Anna Sayburn Lane

Mystery and thriller author

Marjorie Swallow

August newsletter: Rome, jazz and Blackmail In Bloomsbury

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The advance reader team have been sending me their feedback on Blackmail In Bloomsbury and I’m delighted to say they think (to use the slang of the time) it’s the bee’s knees! Here’s what they had to say:

“Thank you for a perfect summer read! Enjoyed it immensely!”

“Thoroughly enjoyed it. Loved Mrs Jameson, & the story was excellent.”

“I very much like the way Marjorie is shaping up to be tougher and less naïve than one might initially assume.”

Keep an eye on your emails – it will be ready to pre-order this month.

When in Rome…

It’s a running joke in my family that you can’t take me anywhere without me writing a story about it. Well, it’s happened again. I had the great fortune to visit Rome earlier this month with friends who know it well. We had a fantastic time visiting gorgeous palazzos, fascinating old churches and (of course) hanging out in cafés and bars over the occasional aperitivo.

As readers may remember from Murder At The Ritz, Mrs Jameson is a well-travelled woman who spent a lot of her life in Italy. I wondered what Rome had been like when she was a young girl, fresh from Boston, perhaps attending her first ball in a palazzo like the ones we visited… The resulting short story, Diamonds Are For Christmas, will be with you as a little Christmas present later this year!

All That Jazz

My next 1920s murder mystery is going to involve a lot more jazz! I’ve put together a playlist of some ragtime favourites, including classics like the Tiger Rag by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the wonderfully-titled I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. Well, don’t we all! You can listen to it here: https://buff.ly/44pGrGm

What I’ve enjoyed this month

The novel is now underway and features the archetypal Jazz Age character, the flapper. I went to the British Library last week to read up on some 1920s history, but on the way out got snared by this appealing little book from Pushkin Press in the bookshop.

Where All Good Flappers Go is a compendium of stories by some of America’s greatest writers, including F Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and Zora Neale Hurston. The stories celebrate the flapper as “An artist in her particular field, the art of being – being young, being lovely,” as Zelda Fitzgerald put it. But the flapper was more than that – she was courageous, charming, irreverent and out for a roaring good time. I was jolly pleased to be taken along for the ride.

The big question!
I often get inspired to set murder mysteries in places I visit. What do you think is a great location for a murder mystery? Hit reply and let me know. The first answer that makes me laugh gets a free e-book copy of Blackmail In Bloomsbury.

Want to receive my newsletter and get your free copy of Murder At The Ritz? Sign up here.

June newsletter: your exclusive free novella

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It’s finally here – the first Marjorie Swallow adventure. Murder at the Ritz will be the first in a new series of murder mysteries set in 1920s London. The novella is available free to all newsletter subscribers.

Tea, cucumber sandwiches and a sprinkle of cyanide…
October 1922. Marjorie Swallow isn’t a regular at The Ritz. But she really, really wants this job. She’s been summoned to an interview to become a personal secretary to the mysterious Mrs Jameson, who wants assistance with ‘social engagements and private investigations’.
Over afternoon tea in the Palm Court, Marjorie’s detective skills are put to the test when a fellow guest keels over in suspicious fashion. Who killed the colonel? There are no shortage of people who wanted him dead. But which of them managed to slip a spoonful of poison into his Darjeeling?

Murder At The Ritz is exclusive to newsletter subscribers – if you’re not already on the list, sign up below.

Deal Festival reminder

Tickets are selling like hot cakes for my panel session at the Deal Music and Arts Festival! If you want to hear me and William Shaw talking about crime writing by the seaside, you’ll need to book soon. Check out the website here: https://dealmusicandarts.com/festival/

Research
While the first full book in the series, Blackmail in Bloomsbury, was with the editor, I took the opportunity to do some in-person research in London. I enjoyed a (rather damp) tour of London’s West End crime hotspots, and a trip to the Bow Street police museum, tucked around the back of what was formerly Bow Street police station and magistrates court.

The eye-opening tour taught me about the close working relationship between police at Bow Street and the various nightclub owners, criminal gangs and pornographers of Soho. Apparently businesses only got raided if they weren’t sufficiently generous in their hospitality to certain policemen. Oddly enough, Bow Street museum didn’t make much of this – but you can see the original cells where the likes of the Pankhursts, Oscar Wilde and the Kray twins were held before their appearance before the magistrates.

Recommendations
Staying with the 1920s crime and nightlife theme, I’m really enjoying Kate Atkinson’s Shrines of Gaiety, a novel set among the women running and working for 1920s nightclubs. It owes a lot to the true history of Kate Meyrick, the Soho ‘Queen of Clubs’ I heard all about on my West End walk.

May newsletter: writing news and spring recommendations

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Book news

I’ve been busy finishing the first in my new series of 1920s murder mysteries, Blackmail in Bloomsbury. The manuscript is off to my editor next week.

It’s my first historical mystery and I’ve discovered a few challenges along the way. For example, in one scene a man arranges to meet somebody at Piccadilly Circus, by the statue that Londoners call Eros. I wanted to check people used that name in 1922, so I looked it up – only to discover that Eros was removed from his pedestal in 1922 for the building of the new Piccadilly Circus underground station! Cue some hasty re-writing.

Next month you’ll receive Murder at the Ritz, the prequel novella which introduces the series. My beta reader team has been busy checking it through and I’ve been delighted with their responses.

Here’s a taster of comments: “Hugely enjoyed it… I really liked all the characters, especially Marjorie Swallow and Mrs Jamieson, and the story was fantastic… It is a great start to a very promising series… I loved the setting of a luxury London hotel.”

I hope you’ll enjoy it just as much.

Deal Music and Arts Festival

I’m thrilled to be appearing at the Deal Arts Festival in my home town of Deal in Kent in July. I’ll be on a panel with one of my favourite crime writers, William Shaw, to talk about writing crime by the seaside! The box office opens on 9 May if you’re interested in coming along. Link here: https://dealmusicandarts.com/festival/

What I’ve enjoyed this month

On TV, I loved watching The Gold, a dramatization of the aftermath of the massive Brinks Matt gold robbery which took place in London in the early 1980s. I grew up in south London at the time, so a lot of the pleasure was from recognising places, faces and fashions. I didn’t know that development of the area of London now known as Docklands was funded from the heist. I remember going for a ride on the brand-new Docklands Light Railway in the early 80s, across acres of derelict former docks and building sites. It’s now home to half of London’s biggest banks, not to mention very posh flats.

The novel Godmersham Park, by Gill Hornby, was another peek into English history. This was a bit longer ago, and a bit more decorous than the 1980s criminal underworld. It tells the imagined story of the real-life Anne Sharp, a governess to the family of Jane Austen’s brother Edward. The difficult position of an independently-minded (but unfortunately not independently-funded) woman in Georgian England is keenly exposed. It includes tantalising glimpses of Jane Austen herself, who understood only too well the perils of her situation.

The big question!

What have you been reading or watching this month? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.

Have a wonderful May, and happy reading.

Subscribe to my newsletter here: https://annasayburnlane.com/newsletter/

April newsletter: Meet my new sleuth, Marjorie Swallow!

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Meet Marjorie Swallow: grammar-school girl, draper’s daughter and apprentice sleuth.

When Marjorie is invited to tea with a mysterious American lady at The Ritz Hotel, she’s hoping for an exciting new career (and maybe one of the chocolate fondant cakes). But she is soon helping her new employer to solve a case of murder among the cucumber sandwiches. Will she get the job? Will she ever taste the chocolate fondant? And who slipped cyanide into the colonel’s tea?

Read on for an exclusive extract of my new novella Murder at the Ritz. This will be the first book in the light-hearted 1920s murder mystery series I plan to launch in the autumn. The novella will be exclusive to my mailing list – you won’t be able to buy it anywhere.

I’ll be sending a free copy to my mailing list as soon as its finished.

The cover of my novella, Murder at the RitzMurder at the Ritz (extract)

‘Miss Swallow. I have an appointment with Mrs Jameson, one of your guests,’ I told the uniformed boy. I flourished the card, in case he didn’t believe me.

‘One moment.’ He checked a ledger on the reception desk, running his finger down the thick cream pages.

‘Please follow me to the Palm Lounge, Miss Swallow. Mrs Jameson will join you there for afternoon tea.’

I really, really wanted this job, and not just for the tea.

This was my third interview since signing up with the employment agency on Shaftesbury Avenue. With my newly-acquired Pitman’s shorthand and typing qualifications, I had rather assumed I would walk straight into a secretarial post. But at my first interview, a government department on Whitehall, the Gorgon who interviewed me made me so nervous that I flunked my typing test.

And the second… well. The sales manager at the Daimler showroom had been less interested in my typing speed, and more interested in how fast I could dodge around the motorcars while he tried to explore my coachwork. Fortunately I’m a sporty little model with excellent acceleration. I may have broken the land speed record on my way back to the employment agency.

‘Very well, Miss Swallow. Try this one. Mrs Iris Jameson, an American lady newly arrived in London. Personal secretary, duties include social correspondence and…’ The woman in the agency had frowned at the card. ‘Assistance with discreet private investigations. Whatever that means.’

***

‘Now, I have a few questions, regarding your experience.’

I split open a warm fruit scone and scraped butter across it. Strawberry jam, too, not the endless rhubarb we’d been eating at home. Delicious. I tried to keep my mind on the interview.

‘Of course, madam.’

‘Don’t madam me. My name is Mrs Jameson. You’re not serving me in a shop.’ Goodness, she had a sharp tongue. If she had been in our shop, I’d have enjoyed watching her try to best my father.

‘How are you with blood?’

‘Blood?’ Oh Lord, did she have some gruesome illness that required dressing? I looked in regret at the scarlet strawberry piled onto my scone.

‘I have worked in a hospital, Mrs Jameson. I don’t faint, and I know how to get the stains out. But I don’t particularly enjoy dealing with it,’ I said firmly. ‘If there is a choice.’

She laughed. ‘Well said. Have you ever fired a shotgun or a pistol?’

My eyebrows shot up. ‘Never.’

‘That’s a pity. Never mind; I can show you. Can you drive?’

I smiled proudly. ‘I learned while I was at the hospital, on the ambulances. And a motor-cycle, so I could carry urgent messages to the surgeons at home.’ The motor-cycling had been terrifying, but also the most fun I’d ever had. I’d never dared tell my parents about it, or let them see me in the britches that I wore to ride.

‘Oh, that’s excellent. Good woman. How are you with cocktails? Can you mix a decent French ’75?’

The background to our rather alarming conversation had been most refined up to this point. A murmur of conversation, a gentle clink of tea cups being lifted and set down in saucers, and a soothing wash of piano music. The pianist was running smoothly through a repertoire of light classics and popular songs from the shows.

Then suddenly, he wasn’t. There was a loud crash of discordant notes. The young man playing the piano slammed the lid closed and stood, glaring right at us.

‘No,’ he shouted. ‘I won’t play for them.’

[Read more…] about April newsletter: Meet my new sleuth, Marjorie Swallow!