Love Hurts by Catherine Woolf

Thanks to Museo Larco - Lima, Perú

Title: Love Hurts

Author: Catherine Woolf (nom de plume of Catherine Tramell)

Publisher: not known 

Source: Basic Instinct starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone

Apparently Catherine Tramell is a successful crime novelist. 

She must be successful or how could she afford a mansion in California? I read (see many many articles about Harry and Meghan) that they don’t come cheap, and obviously they require a lot of staff. After all, there’s no point living in a mansion if you have to open the front door and clean the bathrooms yourself.

And it seems the plots of Catherine’s books mirror the murders that occur in the film. Is that so? I have seen Basic Instinct, but it was a while ago, and quite late at night, and it’s not my kind of film anyway so I don’t think I will be attempting to watch it again. But even without having seen the film recently (and relying on online reviews), does it make sense for an author to murder anyone using a plot from their own book? Which obviously must already have been published?

Just for the sake of argument, let us imagine Agatha Christie plotting to murder someone in the style of Murder at the Vicarage or The Body in the Library. Or Dorothy L Sayers craftily arranging to murder another someone with a peal of bells à la The Nine Taylors? Does this sound at all plausible? No of course it doesn’t.

Well, I suppose this film just has a very improbable plot.

Also, what sort of crime novel is called Love Hurts? Tough guy Detective Nick Curran is seen reading it in the film. We gather that the book contains a clue to catching the murderer. Useful. But you would have to read it to find the clue. And how many men do you know who read books with titles like Love Hurts? I asked my husband if he would read a book called Love Hurts, and he replied most unhelpfully that it would depend what the book was about. How annoying.

Thanks to Museo Larco - Lima Perú: it looks well worth a visit if you are ever in Lima