Unusually, Sophie Hannah balances a career as an accomplished poet and performer with that of a commercially successful writer of psychological crime thrillers. Her passion for crime is the ‘police procedural’ mode, page-turning complex plots and what she calls the ‘gasping moment’, or plot twist, near the end which transforms all that has come beforehand. Another mistress of suspense, Val McDermid said, “It's a difficult tightrope to walk, but Hannah does it triumphantly.” Her fifth novel, A Room Swept White, will be out in March.