Anna Sayburn Lane

Thriller author

Murder At The Ritz

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.

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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.