After the explosive court case, things settled down at Capital Crime. With St Paul’s just across the road, this was the perfect place to look at historical crime fiction. Taking part in the panel was Laura Shepherd-Robinson, LC Tyler, Sally Smith and moderator, SJ Parris. Before I tell you about the event, here are the blurbs for the authors’ latest books.

 

The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

This is your story, Red. You must tell it well . . .

A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar.

Now raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendour of Bath, her fortune-telling is a delight to high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him?

The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red’s quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads her into grave danger . . .

 

A Well-Earned Death by LC Tyler

“How can you lose money growing a crop everyone wants with labour that costs next to nothing?”

In 1671 there are fortunes to be made in Barbados, owning slaves and planting sugar cane. But drought, floods, locusts and his own incompetence have brought Hubert Umfraville down and caused him to flee the island in the most humiliating fashion. Now back in England, he hopes to restore his fortunes through extortion. In Barbados he has discovered a secret that people here may pay him to keep quiet about.

When his body is found in the orchard of the house he has just rented in Essex, there is no shortage of suspects. Has his intended blackmail victim pre-empted him? Or has one or other of his old crimes caught up with the failed plantation owner?

John Grey, Essex magistrate and husband of a famous London playwright, finds himself investigating what seems to be the well-merited death of a former slave owner. But as the list of suspects grows, and even encompasses a member of his own family, Grey is forced to question the nature of justice and what any of us is entitled to do to gain our freedom.

 

A Case Of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith

The Inner Temple: a warren of shaded courtyards and ancient buildings forming the hidden heart of London’s legal world. A place where tradition is everything, and murder belongs only in the casebooks. Until now.

When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case – the disputed authorship of bestselling children’s book Millie the Temple Church Mouse – that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.

But even he cannot fail to notice the judge’s dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest.

The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn’t answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple’s heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he’d ever imagined.

 

Alchemy by SJ Parris

Prague, 1588.

A COURT IN TURMOIL

The court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, is a haven for scientists, astrologers and alchemists. The dream – to discover the philosopher’s stone and attain immortality. But now there are rumours of heresy.

A MURDERED ALCHEMIST

Giordano Bruno is sent to Prague as a spy for Elizabeth I. He arrives to find the palace in uproar – an alchemist has been murdered.

AN UNFORGIVING ENEMY

Ordered by the emperor to uncover the killer, Bruno must negotiate the jostling factions at court, as well as the religious tensions brewing in the city. And his hunt to track down a murderer soon proves as elusive as the elixir of life itself…

 

As you can see from above, we ranged from 16^th century to early 20^th century with our authors. One of the first questions that SJ Parris asked was, what drew them to the genre?

For Laura, she loves history and finding novels that combined history and twisty plots together inspired her to write her own. She particularly loves CJ Sansom and Andrew Taylor books. Laura was told not to write about the 18^th century but she ignored that. (And I’m so glad she did!)

SJ Parris acknowledged the great debt that we owe CJ Sansom for his wonderful contribution to historical crime fiction.

Len wasn’t really aware that he was writing crime to begin with. He loved medieval history at school but wanted to find a period that others weren’t writing about. So he went with the Stuart period.

Sally always loved history and detective novels, especially Golden Age. A Case of Mice and Murder is her Covid lockdown book where she combined her experience as a barrister alongside the history of the Temple. It’s set in 1901 in that transition phase of Queen Victoria dying and Edward VII succeeding. (Probably similar to what we’ve experienced in the last couple of years.)

 

SJ Parris asked about how the authors researched their books.

Laura wanted to look at fortune telling and how that clashed as an idea with the Age of Enlightenment. There’s a 19^th century book called The Square of Sevens, set in the 18^th century, that tells how this form of fortune telling came into existence. There’s a story that goes alongside it that Laura used at the beginning of her novel and she took it forward from there. Each chapter is also built round a fortune told by one of the playing cards.

Len finds it’s easy to go down a rabbit hole and stay there for days. It’s sometimes hard to establish the truth as different sources say different things. It’s also easy to spend days researching stuff you never use, e.g. who paid for the death carts during the plague? He’s never found out!

At Temple, there are a lot of research materials in the archive so Sally was able to find out what cases were happening around the time her novel is set and what the points of law were. Sally also explained that Temple is not part of any authority so the police have to be invited in to investigate a crime. This is how she gets her barrister, Gabriel Ward, to investigate a murder.

 

SJ Parris asked about disclaimers. How do the authors deal with historical beliefs that are different today?

Laura believes it’s important to be true to history and depict the world as it was then. She tries to capture that truth by showing attitudes and consequences of people’s actions. Equally, there were people at the time that pushed against the tide e.g. opponents of slavery. And what do we know about the people who make our phones or our clothes today? Are we as oblivious to their fate as 18^th century people were?

Len also thinks he has a duty to represent things as they were at that time but he won’t go too far. He tries to share views with as little comment as possible. He presents the facts allowing readers to make up their own minds. There were probably decent people at that time (17^th century) who thought slavery was ok.

For Sally, looking at her research showed the contrary ways of thinking, especially in relation to women in work. Sometimes, you just have to run with things as they were depicted.

 

With all the seriousness of history, SJ Parris pointed out that there’s also a comic tone to the books.

Laura said we need light with shade. Not necessarily laugh out loud comedy but something to make the readers smile and provide moments of lightness in the grit. Wit was important at that time so good to include it.

Len pointed out that there’s a history of comic relief in crime fiction. Agatha Christie used jokes to hide clues. For Len, having written comic crime already, he finds it seeps through into his historical crime.

Sally didn’t consciously aim to write anything funny but her novel is sometimes mildly amusing. Life always has light relief – even in court sometimes!

 

How do the authors deal with the writing process?

Len thinks he should be very organised but he’s actually very disorganised! He’ll have an idea, start writing, then do a bit of research rather than researching first.

Laura drives herself insane with research. She does plan but things do change. The beginning and end stay the same but she does a lot of brainstorming. Then she starts to put the chapters in order. She loves sub-plots and likes each character to have their own story and plot function.

Sally was quite disciplined when writing. She had a synopsis but wrote, made up and researched as she went along.

As you can see, a lot was said and I didn’t get all of it. This was a fascinating panel that I think can be summed up by something that Laura said – we are translators of the past, filtering it for the modern reader.