by Tara Moss
Assassin sees Makedde Vanderwall as a vigilante on the run. Tell us why you chose that for her.
Mak is the daughter of a cop and she believes in the criminal justice system, but I wanted to show the limitations of that system — how it can be corrupted by power and money, and how good cops and solid police work can be held back by bureaucracy and the systems we have in place to protect our valuable civil liberties. In my research over the past fifteen years it has become clear that many detectives experience a level of frustration in certain criminal cases and they find themselves haunted by the injustices of unsolved homicides and violent crimes. We have a good criminal justice system, but like any system, it has flaws.
In Assassin I wanted to take those ideas to their furthest conclusions. What happens when justice is too slow? What happens when lives are at stake and the system itself holds the police back from protecting the public? I created a dangerous and volatile copycat killer who was inspired by ‘the Stiletto Murder’, and whom Andy Flynn is fighting to bring to justice. And I created a powerful family, the Cavanaghs, whose vast influence makes it hard to successfully bring them to justice. Once Mak was on their hit list it was inevitable that she would find herself on the run, having to break the rules to survive.
Makedde has an incredible evolution through the series. Do you think a lot of readers will be shocked by her darker qualities in Assassin?
Makedde starts out in the series as a victim and survivor, and ultimately emerges a vigilante. She is pushed to her limits and we see that evolution step by step.
It was important to make Mak Vanderwall as unashamedly hard and dangerous as any other hero of fiction. Through circumstances beyond her control, she is pushed to protect herself and others. In the end she is a killer, a criminal, a vigilante and a hero. She does what she must do.
And I love her for it.
About the Author
Tara Moss is a novelist, television presenter and journalist. Since 1999 she has written seven bestselling novels and been published in seventeen countries in eleven languages. Her writing has appeared in Australian Literary Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sun Herald, The Daily Telegraph, Weekend Australian and more.
Writing has been a lifelong passion for Moss, who began penning gruesome ‘Stephen King-inspired’ stories for her classmates at the age of ten. She went on to an international career as a fashion model before pursuing professional writing. Her novels have been short-listed for both the Davitt and the Ned Kelly crime-writing awards, hit No. 1 on numerous bestseller lists, and made her Australia’s No. 1 selling crime writer several years running. Her in-depth research has seen her earn her private investigator credentials (Cert III) from the Australian Security Academy, tour the FBI Academy in Quantico, spend time in squad cars, morgues, prisons, the Hare Psychopathy Lab, the Supreme Court and criminology conferences, take polygraph tests, shoot weapons, conduct surveillance, pass the Firearms Training Simulator (FATSII) with the LAPD, pull 4.2 G’s doing loops over the Sydney Opera House flying with the RAAF, and acquire her CAMS race driver licence. Stopping at nothing to ‘experience’ the research for her crime novels, Moss was set on fire by Hollywood stunt company West EFX and choked unconscious by Ultimate Fighter ‘Big’ John McCarthy.
Moss has been an ambassador for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children since 2000, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2007 and UNICEF Patron for Breastfeeding for the Baby Friendly Heath Initiative (BFHI) since 2011, advocating for better support for breastfeeding mums in hospitals, the workforce and general community. She is a dual Australian/Canadian citizen.
Visit her at taramoss.com, on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @Tara_Moss
The Makedde Vanderwall Series
Mak Vanderwall is beautiful, single, an international fashion model, a student of forensic psychology — and a psychomagnet. And her best friend has just been brutally murdered.
‘a steamy fast-paced romantic thriller … marks the arrival of a bold new female voice’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mak Vanderwall is a woman haunted by violent nightmares. She is eager to finish her studies, move on and find some peace of mind. But her past cannot be so easily forgotten.
‘crime has become seriously sexy … They’re lit chicks with attitude. Tara Moss … being queen bee’ THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Eighteen months after her ordeal at the hands of the sadistic Stiletto Killer, Mak Vanderwall must confront her demons at the trial. But just as the verdict is handed down, the unthinkable happens.
‘a racy and entertaining thriller that contains a villain every bit as sinister as Hannibal Lecter’ THE AGE
Hoping to scrape together some extra cash, Mak Vanderwall begins working as a part-time PI. With a knack for investigation and bending the law, she might just have stumbled across her true calling.
‘Mak is too fabulous for words … It’s part Phryne Fisher and part Stephanie Plum’ THE MERCURY
Mak Vanderwall is hired to track down a missing son. Could he have run off with a troupe of shady French cabaret artists? Meanwhile, Mak believes the powerful Cavanagh family has got away with murder.
‘Moss is a fluent writer who stacks up the fun with lots of violence, sex and thrilling suspense’ THE AGE
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2012
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Tara Moss 2012
The right of Tara Moss to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Moss, Tara.
Assassin / Tara Moss.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 8510 4 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 1 74309 663 5 (epub)
Moss, Tara. Mak Vanderwall; 6.
Suspense fiction, English.
Detective and mystery stories.
A823.3
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by Gavin O’Neill