1920s murder mystery

It’s been full steam ahead this month, after changing track to start work on a new 1920s murder mystery. The spy thriller is on hold while I write the next in my Marjorie Swallow series. I’d long wanted to write a Christmas mystery for the series, which meant a June start if I was to hit that pre-Christmas deadline.

So while we sweltered through the hottest June and July on record, I busied myself in researching Christmas in 1920s Northumberland. It’s rather disconcerting to emerge from a mental picture of a midwinter night, the moon glinting off the frost and the Salvation Army band cranking out Christmas carols, to find sunbathers stretched out on the beach and the sun blazing down!

I also took time out to visit the Walmer Castle Book Fair, where I gave a short talk about the process behind my 1920s mysteries. Thanks to everyone who came along. You can see what I talked about in this article, How I Research And Write My 1920s Whodunnits.

All Aboard The Flying Scotsman

My first research challenge for the new book was to get Marjorie to Northumberland, which involved a deep dive into the history of the famous Flying Scotsman. If you missed it, you can read about in this article, All Aboard The Flying Scotsman.

In other transport news, I came across a rather fetching Rolls Royce at the Walmer Classic Car Show, which takes place handily close to my flat. The car dates from 1930, so only five years after the new book is set. The owners let me have a good look around. I didn’t tell them I was thinking about how you might sabotage it in order to surreptitiously bump off a nosy sleuth.

A writer’s get-together

One of the pleasures of June was meeting fellow authors at the Self Publishing Show Live conference in London. It was particularly fun to meet author Rosie Hunt, who has been an online friend since I started writing the Marjorie Swallow mysteries. We enjoyed a good catch-up over tea, and I enjoyed hearing what she has in store for her 1920s sleuth Lady Felicity Quick.

If you’ve yet to meet Lady Felicity, here’s a good place to start: her first adventure, Murder At Afternoon Tea. It’s free when you sign up to Rosie’s newsletter.

Rosie kindly answered my questions about her historical novel research process last year – you can catch up on her answers here.

I also caught up with Joanna Penn, a best-selling author of dark thrillers who has long been a legend on the indie author scene. I published my interview with JF Penn last week.

And I’ve also lined up a couple of historical mystery novelists I’m sure you’ll love, Benedict Brown and Lynn Morrison, to interview soon.

Recommendations

A few quick recommendations to round the month off. I’m:

• Watching A Spy Among Friends, the ITV series that dramatised the defection of Kim Philby, on ITVX. The trio of leads (Guy Pearce, Damian Lewis and Anna Maxwell Martin) is top-notch. Pearce in particular is mesmerising as Philby, the oh-so-English spy who fooled the British establishment for decades before fleeing to Moscow when he was exposed as a spy.
• Enjoying Dorothy Brande’s Becoming A Writer, on the grounds that it was Hilary Mantel’s favourite book about writing. If it’s good enough for Hilary, it’s more than good enough for me. It’s packed with good sense.
• Loving LC Winter’s creepy Spider, Spider, a gothic Victorian story of witchcraft and revenge. I had the pleasure of meeting author Libby at an Arvon course a couple of years ago, and I was so excited to come across the beautiful bookshop edition of her first novel in the British Library bookshop. I devoured the story in a couple of days.