With her debut novel, How To Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie brought humour and wit to the crime fiction genre and the bestselling author is now back with her second novel, What A Way To Go. Her new book is a hilariously dark and twisted mystery that follows the aftermath of the death of one wealth-obsessed man and the lives of his remaining children and widow – especially when his death is not what it seems. If you love the dysfunctionality of the rich, then this book is definitely one to add to your TBR pile. It’s sharp, gripping and brilliant. “I always thought a fun thing would be to write fictionalised crime that doesn’t hurt or trigger anyone. My books aren’t gory but sort of fantastical with an element of surrealism,” Mackie tells me one sunny afternoon over Zoom.

Here, Mackie talks about her brilliant new novel, her interest in class and wealth and why she’s always loved the true crime genre.

How did What A Way To Go come about? And what was it like writing this book compared to your first?

“Like many people, I was watching a lot of television during the pandemic, especially shows like Succession, Billions and Industry. So, I was imbibing a lot of that ‘eat the rich’ kind of TV and thinking about what something like Succession would look like from an English perspective. In my last book, I focused a lot on what we would call ‘new money’, so I wanted to move that focus onto old-school money and the English gentry. I always thought it’d be interesting to write something a little similar but with the sort of people that didn’t work for their money and what happens to the second generation of those families. Because, presumably, if your parents are multi-millionaires, do you feel like you need to do a day’s work in your life? That kind of world has always fascinated me.

“Writing this one has been different to the first: I didn’t know if anyone would read How To Kill Your Family. That sounds silly now, but at the time, I genuinely thought if a few thousand people bought it, I’d have been thrilled. With your first novel, you’re not writing for an audience, you’re just writing your book. So, to write a second one, there is an audience and you’re very terrified. Because you realise that you’re writing for an imaginary reader now and that can mess with your head. Plus, the pandemic meant I was already dealing with other anxieties.

“I ended up writing a wholly different book to What A Way To Go, which was very serious and not at all funny. My editor had to sit me down and tell me nicely that this isn’t the book I wanted to write. And as soon as I read it back, I knew she was right. It was terrible. So, I had to start from scratch and write without thinking about the audience. Hopefully, with the third one, I’ll be back on an even keel with the process.”

One of my favourite parts of the book is how Anthony is revealed to be dead in the first few pages but we still get to hear his perspective throughout the book. Was this always the plan for him?

“It’s funny because this man is an arrogant, narcissistic dude and I was having fun with his voice and remember thinking: ‘It’s a shame that he’s going to die so early as we’ll lose that.’ I knew I didn’t want to do flashbacks, so I came up with the idea that yes, he’s dead, but we still get to hear from Anthony in the afterlife. And that’s the great joy of fiction: you can do whatever you want; there are no rules. Anthony’s afterlife scenes were probably the bits I enjoyed writing the most – making the afterlife the most boring and tedious part of the process. We all wonder what happens to us after death, and I love the idea that the afterlife is just a disappointing red tape-filled waiting room.

“This also gave Anthony another angle as it means he could see things that the other characters were doing – particularly the characters where we don’t hear their own voices. It’s not your typical kind of narration, but I loved writing it.”

There was a line where Anthony reads something that says “living your best death”, which I thought was just brilliant.

“My favourite was ‘processing your passing’, like an aspirational leaflet that told you how to process your death.”

And the fact Anthony has to figure out his own death before he’s allowed to move on in the afterlife. And he’s really annoyed about it.

“The great thing about the afterlife is that it truly humbles Anthony like nothing else. In death, the egalitarian can’t buy his way out of anything and has to follow the process like everyone else. It’s got nothing to do with how much money you have, and I think that’s the fun bit of What A Way To Go.”

Where does your love of true crime come from?

“As a kid, I read a lot of Victorian real crime accounts, which is quite weird when I look back on it. I also got into Agatha Christie and the Point Horror books and even got a subscription to a true crime magazine that I’d go pick up from the newsagents every week. But I was exposed to a bit too much of it in my teens and 20s and veered away from it as I got fed up reading about dead girls and cool, handsome detectives. Growing up, you begin to realise how crime impacts victims and their families and which victims get the attention and which don’t. So, I gave up on the true crime genre for a long time.

“But I always thought a fun thing would be to write fictionalised crime that doesn’t hurt or trigger anyone. I don’t think anyone would read my books as true-to-life. Because I do think our obsession with true crime has tipped over into something unhealthy and dangerous. I wanted to channel this interest – which a lot of people have – into something funny and that doesn’t hurt anyone. I want it to be the rich people you hate getting killed rather than women or marginalised people.”

What A Way To Go (Harper Collins, £19) by Bella Mackie is out now. Bella will join us on stage at Stylist Live on 9 November.

Images: Alexandra Cameron; Harper Collins