[00:00:01.120] – Alan Petersen
You are listening to Meet the Thriller Author, the podcast where I interview writers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense books. I’m Alan Petersen, an author of mysteries and thrillers myself. I’ve interviewed over 200 mystery and thriller authors and counting, including Dean Koontz, Lee Child, Walter Moseley, and many other wonderful writers. In this episode, number 202, I chatted with New York Times best-selling author Susan Elia MacNeal, who is known for her acclaimed Maggie Hope mystery series, which has won the Barry Award and has been optioned for television by Magnolia Hill Productions and Warner Brothers. Before we dive in, a quick reminder, you can explore my archive of past interviews full of insights and inspirations from some of the best minds in the mystery thriller genre over at thrillerauthors. Com. While you’re there, don’t forget to sign up for the Thrilling Reads newsletter to snatch up the best deals on mystery and thriller titles that will keep you hooked. And please rate and review this show on your favorite podcast platform. It helps others find it. All right, here is my interview with Susan Ilia McNeill.

[00:01:08.610] – Alan Petersen
All right. Hey, everybody. This is Alan with Meet the Thriller Author. And on the podcast today, I have Susan Elia MacNeal. Welcome.

[00:01:16.340] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Thank you so much, Alan.

[00:01:18.080] – Alan Petersen
Great to have you here. I want to say something right away. I was reading your bio, and I saw that your first job was you were an assistant for John Irving, and The World According to Garp was one of the first books from my youth that inspired me. Like, whoa, you can write like this, this type of story?

[00:01:35.960] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I remember reading it and staying up all night to finish it. It was so amazing.

[00:01:40.540] – Alan Petersen
Just the way and the topics that he tackled, everything. I was just like, whoa, I didn’t realize you could do that in a book. I think it was my dad’s book, and I read it when I was 15 or something. Anyway, I have to ask you, how was it working for him? Anything you learned way back when, Back then, did you take it with you as a writer?

[00:02:03.430] – Susan Elia MacNeal
There are a few things. First of all, it was a great experience. I loved living in Vermont, which is where he and his wife and his family lived. I didn’t live with them. I had my own apartment. But the one thing that I really learned from John Irving is how to be a professional writer. Basically, that is you get up, you have your coffee, you start writing, you keep writing, you write all day. Then maybe around five, you knock off and Well, if you’re him, you go do some wrestling moves in your private gym. You really treat it like a day in, day out, Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, at least professional job. I think that’s really good to see because it teaches you, you don’t wait for the muse, you don’t wait to be inspired. You don’t wait for really anything. Just as people, all of us who’ve had jobs, we don’t wait to be inspired to go to work. That would never happen. Come on. That’s what learned.

[00:03:00.770] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that’s a great lesson. If that, you’ll be fired somehow if you’re not doing your job, even if you’re writing.

[00:03:09.900] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah, for sure.

[00:03:11.560] – Alan Petersen
Then I also noticed that you worked for some of the big five publishing houses Two, is that strategic on your point? John Irving publishing houses, were you trying to stay in the industry. Are we already thinking about becoming a writer someday?

[00:03:24.110] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I was thinking about becoming a writer at that point. I just really, really loved books, and I wanted work with books. The John Irving position definitely gave me a leg up to get a Big Five publishing job. I really loved it. I really loved just being in contact with authors and working with everybody in the publishing industry.

[00:03:47.050] – Alan Petersen
That’s cool. So your previous jobs and your job now as writing, you’ve always been in the publishing world.

[00:03:55.300] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah, indeed.

[00:03:56.320] – Alan Petersen
That’s really cool. All right. I was just wondering, too, now, Back to your actual books, what you’re writing now. It was just fascinating with the Maggie Hope series because it’s all set during World War II. Of course, I have to ask, what inspired you to choose that period of time for your books? Is that something that you were fascinating with about your history above?

[00:04:18.200] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I’ve always loved history, and I’ve always loved World War II. However, this is a crazy story. It has to do with the Muppets and Jim Hensen and Bear in the Big Blue House, which It was a show on Disney channel back in the day. My husband was actually playing bear. It was huge, not only in the US, but in the UK. I went with him on one of his business trips to London, and he was, of course, doing all of his bear in the big blue house things. I was on my own, so I went to the cabinet war rooms. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but they’re your listeners. But the cabinet war rooms are this incredible now museum. They were the rooms underneath White Hall, where Winston Churchill and all of his colleagues basically ran World War II. It was considered, if not bomb proof, the best next thing. It’s very underground, and it’s under this huge slab of concrete. Now it’s a museum. I just remember walking around it and walking the same halls as Churchill would have walked and all of his colleagues weeks, and just being utterly captivated and moved. I could just picture everything happening. That was really the catalyst. I always say, I have to think, They’re in the Big Blue House, Disney, and the Jim Hensen Company.

[00:05:48.540] – Alan Petersen
Got you there, but it was a different direction.

[00:05:51.400] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah, not the way you’d expect it, probably.

[00:05:55.340] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that is cool. I did notice that from your bio, too, that your husband’s a puppeteer. That’s incredible. I’ve never met a professional pupeteer. That’s a very creative house you’re writing. He’s a pupeteer.

[00:06:05.810] – Susan Elia MacNeal
We have a son who’s in college, first year, a vocal music major.

[00:06:11.440] – Alan Petersen
It rubbed off. Yeah. I was curious, too, with all the historical writing these historical mysteries, what’s your approach then on the research? It’s just interesting. Anything that you’ve discovered during your research for these books that sticks out in your mind?

[00:06:29.400] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Well, I I will say that truth truly is stranger than fiction, and World War II has some of the craziest stories. I mean, the stuff that we learned in school doesn’t even scratch the surface of the truly insane maneuvering. We’re all looking at it from now, present day, and we know how everything turns out. But I think one of the things that’s so incredible is how dire it truly was. They didn’t have the foresight that we do. So It just was never a given that people would win. It’s always something very much on my mind when I’m writing that these people don’t know.

[00:07:10.760] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that’s something so fascinating that a lot of people realize or remember that even World War I and II, they were both close. Yeah, definitely. I think Norm McDonald had a bit about that. Now, with your 12th book now, this is your 12th book in the Maggie Hope series. This is being published on May 21st, FYI for people looking here at the date here. Can you give us a little sneak peek of what it’s about and what can you expect from the latest book in the series?

[00:07:38.920] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Sure. It’s called The Last Hope because it is the last book in the Maggie Hope mystery series. Maggie ends up… Maggie, who is a secret agent, one of the SOE Special Operations Executive in World War II. She’s run by, of all people, Kim Philby, the Cambridge thought. It’s That’s true. He ran the spies for the Iberian Peninsula, so Portugal and Spain. I had to put that in there once I figured that out. She meets with an old friend or a friend of me, Coco Chanel, the designer. She also has another task. She has been asked to assassinate Heisenberg, who was working on the nuclear bomb for the Nazi side. She basically said, I will, but only if I’m they’re close to getting the bomb. So her own mission to herself is to talk to him and go to a lecture and find out exactly where he is with the bomb. And she can do this because she has a background in math and physics. So anyway, it’s all crazy, and there are spies, and there’s Lisbon, and there’s Madrid, and there are bullfighters, and all kinds of crazy things. It’s, I think, a good send-off, a good finale.

[00:08:55.340] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that’s something you mentioned, the historical figures, too. I was wondering about that because you You’ve had Winston Churchill in your books, and now Heisenberg and Coco Chanel. How does that process work? Do you have to get permission, or is it because they’re public figures, it’s okay? And have you heard from any of their heirs about your books at all? Any feedback?

[00:09:16.290] – Susan Elia MacNeal
No. Because they’re public figures, it’s okay. I’m also pretty careful to keep to actual facts. If I’m going to go way off and really fictionalize a character I will, of course, change names and details.

[00:09:34.070] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, and I read that you mentioned that Coco Chanel actually did this on spying during World War II. I did not know.

[00:09:41.250] – Susan Elia MacNeal
He did, yeah. There was a book that came out in the mid ’90s, actually, which broke that story. Although people have been whispering about it forever that she was a Nazi, but she definitely had a Nazi lover during the war. She was what was called a Horizontal Collaborator. Not only did she have this lover and hang out with a bunch of very high-ranking Nazis, but she had several missions. She had an agent. She had her own cone name, which was Westminster. This is all on record. I did not make any of this up. Exactly what her motives were, you can’t really say, but she definitely did these things.

[00:10:24.080] – Alan Petersen
Wow. They’re different now. I see Coco Chanel’s products.

[00:10:28.680] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I know. They’ve done a She did a really good job of keeping this hidden, quite frankly. Also, she bought a lot of people off. There were a lot of people who were writing memoirs after the war was over. Again, this is all on record. She gave large sumss of money.

[00:10:46.710] – Alan Petersen
No wonder. That’s how it works. That’s how it works. Yeah, that’s how it works. I think that’s so cool, too, because a lot of stuff is coming out. I know a couple of years ago, I was surprised that Julia Child also did some espanage on the right side for the OSS. I was like, Julia, the chef? I had no idea.

[00:11:05.470] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Julia Child. But that’s the really interesting thing about World War II is that this wasn’t a war fought entirely by trained soldiers. I mean, not all of these people were in the military or military school graduates. They were just regular people who volunteered and who did things on their own. It’s incredible what they accomplished.

[00:11:30.640] – Alan Petersen
I’m also curious, too, because I believe this is your 11th book in the series, the Maggie Hope series?

[00:11:35.520] – Susan Elia MacNeal
11th book in the series, 12th book total, because I did write one standalone called Mother, Daughter, Traitor, Spy.

[00:11:41.660] – Alan Petersen
Oh, okay. That was also said during World War II, right? I remember Yeah, just before World War II in Los Angeles. Okay. Yeah. How was the progression then from Maggie from the beginning towards the end? When you first started writing the book, were you hoping it was going to go this long or did it just evolved?

[00:11:59.820] – Susan Elia MacNeal
It just evolved, and I never dreamed it would go this long or that I would have this career. I really just wrote it as a standalone. Quite frankly, it was rejected everywhere. It was rejected by every agent in New York, practically, and then every editor in New York, practically. But the editor who did take it on asked for a two-book deal, so that was right away, I was under contract to write the sequel. Then That did well. They kept asking me for more. Then here we are.

[00:12:36.010] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, can’t say none of that. Curious to know, so what are some of the themes that you explore then that you’ve explored in this book? Because I was so fascinated about that because you, like you said, they always historical figures, so you’re basing them on actual events. So can you give us just a little bit about the history and some of the events that you’ve covered during this series?

[00:12:54.350] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Well, one thing in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, which is the first book that people are always shocked by, is that Britain was also basically at war with Ireland at the same time they were getting bombed by the Nazis. So the IRA was planting mailbox bombs and things like that, and the IRA was a big threat. And that got washed over in history. We don’t think a lot about the IRA and Ireland remaining neutral and Ireland doing that. So that was something that people were shocked by when Mr. Churchill’s secretary came out. And again, all documented, all historically accurate. I think with this book, I think it’s interesting, especially with Oppenheimer, the film out. We’re able to see a little bit about the Nazis nuclear program and just how different it was and how truly far behind they were compared to the Americans. And I think that’s really interesting. I’m not sure if people know that, but the Allies struck a lot of really good blows, taking out their heavy water situation and things like that. The Germans weren’t as far along as we thought.

[00:14:05.450] – Alan Petersen
What is it? I’m curious about the challenges now, too, of how it is because you’re working in real events, so how is it to maintaining the historical events, those facts, but still then creating a fun mystery to read. Is that challenging?

[00:14:26.250] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Oh, yeah, it’s definitely challenging. It takes a lot of research and being really, really comfortable in that time and what’s going to be happening and has happened. While the characters can’t possibly know the future, so they’re in the dark. I don’t know. I guess you just follow it and you look at that day in history and what they would have known. You look at what the papers showed and what they would have read in the morning news, that thing, what would have been on the radio. You have to put yourself in their shoes. What was going on in terms of the news what they know and what they believe.

[00:15:02.410] – Alan Petersen
So you’re going into a little time machine.

[00:15:04.790] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Kind of, yeah.

[00:15:05.660] – Alan Petersen
I’ve never written historical fiction, so it’d be hard to be like, Oh, he checked his phone. Oh, wait a second.

[00:15:13.980] – Susan Elia MacNeal
No, no, no, no. That part does get a little easier, though, as you do more books because you’re in that time period.

[00:15:23.260] – Alan Petersen
I can imagine. What about your research now, too? Because I’m so curious about that now. Is a lot of the stuff now Are you actually going to the libraries, the old microfeesh?

[00:15:35.830] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I have done it all. I have done online research. I have gone to university libraries and special collections where you have to get the library to bring out big boxes for you. I’ve looked things up on microfeesh in libraries. You name it, I’ve done it. Because if there’s a certain thing that I want to research, I just cannot rest until I’m like, dog with a bone. I cannot let it go until I figured it out.

[00:16:05.510] – Alan Petersen
For younger… I’m dating myself here, but for younger listeners, they probably don’t even know what a microfuge or doing that is.

[00:16:15.460] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Microfuge is like little tiny pictures on almost like film.

[00:16:20.720] – Alan Petersen
You roll it on a reader and you could flip the pages that way.

[00:16:25.100] – Susan Elia MacNeal
That was way before the interview.

[00:16:27.020] – Alan Petersen
Yeah. It was like looking at the… What do you call those little negatives, remember, for the pictures? Yeah, anyway. Dating myself here. Let me ask you something now, too, because you’ve been writing this series for a while and it’s been such a big part of your life. How do you feel now since this is the last book, are you excited? Are you nervous?

[00:16:49.320] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I’m always really nervous when a new book comes out. Yes, excited. Also gutded, sad, happy. I’ve been through all the stages of grief. It’s been quite a whirlwind of emotions, especially this whole last year. In addition to this book coming out and the series coming to a close, my son went to college. So not only did I lose Maggie, I hope I lost my baby, too. Although He’s fine. He’s back actually for the summer, so it’s all good. Maggie is going to go off and do great things, so I’m happy for both of them.

[00:17:22.560] – Alan Petersen
So that’s double whammy, double empty nest syndrome from your character and your child.

[00:17:28.650] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Absolutely. So it’s It was an emotional year, but we made it through. I’m just so excited. I have a two-book deal with a new publisher. The first one is a standalone. It’s about World War II spies, but not during World War II, during the 1960s in London. They get together, these female secret agents like Maggie Hope, but not Maggie Hope. They realized that one of their own betrayed them during the war. So they band together with the daughter of the woman who died and try to figure out who betrayed them, but in Britain.

[00:18:09.580] – Alan Petersen
Oh, oh.

[00:18:11.070] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah. Then the next thing is starting a new series stories. So far, it looks like it will be set in New York City. In the late 1950s, we will have an Italian-American private investigator. I was thinking of it as as Agatha Christie meets Mrs. Maisel meets The Godfather, because we’re going to also delve into some of the New York things, including the Mafia.

[00:18:41.710] – Alan Petersen
Oh, that sounds awesome. Those folks are really cool.

[00:18:44.330] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Thank you. I’m excited. I’m really excited about these new things, but the other book is coming out.

[00:18:50.840] – Alan Petersen
Yeah. The Stanalons, that’s for next year, I would imagine, sometime.

[00:18:59.070] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Next year, I hope next year or maybe just into the next year after that.

[00:19:08.140] – Alan Petersen
I’m curious about your writing process, too, so I always have to get nosy about that, especially with all this historical stuff. Do you outline all your books in detail or are you one of those discovery writers? What’s your process like?

[00:19:24.530] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I do do outlines. In the past, I’ve stray away from I make them, and then I don’t follow them. But for these two books, they’re just so convoluted, and they have so many cool twists. I want the reader to experience the… Of those twists. So I plan a lot more carefully now.

[00:19:48.060] – Alan Petersen
What are your tools for writing? Do you use Microsoft Word or some other software program?

[00:19:54.320] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah, I use Microsoft Word. I use a laptop. I take it every everywhere and anywhere.

[00:20:01.530] – Alan Petersen
Then I was going to ask you, because I saw it on your website that the series has actually been optioned by Hollywood, right? By WNDYR. What is it? Magnolia Productions and WNDYR Brothers. Yeah. Any info on that? I know that process is crazy.

[00:20:16.310] – Susan Elia MacNeal
It’s so slow. Covid made everything slower. There have just been all these changes in personnel in all these different places. I’m hopeful, of Of course, but I’m not spending a whole lot of time thinking about it. I’m thinking about my next book. That I can control. I can’t control anything else, but I can control the next book. That’s what I’m focusing on.

[00:20:43.410] – Alan Petersen
You mentioned when the John Irvin’s working every day. Is that something that you write every day, even?

[00:20:51.020] – Alan Petersen
I do.

[00:20:52.420] – Susan Elia MacNeal
In fact, at this point, I forced myself to take weekends off because for a while, I wasn’t, and I got really, really burned out. Let me tell you, burn out, it’s a buzzword, but it’s a real thing. You can get incredibly burned out. If you don’t take time off, if you don’t take care of yourself, that is what will happen. I’m much more careful now. But honestly, I get really into things, and I just want to be obsessed.

[00:21:21.520] – Alan Petersen
Yeah. You really do spend… In one book, you spend so much time in it, too. I can imagine that after a while, you’re so sick of it.

[00:21:29.740] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I I mean, I really love my character so much that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten sick of it. I think I just get… After a while, it’s just tiring, but it just means you need to keep balance in your life.

[00:21:45.530] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, part of the process, right?

[00:21:47.510] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Yeah.

[00:21:48.860] – Alan Petersen
It’s curious because you are sticking with the mystery-type themes. Were you a fan of that genre before you started writing these?

[00:21:56.290] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I was, and I like the fact that most books are mysteries. They might not be marketed as such, and there might not be an actual murder. But most books actually have a central mystery that the protagonist and you, the reader, are trying to figure out. In a lot of ways, I think where books are in the bookstore has much more to do with what cover they have and what marketing they have than what’s really between the covers. So yes, I’m a historical mystery writer, and I’m proud of that. But I also think all of our books are mysteries.

[00:22:35.570] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, I do like your covers are really cool. They’re very like. How was that? What was the process when you first started the first one? Were you excited right away Were you worried in the beginning that they were going to get it?

[00:22:47.410] – Susan Elia MacNeal
No. I saw the first one, and I absolutely loved it. And the artist, I have to give a shout out to Mick Wiggens. He’s a professional illustrator. He does work for the New Yorker. He does children’s books. He does other book covers. He’s an incredible man, incredible artist, and I’m just so lucky to have had him illustrate my covers for so many years.

[00:23:11.280] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, they’re really great covers. I always ask this for my guests because I have aspiring writers that listen to this podcast. Any advice for somebody who wants to start writing mysteries, especially if they’re historical in nature?

[00:23:29.830] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I would just say, follow your obsessions. If you are obsessed with something, if you can’t wait to read about it, to write about it, to figure everything out, then I think your readers will go along on that journey with you. Don’t try to follow trends. That just seems really destructive to me because it’s like making a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. Find your own weird niche and really dig in.

[00:23:56.260] – Alan Petersen
That’s some advice. I really have noticed that, too, with your books, too, because your first Maggie Hope book, it’s interesting how she was very smart person and everything, but because back in the 1940s, the only job she could get was as a typist. Was that something that when you were planning this, that you decided that you wanted to talk a little bit about that era and how women were shoved to the back?

[00:24:26.960] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Well, it’s interesting. When I went to the Churchill War rooms in London, there is this little room that’s the typus office, and you see all these different typewriters and how small everything is and the hooks where they could put their little hats and a little mirror so they could touch up their lipstick. I don’t know. I just pictured this woman chafing it, having to do that and not getting to do more interesting, more important things and feeling like your brain is being wasted. That was the catalyst for Maggie Hope.

[00:25:04.280] – Alan Petersen
That’s cool. I found that very fascinating. Then to see her grow, like you said, by the last book, now she’s like, they wanted to assassinate somebody. That’s a big growth for the character.

[00:25:18.910] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Definitely a character arc, yeah.

[00:25:21.060] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that’s an interesting one. All right. I really appreciate your time here. Where can listeners find out more about you and books? Are you active on social media on your website? Can you give us all that good stuff?

[00:25:33.590] – Susan Elia MacNeal
I’m on social media. My website is susaneliamacneil. Com. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Twitter as Susan McNeil, and I’m on Instagram as Susan Elia McNeil. I know that all doesn’t make sense, but those were the names I got. I’d love to hear from readers, so please say hi.

[00:25:56.720] – Alan Petersen
All right. Awesome. I’ll have links up to all that, of course, so people could Oh, well, that’s good. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, and thanks so much. And congrats on your pub day today. We’re recording this on the day that your book releases, so congratulations.

[00:26:11.210] – Susan Elia MacNeal
Very exciting. Thank you so much. This was really fun.

[00:26:14.910] – Alan Petersen
Thank you for listening to Meet the Thriller author. If you enjoy the show, please take a moment to rate and view it on your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback makes all the difference in connecting with fellow Thriller and mystery fans, and it helps them find this podcast on the podcasting apps like Apple and Spotify. For show notes, transcripts, and archives of hundreds of author interviews, please go to thrillingreads. Com. From there, don’t forget to sign up for the Thrilling Reads newsletter for exclusive access to giveaways, discounts, and astounding thriller and mystery book recommendations and reviews. Check out my thrillerbooks at allampeterson. Com. And remember, that’s Petersen with an E, not an O. Until next time, keep the pages turning and keep the mysteries unraveling.