What is your book Murder at Merisham Lodge about?
The book is a historical mystery, set in the early 1930s in the West Country of England. Two servant girls, Joan and Verity, become embroiled in the case when their unpleasant mistress is bludgeoned to death in the library of the stately home Merisham Lodge. Given their ability to blend into the background and their courage and intelligence which is continually overlooked by their upper class employers, the doughty duo are well placed to help the police solve the case.
Joan and Verity first came to my mind for the first time while watching a fairly terrible adaptation of Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel. I’m a long-term fervent fan of Agatha Christie and (as is usual with most of the modern adaptations) fairly indignant at the diabolical liberties the program makers had taken with the plot. However, there was a new character in this adaptation, a housemaid who assists Miss Marple in solving the murder. This was an intriguing thought…
Gosford Park is one of my favourite films and involves a country house murder set in the 1930s. The hierarchy in the house is strictly divided into ‘us and them’; aristocratic employers and their many servants. Watching again not long after the Christie adaptation, I pondered on how the servants were so needed and yet so despised. But the very fact that they had to fade into the background until their services were needed meant that they could be privy to a lot of secrets indeed…
With that Joan and Verity sprang into my head, uttering the words ‘A good servant has to be invisible. So does a good detective.” A new series was born!
The bond between Joan and Verity is central to the story. Do you draw on real-life friendships or partnerships when crafting their dynamic?
I’m very lucky to have some very close and long-term friendships with people with whom I’ve gone through many different life events, some good, some very bad. I think by the time you get to my age, you really start to value the people who have continually had your back over many years.
Joan and Verity are both orphans and met when they were children in an orphanage. I’d say their relationship is almost one of sisters, rather than friends. Of course, during the course of the series they bicker, fall out and misunderstand one another but there’s a deep level of love and affection there which undercuts their entire relationship.
If Joan and Verity were to adapt their investigative techniques to the modern world, how would they fare with smartphones, social media, and modern forensics?
That’s a good question! The series is set in the 1930s, which is a time of great social change. I think Verity, who’s very much a modern miss, would leap at the chance of embracing all this futuristic technology but Joan, being more naturally cautious and conservative, would probably baulk at a smartphone. Not to mention that most probably most of the crimes they investigate in the books wouldn’t even happen – the murder in Murder at Merisham Lodge would have been cleared up overnight with a 24 hour forensic laboratory processing of DNA samples!
You’ve written modern mysteries as well as historical ones. How does your approach differ when crafting a story set in the past versus the present?
I have to say my approach to writing doesn’t differ depending on the era in which I’m writing. In either case, I tend to write in a linear fashion, I tend to plot my stories to an extent but not in an intense, rigid way. The big thing obviously is the research I need to do differs. With my modern police procedurals (The Kate Redman Mysteries) I will do a lot of reading on modern police work, watch good documentaries such as 24 Hours in Police Custody and follow real-life cases in the news.
With the Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate series, I read a lot of servant memoirs from that time, which are really valuable in getting the little details of life lived then which make the story more believable. A lot of Joan’s comments on servant life in the 1930s are based on real-life anecdotes and memories.
Your reviewers praise the twists and unpredictability in your stories. What’s your secret to creating a plot that keeps readers guessing?
I honestly can’t begin a book unless I have the twist. Without the twist (which may evolve a little as the book is written), I can’t even start! I personally love twisty stories and it just seems to be something my brain does naturally. I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie, who is clearly the queen of the twist, and I think that as a writer you begin to see how it’s done – the misdirection, the red herrings, the sleight of hand.
At the same time, whatever the twist is, it has to be believable in the context of the story and of the characters. Your characters have to behave in a way that is congruent with their personalities and actions. That can be the real challenge.
What’s next for Joan and Verity?
I’m currently writing the next full length book in the series, A Secret in Soho, which follows on from the events portrayed in A Murder in Mayfair. There’ll be romance, intrigue, crime, investigation and of course a juicy twist!