Quick question for thriller readers:

Which of these pulls you into a novel fastest?

A. A missing person
B. A suspicious death
C. A secret from the past
D. An unreliable narrator

I’m always drawn to secrets from the past — the sort that’s supposedly long buried, which in fiction always means it’s about to resurrect itself and ruin several lives. My novel ‘She’ll Never Tell’ examines this exact scenario and proved great fun to write. A missing person is hard to resist, too. I’ve considered doing another novel based on that premise because I enjoyed writing ‘The Second Captive’ so much, despite its dark theme.

Suspicious deaths are a staple in crime fiction and yield a plethora of possibilities for successful plots, and although my novels aren’t police procedurals, often some unlucky person dies in them. However, unreliable narrators, such as Rachel from ‘The Girl on the Train’, aren’t my thing, both for writing or creating my plots. It’s probably because such characters annoy me — deep down, my subconscious is yelling: ‘Why are you so flaky? Tell the truth for once!’

Which would you choose?