: one is Cartesian, a realist, ordered and well structured, while the other is a dreamer who feels the need to escape and forget herself. There are so many books I would have loved to write, but I quickly realized that I was made to write crime fiction. Perhaps that is because I feel the need to develop that special bond with the reader that comes with the interactive game you can play with this specific genre. Or perhaps it's because I'm magnetically drawn to the battle between good and evil, and to the quest for truth. I like this sentence by the French philosopher the Marquis de Condorcet: "Friends of the truth are those who seek it, not those who boast having found it." And perhaps I am so afraid of death that I try to tame it. What could be more reassuring than uncovering the motive and a culprit? In other words, a good explanation for that death.

I imagine that everyone involved in some sort of artistic expression does so out of a passion for it, but also out of some internal necessity, some need to externalize emotions and feelings, that they are motivated by a desire to share something, to touch others, and to be loved in return. As Hermann Hesse said in The Journey to the East, "My happiness did indeed arise from the same secret as the happiness in dreams; it arose from the freedom to experience everything imaginable simultaneously, to exchange outward and inward easily, to move Time and Space about like scenes in a theatre." My main ambition is to give readers intense emotions and a moment of pleasure during which they forget their worries. There's nothing better than when a reader says they couldn't turn out the light at night they were so absorbed by the book they couldn't set Nico aside.

OMN: What authors or books do you think influenced how and what you write today?

FM: There are so many that have whisked me away and gave me the desire to write. Enid Blyton and The Famous Five were a big part of my childhood, before I moved on to Stephen King as a teenager. Then came Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson and Michael Connelly, who sharpened my taste for suspense.

I like literature and enjoy understanding the invisible lines of thought that link novelists across history. Voltaire, a philosopher from the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, for example, inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes — in that book, an incredible use of suspense leads to a commentary on society and tolerance. It's astounding.

OMN: What do you read now for pleasure?

FM: There are so many. Just to name a few: Paul Auster, William Boyd, David Lodge, Cormac Mac Carthy, Jay McInerney, Ian McEwan … and then there's Michael Connelly. A French reporter dared to compare my writing to Connelly's, but for me, he's the master.

OMN: Do you have any favorite series characters?

FM: Inspector Harry Bosch, who else?

OMN: You mentioned that television and films played a big part in shaping your series. What kinds of films do you enjoy watching?

FM: I've always loved American movies. Maybe that's why people say my novels are so visual. When I write, I imagine myself in a movie theater, and the seat is more or less comfortable depending on how much inspiration I have. I loved The Game by David Fincher, with such an attractive Michael Douglas and an excellent plot that ends in an apotheosis. Like a good mystery.

OMN: Suppose you are the casting director on a film or television adaptation of your books. Who do you see playing the key roles?

FM: For Nico Sirsky: Simon Baker, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Craig or Ryan Gosling.

For his mother Anya Sirsky: Diane Keaton, Glen Close or Helen Mirren.

For his sister Tanya: Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet or Reese Witherspoon.

As Dr. Caroline Dalry: Anne Hathaway or Natalie Portman.

As Dr. Armelle Vilars, the redheaded chief coroner: Julianne Moore.

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Writing has always been a passion for Frédérique Molay. She graduated from France's prestigious Science Po and began her career in politics and the French administration. She worked as Chief of Staff for the Deputy Mayor of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and then was elected to the local government in Saône-et-Loire. Meanwhile, she spent her nights pursing a passion for writing she had nourished since she wrote her first novel at the age of eleven. She has five books to her name, with three in the Chief Inspector Nico Sirsky series.

For more information about Sylvie, please visit her author page on the Le French Book website.

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Crossing the Line
Frédérique Molay
A Paris Homicide Mystery

It's Christmas in Paris. Chief of Police Nico Sirsky returns to work after recovering from a gunshot wound. He's in love and rearing to go. His first day back has him overseeing a jewel heist sting and taking on an odd investigation. Dental students discovered a message in the tooth of a severed head. Is it a sick joke?

Sirsky and his team of crack homicide detectives follow the clues from an apparent suicide, to an apparent accident, to an all-out murder as an intricate machination starts breaking down.

Just how far can despair push a man? How clear is the line between good and evil?