It’s always great when one of our own takes the path less travelled, and now Marnie Riches has done just that with her debut thriller novel The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, set to take the world by storm. The title might remind you of a certain Swedish novel, and the similarity is no accident; Riches’ girl, George, is full of the grit, determination, and strength we are coming to love in our thriller heroines.

The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die follows feisty Cambridge student, George, as she begins an investigation into a series of attacks in Amsterdam. Soon though, it becomes apparent that the perpetrator has something special in mind for George, and she races against time to untangle the mystery and save her own skin.

The writing keeps a fast pace that will leave you enthralled from the first page, with enough plot-twists and intrigue to thrill even the most hardy crime novel addict. A personal highlight for all Cambridge students and alumni are the beautiful descriptions of Cambridge and its colleges, which will leave you prematurely nostalgic for University life. I caught up with the lovely author to pick her brains over her inspiration for the book, her fondest memories of Cambridge, and what’s coming next…

It's fantastic to see such a great, complex and driven female character leading a British crime novel…where did your inspiration for her come from?

Thanks. I read Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy books about ten years ago, when Lisbeth Salander was being talked about as this strange, new, compelling creature. Salander had captured readers’ imaginations because she was so unusually abrasive and physically confident - a heroine we had not seen the likes of before. Mindful that Stieg was not going to write any more books, I decided to write my own crime thriller with my own kickass heroine. But a leading lady penned by a woman, is a very different thing to one penned by a man… My aspiring criminologist, George McKenzie has turned out to be in many ways the opposite of Salander. Both are sharp as tacks. But George is emotionally intelligent, ambitious as hell, manipulative, opinionated, sexy, confident, funny and unapologetic. Above all, she is a not a victim, despite her appalling past. She’s all of the things a heroine should be, in my opinion.

What is your favourite thing about George?

I love that George won’t settle for bullshit off anyone. In the real world, when you don the heavy mantel of adult responsibility, you take an awful lot of crap off people. Especially in the workplace, once your studying days are over. But George refuses to and she has little to lose at this stage...apart from her life, of course!

She seems absolutely fearless! How far is she based on yourself?

Like George and Ella in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, I grew up amongst the concrete, syringes and piss in an urban ghetto – on a very nasty council estate near Strangeways prison in Manchester. There is a scene in the book where Ella’s home is petrol bombed. This happened to me when I was only about sixteen. The feral gang members on my old estate found it deeply entertaining to terrorise a single parent and her daughter after dark. Like George, I learned my way out of this nightmare...dragging the chip on my shoulder and my recurring nightmares all the way up to the ivory towers of Cambridge, where I studied MML at Girton. What a relief it was to escape to such a heavenly place!

What drew you to Amsterdam? Will you be venturing to any other European cities in the next two books?

I spent my year abroad in Utrecht in the Netherlands, as part of my German and Dutch degree. I only ever visited Amsterdam but would have loved to live there. I adore the mix of elegant architecture, culture, medieval history and sleaze. Drugs, desire and sexuality are on display in such an incredibly organised and civilised way, because prostitution and soft drugs are legal there. Throw in a few canals and some excellent Dutch beer and it’s quite a heady mix. The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die also takes in Heidelberg. In The Girl Who Broke the Rules, in addition to Amsterdam and Cambridge, I’ll be whisking readers away to Berlin, New York and through the backstreets of London’s Soho.

Your book has been described elsewhere as venturing into ‘New Adult’ fiction, what excites you about this new age-band?

My series is a quirky hybrid of New Adult – in the sense that George and her friends are twenty-year-old students – and adult – because the book also features older characters in addition to the violence, sex, drugs and other adult themes, commonly found in hard-boiled crime thrillers. In the US, I understand that many genres are doing very well in the New Adult age banding. Unfortunately, until recently in the UK, most NA books have been romance novels – all very well for romance readers, but if you’re a British or European young person and you fancy something complex and gritty, where the hell do you go to read something that will resonate with you? Thankfully, British publishers are cottoning on to this demand!

So, who are your biggest crime/thriller writer inspirations aside from Larsson?

I have only two sources of inspiration beyond Larsson for my crime writing. First, I must pay homage to Thomas Harris, whose book The Silence of the Lambs sparked my love of the genre. Hannibal Lecter is without doubt, the most iconic good baddy in crime fiction. Secondly, I must doff my authorial cap to Jo Nesbo, whose Harry Hole thrillers taught me a thing or two about plotting a complex novel successfully.

What is your fondest Cambridge memory?

Because I was at Girton, I have several – in college and in town. In college, I remember the smell of the wax on the parquet floors. Nowhere smells like Girton. And I adored the sound of the wood pigeons cooing in the early morning in summer. There’s a lot of woodland up in Girton’s grounds. The flowers in spring and summer are incredible. For a kid from the concrete jungle, I felt I had entered heaven when I lived there.

In town, perhaps my fondest memories are of visiting a friend at St. John’s during my first year. She was a mature classics student in her final year who had wangled a set in the 1930s wing. I think I spent more time at her place in my first year than up at college (the cycle ride to Girton is a pain in the bum and to be avoided at all costs), hence the urge to write about the place in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die. I needed a killer setting for a killer thriller and St. John’s was it.

The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die is a winning combination of compelling characters, brilliant plot twists, and fast-paced writing all set against the beautiful backdrops of Amsterdam and our very own Cambridge. It is currently available as a Kindle eBook on amazon.co.uk