Jo Cunningham on Twenty years to publication - how not to become an overnight success

My debut novel, ‘Death by Numbers’ has just been published. It’s a cosy crime mystery that follows Una, a risk averse actuary, as she uncovers a series of mysterious deaths and must put herself in danger to find the culprit, even if it means losing the no-claims-bonus on her personal injury policy.

Please don’t think this is a novel that I simply turned my hand to during the lockdowns, or just ‘wrote itself’ after I decided to take the plunge. Getting to publication took me twenty years while I worked full-time in IT. 

If you want to achieve a similar level of delayed gratification here are my top three tips:

Tip 1 – Tell your work colleagues you’re writing a novel

Early on in my writing efforts, I disclosed to my colleagues that I was working on a novel. My fellow workers reacted by telling me, ‘You’re going to be the next Dan Brown!’, ‘The coffee round’s on you’ or in one case, ‘Why bother writing a novel? It’s all made-up. I only read non-fiction myself.’ As the years passed, the comments morphed into ‘Are you published yet?’ before ending up with a plaintive ‘Still writing?’. But workmates continued to ask, and joking aside, I appreciated people taking an interest, even if my updates became less enthusiastic. They still thought of me as someone who wrote, so perhaps I should too.

Tip 2 – Spend too much time uncritically consuming detective series 

I’m always happy to reach for a book that has a dénouement scene near the end. And I think it’s fair to say that ITV3 is my spiritual home. I even enjoy the adverts for cruises and recliner chairs. But it took me a long, long time to take a step back and start to analyse books and television programmes in order to become a better writer. 

I now find it difficult to switch-off when reading a detective novel - I’m churning over how the clues have been planted or when the first murder took place, or how the author is upping the stakes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love reading these books but I’m trying to push myself to improve by learning from writers who are better than me at their craft.

And I don’t just analyse cosy crime books – I might look at a thriller and think about how the author creates pace and a page-turning quality. Sci-fi can be a rich guide to world-building. Romance can show to build an emotional connection with characters. Obviously, I’m being a bit broadbrush and you don’t learn only ‘one thing’ from a book or genre – I just want to get across that I enjoy learning from books that are in a totally different genre from mine. I’m not sure how successful I am in translating my analysis back into what I’m writing, but that’s part of the process too.

Tip 3 – Don’t send your book out to agents

My first three novels went straight in the ‘bottom drawer’ i.e. a document folder on my laptop. Given how long it took me to fashion an IKEA desk from three brutal planks of MDF, I probably wouldn’t have the wherewithal to construct an actual bottom drawer, or even one of the middle ones.

I didn’t seriously consider sending these fledgling books out to agents. I think I was hampered by a fear of rejection and the more straightforward realisation that they weren’t good enough and would need a huge effort to bring them up to a decent standard. By the fourth attempt, I redrafted the novel multiple times and when I couldn’t take it any further, I send it out to a handful of agents. I received some personal rejections – the comments were gently encouraging but I knew this novel was missing something – it went in the bottom drawer. But I felt I’d made progress, and I started on Death By Numbers back in 2017. 

I was now on book five and painfully aware of my limitations as a writer. I had improved on the basics (reading back over early work told me that) but I’d also realised that I needed to be much more persistent and critical with redrafts. I really took my time reading many novels (Tip 2!), reading books on aspects of craft I was poor at (Setting! Show not tell!) and most of all redrafting until I was bored silly looking at my book. Then once more I psyched myself up to submit it to agents.

Some writers are gifted enough to be published with their first novel whereas I’ve had to graft to improve. By the time I was on my fifth book, I’d become so involved that I knew I’d continue writing novels, no matter whether or how they got published. And that’s another area that’s changed since I started writing, there are many more routes into publication now.

So, there you have my three tips on delaying publication of your novel.

Despite my terrible advice, there is a happy ending… eventually a lovely agent plucked my manuscript off the slush pile and took a chance on me. And having that one person say ‘yes’ made me forget all the ‘no’s’, for a good half an hour or so…

Death by Numbers by Jo Cunningham. (Constable, Little, Brown) Out Now

Una has always been more comfortable working with numbers than people. As an actuary for an insurance company, her job is to spot patterns that other people might miss. When the data for her latest project - into the predicted number of deaths in seaside resorts - shows a blip in her forecasts, Una's untarnished reputation at work is at risk. That is, unless she can work out why there's been an unusual spate of accidental deaths by the coast. Death by Hanging Basket? She's not seen that before. Where better to begin than her mother's hometown of Eastbourne, where strange fatalities are befalling her mother's bingo crowd. But as Una puts her spreadsheets aside and begins to investigate, a sinister pattern begins to emerge and she realises that there is nothing accidental about these casualties. Can Una stop the killer in this small seaside town, before she becomes a not-so-vital statistic?

Murder on the Menu by Orlando Murrin

© Matt Austin

Having enjoyed a career editing food magazines and writing cookbooks, I imagined that making the transition to writing culinary cosy crime would be a snap. How wrong I was.

Now that Knife Skills For Beginners is finally out – it’s been a long time coming – I’m enjoying a short pause to look back over the experience. Which, in the manner of all good meals, has been a succession of delicious surprises. 

Amuse-bouche

When I was growing up, the family hero was my maternal grandfather, William Skardon, who started life as a copper on the streets of Pimlico, later becoming a detective then crack MI5 interrogator. Among his celebrated successes, he caught and arrested Lord Haw-Haw in Germany, exposed the Portland Spy Ring and extracted a confession from atomic spy Klaus Fuchs. After defecting to Moscow, Philby declared, ‘The only man I feared was Skardon’. The Daily Express called him ‘England’s Most Famous Pipe-Smoker’ and the Sunday Times spent years stalking him in Torquay, in a vain attempt to get him to ditch the dirt on an ex-boss at MI5.

Granddad was forbidden to talk about his exploits as a spycatcher, so he used instead to regale us with stories of gruesome murder cases from his detective years, and the clues and tells that enable him to solve them. Ever since I’ve found whodunits and murder mysteries fascinating and dreamed of writing one of my own.

Starter

I left it late to write my first novel – in my early 60s – but that’s because I was doing other things. I’ve had several careers – restaurant pianist, advertising copywriter, features writer, magazine editor, cookery writer, chef, hotelier – and threw myself into all of them; there simply wasn’t time.

A few years ago, I decided the moment had come and booked myself on an Arvon course taught by Andrew Taylor and Laura Wilson; they were so inspiring. Another turning point was being asked to write a column for Waitrose Weekend newspaper, through which I polished my style and learnt how to make readers laugh. (I hope.)

Main course

Three years ago, I wrote a half novel, then another full one, at which point disaster struck. I’d assumed I’d be spared the horror of the slush pile because I already an agent (for my cookbooks). Imagine my dismay when she announced that for conflict-of-interest reasons, she couldn’t represent my fiction.

I stuck a note on my computer - I AM IN DEADLY EARNEST - then spent fifty days and nights in submission hell, waiting for agents to respond. Finally, I had a glimmer of interest from a couple, followed by a send me the whole manuscript from the most covetable of all, top crime agent Oli Munson at AM Heath. Knife Skills For Beginners is the result.

It’s a culinary cosy crime story set in a posh but shabby-round-the-edges London cookery school, where our hapless hero, Paul, is summoned to teach a course at short notice.

There’s something a bit rum about its proprietor, Rose, to say nothing of the eight eccentric students who gather to learn the finer points of haute cuisine. On the first night something terrible happens, and Paul finds himself embroiled in a grisly crime.

While the police investigate, the students are told to stay on the premises, and Rose - anything rather than offer refunds - insists Paul continue teaching. He uses lessons in bread, pastry and sauce making as covert operations, watching the students for clues whodunit, unaware that meanwhile someone is framing him for murder…

In classic cosy crime tradition, clues and red herrings abound, including six ‘killer’ recipes, which provide hints to the killer’s identity. I should add that these are real recipes, which combine to form a sophisticated dinner party menu. My dearest wish is that a fan somewhere will throw a Knife Skills For Beginners dinner party – minus, of course, the dastardly crime.

Side dish

I’ve heard the publisher-author relationship can be a tricky one, but I have no complaints – quite the opposite. We’re all on the same side: trying to sell books.

Initially I was shocked by the amount of re-writing I was asked to do, and I recall a somewhat embarrassing meltdown when my third set of structural edits came in (I didn’t realise this was normal). I’m now at work on a second Knife Skills Mystery and there’s no question that, with each draft, the book gets better. I’m in total awe of my editor – Finn Cotton at Transworld – who in an odd way reminds me of my grandfather: courteous, patient and charming, but with a deadly eye for detail.

Dessert

My cookbooks have always been well publicised and marketed, but working with Transworld has been whole different experience. A lot of activity seems to happen as if by magic, with no effort on my part, but there’s still social media to manage, proofs to drop, enjoyable articles (such as this) to write, booksellers and reviewers to schmooze, events to be confirmed and diarised… to say nothing of keeping my orlandomurrin.com website up-to-date (with the help of the world’s best web manager, Heather Brown) and begging everyone I know to post reviews on Amazon. True, most of this is optional, but with my publisher evidently pulling out all the stops, I feel I must as well.

This means that – like a Victorian lady – I find the first hour or two of the day is spent answering messages and dealing with ‘stuff.’ I tell myself this is a warm-up exercise before the actual writing of the day begins, but if it expands much further, I will need a personal assistant. (Just joking). 

Petits-fours

The surprises keep on coming, even after launch…

·         How peculiar to find my favourite fountain pen – which has autographed countless cookbooks over the years – can’t be used to sign a novel because the ink runs. (Oh, the days of glossy paper.)

·         How touching to hear my words brought to life as an audiobook. (Warm thanks to Sebastian Humphreys, the man of a thousand voices.)

·         The most amazing thing of all, however, is discussing your story with someone and discovering that it no longer belongs to you – it’s out in the world. (‘You just don’t understand her,’ a fellow author told me about one of my more dislikeable characters; ‘She’s got a heart of gold.’)

Despite everything, I am beyond thrilled to have written something from my imagination which gives people pleasure… If it sounds your sort of thing, I hope you’ll give it a go, and that it will make you SMILE, SALIVATE and SHIVER.

 

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin (Transworld Publishers) Out Now

A recipe for disaster. When chef Paul Delamare takes a job teaching at an exclusive residential cookery school in Belgravia, the only thing he expects his students to murder is his taste buds. But on the first night, the unthinkable happens: someone turns up dead... The school rests on a knife-edge. The police are convinced Paul is the culprit. After all, he’s good with a blade, was first on the scene – and everyone knows it doesn’t take much to push a chef over the edge. To prove his innocence, he must find the killer. Could it be one of his students? Or the owner of the school – a woman with secrets and a murky past? It all boils down to murder. If Paul can’t solve the mystery fast – as well as teach his students how to make a perfect hollandaise sauce – he’ll be next to get the chop.

More information about the author can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @orlandomurrin on Instagram @orlandomurrinauthor and on Facebook.

 

The World's First Crazy Golf Cosy Crime? by Glenda Young

My new cosy crime, Foul Play at the Seaview Hotel is set in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough, a place I adore.  My cosy crime series was shortlisted with Richard Osman and Val McDermid for Best New Crime Series in the category of New Kid on the Block at the Dead Good Reader Awards 2022 at Harrogate crime festival.

The book stars a team of obsessive crazy golfers who arrive in town to play a crazy golf tournament. They’re dressed in matching tracksuits. The team captain is Olga, she’s ex-military and keeps her team in order. Olga tells anyone who’ll listen that she aims to win the tournament by fair means or foul … then the rival team captain is murdered. 

When writing this book, I wanted to include a scene set on the Central Tramway funicular. It was built in 1881, making it one of the oldest cliff railways running in the UK.

Although the funicular cars appear to travel slowly up and down the hill, at the moment they pass, it’s a ‘blink and you miss it’ moment if you’re inside the cars.  I wanted a scene where the amateur sleuth, hotel landlady Helen Dexter, was in the funicular car going and in the other was the murderer coming down. The idea was that Helen would spot the murderer and yell the immortal line “Stop that Funicular!”

But first I had to research to discover how much Helen could see of the murderer at the moment when the cars pass. Could she see the murderer’s face as the cars trundled past each other, or just the colour of their jacket, for instance? What if the murderer was sitting down in the car, what could she see of them then?

My husband Barry, always willing to help with research, especially when it involves being bribed with a few pints at his favourite pub in Scarborough (The North Riding), went to the bottom of the hill and entered the funicular. I entered the car at the top, notebook in hand. An employee of the Central Tramway was intrigued and offered to stop the funicular mid-flight for me to research. I still can’t believe this happened!  What a privilege it was to have the cars stopped just so I could make notes for my book. I can’t thank Central Tramway enough.  

Since that day, I’ve become good friends with the staff. So much so that they’re now selling my cosy crimes from their merchandise stall. And I’m planning to hold the paperback book launch in December with them too.  All being well, it’ll be held on Saturday 9 December and if you’re in Scarborough, it’d be great to see you there.

Foul Play at Seaview Hotel by Glenda Young (Headline Publishing) Out Now

In the charming Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough, a killer game is being played . . .  Helen Dexter is enjoying the new four-star status of the Seaview Hotel. But she begins to wonder if this accolade is cursed when a series of disasters strike. It starts when a crazy golf team arrive to play in a Scarborough tournament. Their odd behaviour heightens when the rival team captain turns up. Yet, there's worse to come for Helen when one of the guests is murdered playing crazy golf. Then the Seaview's prize-winning cook Jean quits, leaving Helen devastated. And so, as Helen's fiftieth birthday approaches, the last thing she's in the mood for is a celebration. However, mysterious invitations arrive to a party that Helen doesn't want. Can Helen unmask the crazy golf killer, save the reputation of the Seaview, win Jean back and solve the mystery of the party invitations? With her rescue greyhound Suki by her side, Helen Dexter is on the case.

Visit Glenda’s website at glendayoungbooks.com

You can also find Glenda Young on X and on Instagram @flaming_nora. You can also find her on Facebook.

Barking Up the Right Tree with Leigh Russell

Part of the excitement of writing fiction is the seemingly never ending stream of challenges this poses for the writer. What is driving my killer to murder the victims? How will the killer manage to evade capture until the end of the book? And how is my detective finally going to track them down? To achieve a balance between unpredictability and plausibility is just one of the many challenges a crime writer faces. Questions like these have kept me happily occupied through the twenty books I have so far written for my detective, Geraldine Steel. 

The 19th title in my Geraldine Steel series, Final Term, was published in January 2023 and the 20th, Without Trace, is out in August, and the series seems set to continue for a while yet. When I wrote the first book in the series, Cut Short, I had no idea that it would even find a publisher, let alone be the first in a long running series. Yet here we are, and I’m still wondering about my killer’s motivation, and their escape from the crime scene, and how my detective manages to apprehend them. After twenty books, the challenges remain as demanding and enjoyable as ever.

Challenging and rewarding though writing is, sometimes we all like to branch out and try our hand at something different. As a reader, I like to mix my material up, following a gritty crime thriller with a cosy novel, and constantly dipping in and out of different genres. Over the past few weeks, for example, I’ve gone from Lee Child’s Jack Reacher to Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe - both crime but very different - along with with Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and Daphne du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, with Antony Horowitz’s Forever and A Day thrown into the mix.

The same applies to my writing, where I occasionally take a break from writing about Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel’s murder investigations to focus on something else. Having written a historical novel set in sixteenth century Venice, a dystopian novel written during lockdown, and a trilogy set in different locations overseas, I’ve crossed several ‘genre boundaries’. But throughout my busy and varied writing career, I’ve never considered myself ‘cosy’ - at least not in my writing. 

So it was with no expectations of finding a publisher that I wrote a cosy crime story last year. If I’m honest, while writing it, I didn’t even realise my story fell into the cosy crime genre. As with all of my books, I simply had a story in mind and followed it through to its conclusion, without considering its genre. Inspired by my daughter’s rescue puppy, Barking Up the Right Tree is my first cosy crime novel. As it turns out, it won’t be my last. Having read the manuscript, my publisher offered me a three book deal which, needless to say, I accepted with alacrity! And so my idea for Poppy’s Mystery Tales has been transformed into actual books. The series features an adorable little Jack Tzu - a cross between a Jack Russell and a Shih Tzu. Poppy, the star of the stories, was inspired by a real Jack Tzu I fell in love with as soon as my daughter introduced me to her. 

Many authors write more than one series - Martin Edwards, Ely Griffiths, L.C. Tyler, are just a few who spring to mind, and they are legion. Some publish different series under different names, but there was never any suggestion of my writing Poppy’s Mystery Tales under another name. I suspect my publisher is hoping to pick up a few sales for The Poppy Mystery Tales on the strength of my name. As for me, it’s complicated enough for me to live with one pseudonym. I’m not sure I could cope with having a third name! I still remember how surreal it seemed, the first time I signed a contract online. ‘That isn’t my signature,’ I thought. ‘It isn’t my handwriting. And it’s not even my name.’ Yet the contract was a document as binding as any other legal document. Something virtual had become real. This strikes me as entirely fitting, because in some ways the imaginary worlds inhabited by my fictional characters feel as real as the world where I live.

Geraldine Steel’s investigations look set to tax my ingenuity for a good few years yet, while Poppy’s Mystery Tales are already setting me different challenges… and I can honestly say I love writing both series! 

Barking Up the Right Tree by Leigh Russell (Oldcastle Books/ No Exit Ptress) Out Now

After losing her job and her boyfriend, Emily is devastated. As she is puzzling over what to do with the rest of her life, she is surprised to learn that her great aunt has died, leaving Emily her cottage in the picturesque Wiltshire village of Ashton Mead. But there is one condition to her inheritance: she finds herself the unwilling owner of a pet. Not knowing what to expect, Emily sets off for the village, hoping to make a new life for herself. In Ashton Mead, she soon makes friends with Hannah who runs the Sunshine Tea Shoppe and meets other residents of the village where she decides to settle. All is going well... until Emily's ex-boyfriend turns up and against the advice of her new friends, she takes him back. When Emily decides to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a neighbour, she unwittingly puts her own life in danger..

More information about Leigh Russell and her work can be found on her website. You can also find her on Facebook and on Twitter @LeighRussell 

Performing the Perfect Crime

 

My second cosy crime CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL launches in ebook, hardback and audiobook on May 12 2022 (paperback coming in October). 

It’s another fun, cosy crime set in Scarborough and published by Headline. It stars an acting troupe who arrive at the Seaview Hotel to rehearse a play they hope will save a much-loved local theatre. There’s a lot riding on this play. However, the leading lady is a diva, the playwright is highly strung and tensions in the troupe run high. When one of the actors is found dead on the beach, landlady Helen Dexter sets out to solve the crime. And just when Helen thinks things can’t get any worse after one of her guests is murdered, the hotel inspector arrives! 

It's the second in the series of my cosy crimes, the first one being MURDER AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL which stars 12 Elvis impersonators (called Twelvis!) and one is found dead with his blue suede shoes missing. I’ve already written about MURDER AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL here on the Shots Blog. 

So, now that CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL is released, it means I’ve now written two cosy crimes about people pretending to be someone else, whether actors of Elvis impersonators. It’s started me wondering what it is about the role of performance I enjoy so much and why it lends itself to writing crime. Whether it’s actors in a play or singers pretending to be the king of rock and roll, there’s something I find appealing in pretending and faking. Not in real life, I must stress, but in fiction. In the real world I prefer an honest, straightforward kind of life but in fiction, well, I’m all for smokescreens and people who aren’t what they seem. And what better way to disguise what your motives are for doing something horrid than by protecting yourself behind the job that you do?

It all happens in CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL. So, settle into your favourite chair with a bag of popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy the performance!

Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel by Glenda Young is published by Headline on May 12 in ebook, hardback and audiobook. It is released in paperback in August 2022.

Helen Dexter has started a new chapter in her life as sole proprietor of the Seaview Hotel. But things take a dramatic turn when an acting troupe book into the hotel to rehearse a play they hope will save a much-loved theatre from being closed down. Helen immediately picks up on tension between the actors, but there is worse to come when the charismatic leading lady is found dead. With so much at stake, it's clear the show must go on. Helen is roped into helping the troupe with their performance, giving her ample opportunity to discover who wanted their diva dead. However, the murder is not the only thing on Helen's mind. She's receiving threatening phone calls, her car is vandalised - and she's just learned of an impending visit from a hotel inspector which could change the fortunes of the Seaview Hotel. With her trusty greyhound Suki by her side, Helen is determined to uncover the identity of the killer - even if it means she has to give the performance of her life.

You can watch a very short teaser video of Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel below

Find out more about Glenda Young on her website at http://glendayoungbooks.com 
Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/flaming_nora 
You can also find her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GlendaYoungAuthor

Writing my debut novel "Trust" during a year of lockdown by Mark Eccleston

I’d been thinking about writing a novel for a good 30 years, but never got round to it. There was always something more important to do. Then the Covid pandemic turned up. Out of nowhere. And it was mind-frazzling and grim. But for most of us it was a chance to reassess our lives. A long time-out. If I was going to write that novel, I wouldn’t get a better chance than this. But what would it be about? 

One thing I knew, it wasn’t going to be a dark. Living in a horror story every day – watching the virus run out of control, a government staggering after it – I wanted some escapism. A beautiful setting. Eccentric side characters. A few laughs, with a bit of luck. A houseboat – the boat figured early in the planning. I live in Ealing, which is not quite central London. Not quite leafy suburbia. A long way from the countryside I dreamt about moving to with my family during the pandemic. Where we might cash-in, buy a houseboat on a backwater. 

One of my favourite places in the country is the Dorset coast around Poole. There’s a huge harbour – an inland sea almost – that’s surrounded by some stunning landscapes. Sandy beaches. Wild heathland. Deserted islands. A river that winds up to a pretty village called Wareham. Which is where the protagonist Astrid Swift, an art conservator from the British Gallery in London, finds herself after inheriting a creaky houseboat. The town in the book isn’t Wareham. It’s called Hanbury, and is even more picturesque – the quintessential English hamlet that I thought about moving to, but never but never did in the end. If it even exists. It’s a village where the weather is always great. The locals are friendly, and the local pub is, like the genre, cosy.

I like cosy crime – writers like Agatha Christie, and more recently Robert Thorogood and Richard Osman. In their books, the villain never gets away with it. The amateur detectives triumph because, underneath it all, they’re good eggs. They have skills and do the decent thing. There’s a satisfying certainty to it all, and in uncertain times, those are the stories I wanted to read and write. A story that values friendship and community. That was the remarkable thing about the pandemic – how most people stepped up and did their bit. Cared for each other. It was the silver lining. In The Trust, Astrid slowly realises the shallowness of her materialistic life – the trophy husband begins to tarnish, and she’s sacked from her high-flying job. But in picking up the pieces in a small town where she has to rely on the kindness of strangers, she discovers who she truly is.

The lockdowns rolled in over the course of 2020 and, between the home schooling for the kids and the statutory one hour of outdoor exercise a day – remember that? – the story began to take shape. There was a fair amount of research to sort out along the way. None of it in person, but then, given the wonders of the internet, everything I needed to know was out there. So began hundreds of hours watching art conservators at work. A show called Fake or Fortune? presented by Fiona Bruce became essential viewing. As did sailing tutorials on YouTube. Lots of books were delivered: guides to deadly mushrooms and bird-spotting, tide charts and biographies of England’s finest stately homes. Sherbourne Hall, the scene of much of the crime in the book, is a mix of various grand houses around the country. 

By the start of 2021, the book was finished. It went off to my agent, who seemed happy. She’s always happy though. Then it found a quick home, along with two more in the series, at Head of Zeus. It comes out in paperback this spring, now that life is, it seems, getting back to normal. If there hadn’t been those lockdowns, I doubt I’d have written a novel. Life would have carried on as usual – which is always wonderful. I’m lucky, and keenly aware of that. Grateful for getting through the pandemic, and out the other side with a new career and outlook on life. 

The Trust by M H Eccleston (Head of Zeus) Out Now

Ever so wholesome. Ever so deadly... When art restorer Astrid Swift moved from London to the Dorset village of Hanbury, she thought she was heading for a quiet life. Far from it. A local man has just been murdered in the English Trust stately home where Astrid works, and the sleepy community is shaken to its core. Soon Astrid has discovered the shocking truth about her employer: rather than being the genteel organisation it seems on the surface, the Trust is a hotbed of politics and intrigue. As Astrid's new friend Kath from the village says: 'It's like the mafia, but with scones. As the suspicious deaths mount up, Astrid must use every gadget in her restorer's toolkit to solve the mystery, salvage her reputation - and maybe even save her life.

Mark can be found on Twitter @MarkEccleston1 

There’s Nothing Funny about Murder by Lisa Cutts

 

As obvious as it sounds, I don’t find murder funny. After twenty-five years as a full-time police officer and six police procedural novels, I turned to cosy crime in an attempt to lighten the mood.

During my police service, spent predominantly as a detective, I worked on a vast number of murders. It was something that gave me endless inspiration for writing fictional murder investigations that were as true to life as possible. In the world of policing, something that is never far away – whatever the intensity of the situation – is gallows humour. It was never far from my working day, nor my writing.

Earlier this year, I decided to change both working aspects of my life. Using parts of beautiful Kent as a backdrop, I penned my first cosy crime mystery, Murder in the Village, complete with retired detective Harry Powell. Being a little jealous of his lifestyle, I decided to call it a day and retire from Kent police. It was a very strange change for me, yet undoubtedly the right one. For many of us, 2020 put a lot of things into perspective, and so instead of fitting writing around my day job, it now is my day job. Creating an English village setting for my new series where everything was picture perfect, murder rate aside, was a lot of fun. 

Over the years, I’ve spent a great deal of time in Kent’s villages, whether out on enquires or for less stressful reasons. I’ve been fortunate to have these locations on my doorstep. I used Chilham as a basis for the Belinda Penshurt cosy series, inspired by its castle, tea room and two pubs, adding in parts of Lenham and Challock for good measure with Tenterden making a veiled appearance as Upper Wallop. It won’t surprise you to learn that I didn’t make official on duty calls to these particular areas when investigating murders. Throughout time, these quintessentially English villages have been the scenes of suspicious deaths, yet they were few and far between.

Now that I’m free to write without the self-imposed rigid rules of how a murder investigation team works, it is gloriously refreshing. Whilst writing police procedurals, I had found myself on dozens of occasions reaching for a copy of some police reference book or other, or randomly asking a room of my colleagues, ‘Can anyone tell me exactly how long gunshot residue stays on someone’s hands?’ This was met with odd looks and the question, ‘Aren’t you currently working on a stabbing?’ Followed by, ‘Is this research for a book?’

I still make sure the basics are correct, that goes without saying. Besides, after spending longer as a police officer than not being a police officer, some things are ingrained. Like the humour. It’s a coping tactic of normalising the weird and bizarre. And there’s plenty of that to go round.

It’s worked for one of my characters, Harry Powell, my retired detective inspector. His character as a serving police officer had a different view of the world to the one he has now as a civilian – a smidge less jaded and worn down with a touch less cynicism. He is the only character to feature in all of my books, police procedural and cosy crime, and I’ve loved writing him from a different angle. Retired colleagues had repeatedly told me that giving back their warrant card gave them a totally different mindset, something I hadn’t believed until I handed over mine. 

My protagonist, Belinda Penshurst, is the amateur sleuth who keeps Harry very much on his toes. She has a blatant disregard for following the rules and openly mocks the retired DI for his attempts to keep her on the straight and narrow. In Murder in the Village, they team up, parts of their character rubbing off on each other. 

In time, I wonder whether retirement will see me stick to the rules or allow me more freedom. Belinda seems to have a lot more fun than Harry. Just saying…

Murder in The Village by Lisa Cutts (Bookouture) Out Now

Meet Belinda Penshurst. Castle owner, dog lover… crime solver? Belinda Penshurst loves her home village Little Challham, with its shady lanes, two pubs and weekly market, and she’s determined to keep it peaceful. She may live in Challham Castle but she knows almost everything that goes on under her nose. So when irritable pub landlord Tipper is found dead in his cellar, she’s perfectly placed to investigate. Retired detective Harry Powell moved to Little Challham for a quiet life. He didn’t expect to be dragged into a murder investigation. But the police don’t seem half as enthusiastic as Belinda about the case, and there are strange things happening in the village. Particularly the number of dogs that have disappeared lately… Is there a dognapper snaffling schnauzers and luring away Labradors? Is Belinda barking mad to be worried that her brother Marcus was arguing with Tipper on the day he died? Belinda and Harry track down the suspects: the rival landlord, the outraged barmaid, the mysterious man in the black car following dogwalkers around. But are the dogged detectives running out of time to sniff out the killer, before he starts hounding them?

You can find Lisa Cutts on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter @LisaCuttsAuthor

Writing What You Know by Ali Carter

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Write what you know, that’s what they say. For me, a first-time novelist once described in a school English report as “an undisciplined thinker with a tendency to surprise with sentences and phrases of arresting inappropriateness”, it was highly unlikely I’d ever move off first base (… and I’d give anything to know what sentences of ‘arresting inappropriateness’ I was writing in my early teens).

Years on from those unhappy school days I find myself having a crack at writing crime fiction. Or rather ‘cosy-crime’, definitely more appropriate in my case. My novels (yes there are a couple more in the pipeline) won’t make you wince with fear but hopefully the mystery and the characters will keep you reading. My protagonist, Susie Mahl, is an artist in her thirties who paints in oils and draws pet portraits to commission. Now spot the difference: I, Ali Carter, am an artist in my thirties, I paint in oils and draws pet portraits to commission.  It’s not that I have a massive ego and couldn’t wait to put myself in the forefront of my books – rather it’s all to do with the realisation that an artist and an amateur sleuth really do have crossover skills. Building a character who doubles as both has enabled me to breathe life into Susie Mahl by writing about what I know.

Being an artist involves immense concentration, hours of work, painstaking patience and determination to continue in the belief that you will get there in the end. Time lies outside of one’s control; the picture will be finished when it’s finished and the process always involves trial and error. Susie Mahl is an artist and the lessons she’s learnt have translated nicely to being an amateur sleuth: identifying a murderer takes time, patience, observation and tenacity. And applying an artist’s keen eye for detail to detective work means Susie enjoys a very individual interpretation of conventional circumstances – if there’s a whiff of foul play around she’s well equipped to sniff it out early on.

Art and sleuthing go through similar stages. There comes a point in every painting when you just can’t believe you’ll ever achieve a finished picture ... and the same goes for solving a mystery. It has its ups and downs. Just when you think you’re on to something, steaming off in a certain direction, it turns out to be a red herring. However, a detective must pursue all leads in order to get closer to the truth, just like the artist who must persist at getting down on paper or canvas what it is they’re trying to reveal.

No matter what you paint or draw – an onion, a dog, a shoe horn or a flower – you have to see them not for what they are but how light bounces off them. Accurately capturing this light through the medium of paint or graphite will in turn produce an image of the object you’ve been studying. In a similar way, detective work is about observing the bare bones of situations, drawing conclusions and piecing these bits together to make a whole.

I have had a lot of fun in my novel, A Brush With Death, developing Susie’s character. I live vicariously through her. She gets her paintings into galleries I dream of, the Tate Modern being one. She has a penchant for expensive underwear, something I’d definitely have if I had the cash. And she enjoys flirting with handsome men in the hopes she will bag them in the end. A tiny wee bit of me likes to dream that if I write these things down, and develop Susie’s character as my alter ego, they might just come true for me in the end!

Those of us who do it know only too well that writing is hard work. From time to time, when I’m struggling to get into that fifth gear where the story flows and words tumble effortlessly into my keyboard, I turn to the experts and read advice they’ve offered up. Stephen King’s On Writing instructs: “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

As my little cottage has no internal doors other than one on the bathroom, I’m faced with a conundrum. One can think on the loo but no way is my laptop coming in there too. I sing in the shower of course, who doesn’t, and lounge in the bath developing my plot, but I’ve had to come up with my own strategy for hard graft. It’s important to me to make my bed as soon as I rise, get properly dressed before going downstairs, ensure the house was cleaned the night before and all washing up done in advance. This way I start each day with no possible excuses for procrastination. The earlier I get going the more productive I am. I sit at my desk, metaphorically glue my feet to the floor and discipline myself not to leave. Sometimes it takes hours to get in the zone, sometimes less, but I know if I’m patient and apply myself it will come.

If I am really struggling I take myself off to a busy place, a train station, a café, Oxford Circus. Suddenly ideas flow, people step on to the stage and I’ve bagged a wealth of character traits that will help the writing when I’m back at my desk.

My favourite part of the process is handing in a draft, blocking anything to do with Susie Mahl from my mind and throwing myself back into painting, with the relief that I’ve flown from first base. Here’s hoping that in sharing these strategies there might be a nugget to help you too.

Ali Carter’s debut novel A BRUSH WITH DEATH is published by Point Blank, paperback £8.99.

Agatha Award Winners 2018

Malice Domestic announced the Agatha Award Winners on Saturday 28^th April 2018 in Bethesda, MD. 

Best Contemporary Novel 
Glass Houses: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)

Best Historical Novel 
In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen (Lake Union Publishing)

Best First Novel 
Hollywood Homicide: A Detective by Day Mystery by Kellye Garrett (Midnight Ink)

Best Nonfiction 
From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon by Mattias Boström (Mysterious Press)

Best Short Story 
“The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn” by Gigi Pandian (Henery Press)

Best Children’s/Young Adult 
Sydney Mackenzie Knocks 'Em Dead by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin)

Congratulations to all!