In a Crime Time FM/Verve Special Editor Jenna Gordon chats to author Laura Sims about her new novel, The Man, Vivian Maier, Diane Argus, Hitchcock and Highsmith, Rear Window, obsession, perspective and the male gaze. The Man: From the highly acclaimed author of How Can I Help You comes a masterful domestic suspense novel that follows a 1960s housewife turned amateur photographer who begins to fear for her life when she notices the dark silhouette of a man in the background of her self-portraits. The photos Judith Stanley takes are just for her, a private passion to fill her suburban days. But when she shares them with Paul Sorenson, her new photography instructor, she's unprepared to hear his astonished praise. 'Stunning,' he calls her photos. 'Extraordinary.' She has an uncanny eye, he says, and should consider publication. He could help. Except Judith has no interest in sharing her work; in fact, the mere idea of it frightens her. Still, emboldened by Paul's encouragement, Judith ventures out beyond her quiet neighbourhood to the city in search of increasingly striking images. When she starts to notice the dark shape of a man in the corner of her self-portraits, Judith is certain he's an attacker from her past. She doesn't know why he has returned, but she's sure of his presence: the hoarse sound of his breathing, his hard grip on her elbow. Perhaps it would appease the man if she were to put her camera down and give up her private passion. But she can't; she refuses. Until one night when the man finally emerges from the shadows, and Judith's story suddenly and irrevocably becomes his own. Chilling and heart-poundingly propulsive, The Man explores the inescapable fear of living as a woman, the tantalizing seduction of artistic freedom and the very real dangers that lurk both inside and outside the confines of the mind. Laura Sims’s third novel, THE MAN, Verve/Putnam, July 2026. Her novels HOW CAN I HELP YOU (2023) and LOOKER (2019) have been on Best Books lists in The New York Times, Vogue, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Publishers Weekly, and more. An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Lit Hub, and Electric Lit. She lives in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a children’s librarian. Recommends: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes, Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, Sea Wife by Amity Gage. Jenna Gordon is the Editorial Director at Verve Books Produced by Junkyard Dog Crime Time Crime Time FM is the official podcast of Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025 CrimeFest 2023 CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month & Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024 2024 Slaughterfest,
