We chat with author Aggie Blum Thompson about The Neighbors Are Watching, which is a scandalous twisty thriller about obsession, betrayal, and the price of perfection.
Hi, Aggie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m originally from New York but now live in the Maryland burbs, just over the DC line with my husband, and two kids when they come home to visit. I’m a former newspaper reporter who covered crime – police and courts – but other stuff as well. In contrast to my love of all things crime-related, my hobbies are shockingly wholesome. I have a large garden filled with fruits, vegetables, and native flowers for the butterflies and bees. I love to hike with my Golden Retriever, Pistachio. I quilt, knit, and play mah jongg. And curling up with a cup of tea and a good book, of course, in my favorite chair with my cat, Fifi.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve loved reading and writing stories my whole life. I had pretty strict parents who didn’t let me watch TV growing up, but I was allowed to take out as many books from the library as I could carry. So books were my main source of entertainment. I wrote my first “novel” in seventh grade, based loosely on all my classmates. It was a hit with my friends, but my seventh-grade science teacher, Mr. Nagrowski, confiscated it during biology class, where it was being passed around.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Nothing Ever Happens on My Blockby Ellen Raskin. It’s a picture book about a sullen boy who sits on his curb all day, where he complains about how boring his neighborhood is. Meanwhile, in the background, all sorts of chaos is taking place – fires, burglaries, paratroopers landing. He completely fails to notice this, keeps on complaining, and as a kid I found this endlessly hilarious.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin, which is funny, heartwarming, super gay, and weaves lots of different narratives into a satisfying tapestry. I read it in middle school and immediately set out to write my own version. I still re-read the series every few years.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: In the Garden of the Finzi-Continisby Giorgio Bassani. The book follows the fate of an upper-class Jewish family in Italy during the fascist 1930s. It checks a lot of boxes for me: a lost world, a walled garden, close siblings, thwarted love, and a haunting portrait of Jewish European life before the Holocaust.
Your latest novel, The Neighbors Are Watching, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Gaslighting. Murder. Secrets. Suburbia. Whodunnit.
What can readers expect?
A cross-generational crime-fighting duo, made up of a Gen-Xer and a Gen-Zer, who solve a murder in a wealthy suburb filled with secrets.
Where did the inspiration for The Neighbors Are Watching come from?
Life in the burbs, of course! I am now an empty nester, and recently went through the whole college application process. Eye-opening! The book deals with the insane lengths some parents will go to to protect their children and launch them in the world. Another inspiration was making the secondary main character a trans guy who is trying to solve the murder of his best friend. I wrote him after a family member, who is trans, asked why I had so many diverse characters in my books but no trans ones. He implored me not to make the character’s whole personality about being trans, just like I would not make a character’s whole personality about being a husband, or Lutheran, or Irish. I think I pulled it off.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I really enjoyed writing Tori, because I always love writing the unhinged characters the most. Tori is a woman, a therapist by the way, who uses an AI chatbot as a confidant, and it quickly becomes an accelerant in the terrible choices she makes in life. I am fascinated and terrified by the way we are using and becoming dependent on AI in our everyday lives and how it is shaping our behaviors.
What’s next for you?
I am currently finishing my sixth book, Hide Me in the Night, which is a dual-timeline thriller in which a documentary filmmaker investigates a missing woman in her suburban neighborhood while a memoir from the 1970s chronicles a young mother’s dawning realization that her husband is a serial killer.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
Two books I recently enjoyed were Christian Kracht’s Eurotrash, a tight, beautifully written book that blurs the line between fiction and memoir. Also, I.S. Berry’s The Peacock and the Sparrow, a literary spy novel about a CIA agent who falls in love with an artist while on assignment in the Middle East.
In my beach bag for the summer: Our Kind of Game, by Johanna Copeland, a domestic thriller about generational trauma, and The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks, a historical mystery in which Zelda Fitzgerald plays a role, because I am obsessed with all things Fitzgeraldian.
