Katie Tallo's "Where Her Secrets Lie"

Katie Tallo has more than three decades of experience as an award-winning screenwriter and director. After winning an international novel contest, she began writing mystery thrillers. In 2020, her debut thriller, Dark August, was an instant bestseller, earning acclaim as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and an Apple Book of the Month. It also made the Globe 100 list. Since then, Tallo has written two more novels in the critically acclaimed Gus Monet trilogy including Poison Lilies and Buried Road. Her first standalone crime thriller, Where Her Secrets Lie, comes out August 2026 and her next thriller, The Last Villa, comes out in June 2027. Tallo lives with her husband in Ottawa where she is currently cooking up her next novel.

Here the author dreamcasts the lead for an adaptation of Where Her Secrets Lie:

If they make my book, Where Her Secrets Lie, into a film, I’d love to see Helen Mirren play the fiesty, wild-haired, beer-drinking protagonist, Lenny Bird. Helen is ten years older than Lenny but she’s got the vibe, the look, the sexy energy and the agency to pull off this edgy grandmother who takes on a ruthless crime boss. Her work in Mobland — hell, all her work — proves she’s got the gritty chops to be the perfect Lenny Bird.

While writing the novel and developing the lead character, I was very much inspired by a photo of Helen taken when she turned 70. It’s a sexy, fierce image of a beautiful older woman in her prime. Every time I looked at the photo, I got a little closer to understanding Lenny. It would be hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

Visit Katie Tallo's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dark August.

Q&A with Katie Tallo.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Buried Road.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (December 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue