Spitfires Rising is Published Today

Congratulations to David Mackenzie, whose wartime aviation thriller, Spitfires Rising, is published today.

Spitfires Rising is the first book in the John Noble Fighter Ace Thrillers: action-packed military adventures following an RAF pilot during the Second World War.

1938

Having been raised on a farm, young New Zealander John Noble longs for an adventure away from his family’s homestead.

Enthralled by the sight of a Tiger Moth flying overhead, he decides to pursue a career as an RAF pilot and travels to the United Kingdom to complete his training.

After receiving his Wings, John is sent to RAF Catterick, where he finds himself flying the formidable Spitfire.

When tensions in Europe reach breaking point and Britain declares war on Germany, John’s training and courage are put to the ultimate test.

As the squadron prepares to face the Luftwaffe, John starts to question the effectiveness of their tactics, leading to clashes with senior officers.

And as his missions grow ever more dangerous, John begins to wonder just how far he will go to survive the war…

Is John ready for battle? Will he be able to follow orders while preserving his life?

Or is he destined to become a casualty of war…?

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed a new historical mystery series set in eighteenth-century France by Cheryl Sawyer.

In Cheryl’s words:

“It’s 1735 in the remote Champagne province and a cavalier in France’s mounted police force must investigate a murder at the chateau of Cirey, where the scandalous Marquise du Châtelet is sheltering Voltaire. How could a lower-class gendarme solve major crime in a society where aristocrats held all the power?

“That very question sprang to mind when I visited beautiful, secluded Cirey during my research into  Émilie du Châtelet, a brilliant physicist of the Enlightenment. A lone military policeman would struggle to do his duty in this privileged locale, even if Voltaire himself were a likely suspect.

“That is how Victor Constant and his first challenging investigation came to life. I had eight historical novels published in several languages, but this was my first crime story and I sought seasoned opinion. Peter Lovesey wrote to me: ‘Marvellous tensions between the great free-thinker and Victor Constant,  the book’s hero. The story dazzles and beguiles and the setting is pitch-perfect.’ The novel went on to be longlisted for awards by the Historical Novel Society and the American Library in Paris, and readers have since called Victor ‘the Jack Reacher of the eighteenth century’.

“I am delighted that Sapere Books have chosen Murder at Cirey to lead this series and thrilled that Victor Constant persists in battling injustice within the rigid society of the Champagne. The new titles are Death in Champagne and Murder on High. A huge thank you to the Sapere team for launching this adventurous series!”

www.cherylsawyer.com

Congratulations to David Field, whose twisty Victorian thriller, The Retirement Murder, is out now!

The Retirement Murder is the ninth instalment in the Esther and Jack Enright Mystery Series – a traditional British detective series set in Victorian London and packed full of suspense.

London, 1898

The time has finally come for Percy Enright to retire from Scotland Yard. His nephew, Jack, is sad to lose a partner in the force, but Jack’s wife Esther is glad Percy won’t be getting her husband into any further scrapes.

It seems Esther’s relief might be short lived, though, when a senior officer collapses at Percy’s farewell ceremony.

It soon becomes clear that the officer was poisoned, and Percy delays retirement to help Jack track down the culprit.

It’s a daunting task that involves trawling through all the murdered officer’s recent cases in the search for someone who may still bear him a grudge.

But when it becomes clear the dead man may not have been the intended target, the investigation suddenly turns in a new direction.

Why are the police being targeted? Can Percy make one final arrest before he retires?

Or will the murderer outwit the Enrights in their latest case…?

Following the success of his many historical series, including the Sandal Castle Medieval Thrillers and Inspector Torquil McKinnon Mystery Series, we are delighted to announce that we have signed a new supernatural series set in Victorian London by Keith Moray.

In Keith’s words:

“The first book in the series is set in London in 1854. Jack Moon is a foundling, brought up in an orphanage and then a workhouse, where he and his best friend Danny are subject to regular beatings. Together they escape, but when Danny dies in tragic circumstances, Jack secretly buries his friend in a cemetery at night.

“Alone and living in a deserted and rat-infested warehouse, Jack starts seeing Danny’s ghost, who warns him that someone is out to kill him and worse, the girl he loves, too. This is Victorian London, with its criminal underworld, body-snatchers, phrenologists, séances, ghosts and ghouls.

“I am delighted to be writing another historical series with Sapere Books, who have permitted me to set my stories in a variety of times and places, from ancient Egypt and medieval England to a contemporary Scottish island. My new mystery series delves into the occult and the psyche of the Victorian mind. It is murky, sinister and just a little bit scary.

“And one of the main characters is a ghost.”

Following the success of his many military thrillers, including the Vietnam Ground Zero Series and Wings Over Nam aviation thrillers, we are delighted to announce that we have signed a new historical military series by Eric Helm.

In Eric’s words:

“At the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s, the world moved close to a world war that could easily escalate into a thermonuclear exchange that would end modern civilization. There were those who wished for nothing more because they believed it would thrust them to the top and in control of the world. And there were those who wanted to prevent that. Their purpose wasn’t always altruistic, but that goal matched their own climb to power. It is into this world that the characters in this series move, serving on every continent and sailing all the oceans, dealing with those problems.

“The characters are military and civilian, members of the media, and those with an academic frame of mind. Each brings an interesting take to the problems of trying to prevent a world war, except for one nation whose leaders believe such a conflict would benefit them. These are unique situations that require unique solutions. This is a tale told on the world stage with players at nearly every level of society.

“Sapere Books have been very good to me. The packaging of my Vietnam Ground Zero series has been perfect. The enthusiasm with which the books have been received has been wonderful. Sapere is a great publisher who have looked out for my best interests. Everyone seems to be excited by the various projects that I have suggested and there is no pressure to crank out a book quickly. They let it evolve naturally, which I believe makes the books that much better.”

Congratulations to D. R. Bailey, whose thrilling aviation novel, The Night Angels, is published today!

The Night Angels is the second novel in the Secret Sirens Aviation Thrillers Series, heart-pounding Second World War escapades with strong female leads.

1943

Sisters Anna and Jennifer Nightingale are recruits in the top-secret Siren Squadron: a group of women trained in the RAF to fight against the enemy.

The Sirens are tasked with flying a series of night stealth missions as part of Operation Scorpion. The first mission is successful, and on returning to base they are told that new members will be joining their ranks.

Hopeful that this means the all-female squadron has been deemed a success, the sisters welcome the new recruits and start training them on the Mosquitos.

They head out on another night mission. But this time not everyone returns.

With a downed plane found empty off the English coast, fears grow that one of the Sirens hasn’t survived.

But the show must go on. And Anna Nightingale has to destroy the crashed plane so the Sirens can remain classified.

As their night missions continue, increased skirmishes with enemy pilots suggest someone may be leaking information to the Germans.

Have the Sirens been compromised? Can they find the mole?

Or will these daring female agents be forced out of the war…?

Congratulations to Angela Ranson, whose gripping Tudor mystery, A Glittering Peril, is out now!

A Glittering Peril is the third book in the Catrin Surovell Tudor Mysteries Series: exciting historical thrillers set at the court of Elizabeth I.

1561

Every summer, Queen Elizabeth takes a journey around her kingdom. It is a time of revels and celebration, full of pleasure and extravagance.

But in July 1561, the trip begins badly when the corpse of an unknown man is left in her path.

The nervous queen asks Catrin Surovell, her trusted favourite lady-in-waiting, to find out who is trying to sabotage her journey.

But Catrin soon discovers that the queen’s nervousness stems from something greater than the mysterious death.

Someone has been leaving reminders of the queen’s mother, Anne Boleyn, in strange places. A woman appears in the distance who looks like her; the scent of Anne’s perfume is left in the queen’s chamber, and Anne’s favourite French ballads are sung by a disembodied voice as the queen is travelling.

Worst of all, Anne Boleyn’s famous gold-and-pearl necklace with teardrop pearls hanging from a letter ‘B’ is taken from the queen’s bedchamber. The queen is devastated by the loss, for the necklace was one of very few mementos she had of her mother.

The queen begins to suspect one of her courtiers, so Catrin visits his home to conduct a secret investigation into his actions. And that’s when she discovers this is the most difficult mystery she has ever had to solve.

Is Queen Elizabeth being haunted by her ill-fated mother? Or is someone trying to drive her insane?

And can Catrin find the connection between the missing jewels and the unknown corpse…?

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Angela Ranson, author of the Catrin Surovell Tudor Mysteries.

I write in my study, which doubles as a playroom for my two cats. I love having their energy and curiosity as the backdrop for my writing. This is especially true because I write about a world long dead — Tudor England — and try with every scene to bring it back to life.

My books centre around the early years in the reign of Elizabeth I (the 1560s), which I studied when I earned my doctorate in sixteenth-century English history. I live in York, within a stone’s throw of King’s Manor. This was the building where Henry VIII stayed in 1536, and his suite of rooms is now one of the University of York’s libraries. If you stand at the back of the building, you can see a tiny window that leads to nowhere: it originally let some light into Henry’s specially-made toilet, or garderobe.

I love that York has these little historical treasures; I go looking for them whenever I have the opportunity. That isn’t as often as I would like, because I write between the hours dedicated to two jobs at the university. Writing is what I do to relax, to escape from the trials of daily life. Thus, you’ll often see me writing while I eat my supper, or early on a Saturday morning when I’m still in my pyjamas. Turns out, those are the hours when dreams come true.

Following the success of her Kit Scarlett Tudor Mysteries and Shadow Cutpurses Tudor Thriller Series, we are delighted to announce that we have signed a new series set in Shakespearean England by Adele Jordan.

In Adele’s words:

“It’s 1591 and the actor starring in a play by newcomer playwright, William Shakespeare, has just been murdered, shot with an arrow on stage in the middle of a performance. When suspicions fall on the woman in charge of makeup and wig-making, Blanche Winspear must fight to prove her innocence.

“In my new series, I delve into a part of Tudor England that has always fascinated me. At university, I studied the rise of Tudor theatre — both the buildings and the plays — and how they evolved into Jacobean theatre. There’s an enduring fascination for this period thanks to Shakespeare’s enigmatic success, but how much do we really know about what went on behind the stage? It struck me that there is the potential for so much to happen in these buildings that started out as inns and bear-baiting pits, before they took their first steps towards becoming the theatres we would recognise today.

“This new story will focus on Blanche and her grandmother Nell, two people running from their past who have come to hide in this dramatic world. There will be secrets, lies, and the world of Elizabethan theatre played out both on stage and behind. The royal court, known for its love of theatre, will appear too, and keep an eye out for intriguing real-life people who will become characters in this series

“I am delighted to sign this new series with Sapere Books. Having worked as a ghostwriter for some years, Sapere were kind enough to give me my first book deal in my own name and since then have supported me in pursuing historical crime fiction with women at the centre to root for. A huge thank you to the team for supporting me in my next series!”

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed the first three books in Kristi Ross’ new Scottish Queens series.

In Kristi’s words:

“My new series brings to life the untold stories of Scotland’s Stuart queens. While the histories of queens in England, France, and much of Europe are well documented, these Scottish queens have been mainly forgotten — until now.

“In this series, readers will explore the compelling journey of Queen Joan Beaufort, niece of King Henry IV and cousin to King Henry V, who enters Scotland as the wife of King James Stuart I after he was held prisoner by her English family for eighteen years. Her tale is one of true love, resilience, and determination as she navigates her husband’s assassination, becoming the  first dowager queen of Scotland in over a hundred years.

“We also delve into the story of Queen Euphemia Ross, whose life begins as King Robert Bruce I’s ends. Her rise from noblewoman to queen consort is a testament to the position of pawn that high-ranking women played. As the second wife of King Robert Stuart II, Euphemia constantly defends her children’s succession rights against rivals and navigates the complex dynamics of her husband’s family. Readers will also meet her daughter-in-law, Queen Annabella, born into the powerful Drummond clan and niece to King David Bruce II’s second wife, Queen Margaret Drummond. Annabella takes the reins of the kingdom when her husband, King Robert Stuart III, is incapacitated, showcasing her leadership and strength in crisis.

“Working with Sapere Books is a perfect match, as their commitment to historical fiction and their passion for bringing forgotten stories to light resonates deeply with me. These women had little control over their destinies, yet their strength and adaptability are fascinating. It drives me to tell the world their stories so that their legacies are remembered.”

The third Sapere Books’ Writers’ Retreat took place at The Priest House Hotel, Castle Donington between the 28th and 31st of October this year.

Adele Jordan, author of the Kit Scarlett Tudor Mysteries and the Shadow Cutpurses Tudor Thriller Series, helped to organise a full programme over the four days.

In Adele’s words:

“For a lot of writers, it’s a solitary world. Whether you are struggling to complete your manuscript or are in love with your story and find it hard to step away, it can’t be denied that for many writers a lot of time is spent in a staring contest with your computer screen, and sometimes we need to step away from that screen.

“For the last three years, a group of authors from Sapere Books have come together to create their own writing retreat, and this year saw our biggest yet. Fourteen authors, who write across various historical genres, came together to talk about all things writing.

“From romance to crime, we plundered the depths — from the importance of accuracy in military fiction, to how we plan and approach clue-filled detective stories. What transpired was not only a shared enthusiasm for our craft, but the reassurance we sometimes need that we are not alone — that there are others out there with the same passion who are keen to inspire and be inspired themselves.

“This year, we had some special sessions led by writers in the group. Highlights included an insightful look into the editing process by Neil Denby, author of the Quintus Roman Thrillers Series, and a debate on the accurate use of poisons in fiction and the importance of research by Linda Stratmann, author of The Early Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Series.

“Amy Durant, Sapere Books’ Publishing Director, led a popular Q&A session with authors attending the retreat. We also covered what makes a good title, how to grab your reader’s attention from the very first line, the complications around weaving a narrative with more than one viewpoint, and a friendly critique session where people were invited to bring their own work for discussion.

“Following inspiring chats, some political debates, good food and a very comfortable bar, I was delighted to see so many of the writers come away with big smiles on their faces. Thank you to everyone who came this year and to Amy Durant too for sparing the time to talk to us. Here’s hoping next year’s Writers’ Retreat is not only just as good, but the biggest and best yet!”

Some comments from the attendees:

Ros Rendle, author of The Strong Family Historical Saga and the Moondreams House Romances: ‘Thanks to all attendees at the authors’ retreat week for making it so useful and fun. Particular thanks to Adele Jordan for all the organising, the excellent programme and for keeping us on track with such diplomacy.’

Michael Fowler, author of the DS Hunter Kerr Investigations and Dr Hamlet Mottrell Investigations: ‘[The retreat] has turned the plot of my next book completely around. And it was nice to catch up with colleagues from previous retreats, as well as meet up with new ones.’

Linda Stratmann, author of The Early Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Series: ‘The sessions really stimulated the little grey cells of the brain, and I got some insights which had me rushing off to do some writing!’

C V Chauhan, author of the Inspector Sharma Thrillers Series: ‘It was a fantastic four days! Thanks everyone and a big thank you to Adele for leading and managing the four days so well.’

We are delighted to announce that we have signed the ‘Anne Boleyn Chronicles’ by Rozsa Gaston.

Rozsa is the author of the Anne of Brittany series — an enthralling historical series set during the French Renaissance.

In Rozsa’s words:

“My new series tells the tale of Anne Boleyn’s years abroad before joining Henry VIII’s Tudor court. Set in the years 1513–1522, the story begins in the Netherlands at Margaret of Austria’s Burgundian-Habsburg imperial court.

“We see Anne grow from girlhood to womanhood as one of Margaret’s eighteen maids of honour. Facing the challenges of cliques and envy, she navigates court life by learning to fit in even as she longs to stand out.

“We then follow Anne to France, where she serves first Mary Tudor, then French queen, Claude of France, and finally, the French king’s sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême.

“After six years in France, Anne attends the summit of the Field of the Cloth of Gold where she realises the advantages that might await her at the Tudor court as an Englishwoman with French sensibilities. The series culminates in Anne’s return to England in the first months of 1522, fully armed with Continental flair, Reformist ideals, and a drive for self-determination fuelled by the new learning of Renaissance humanism.

“I am delighted to work with Sapere Books, with their strong commitment to historical fiction and historical biography. The team comes highly recommended for their personal touch, and I look forward to working with them to bring to readers Anne Boleyn’s formative years in a series that both informs and entertains.”

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed three new instalments in the Tom Walsingham Mysteries Series by C.P. Giuliani.

The series follows the espionage adventures of Tom Walsingham during the Elizabethan era in Tudor England.

In C.P. Giuliani’s words:

“Tom Walsingham sleuths on! I’m thrilled to have signed up three more adventures featuring my Elizabethan detective and spy with Sapere Books. I have great plans for Tom. He will be tasked with recovering a misplaced foreign ambassador — whose mission could change the course of Anglo-Spanish relations; he’ll become involved in a personal investigation when death strikes at his family home, Scadbury Manor; and poor Tom will find himself in prison when his money troubles and Sir Francis Walsingham’s plans collide. Plenty of mysteries and dangers lie ahead for Tom!

“I’m really happy to be working with Sapere, whose welcoming and stimulating atmosphere and competent, friendly and helpful team have made (and are making) my publishing journey a truly lovely adventure.”

Following the success of his DS Hunter Kerr Investigations and Dr Hamlet Mottrell Investigations, we are delighted to announce that we have signed a new historical police procedural series by Michael Fowler.

In Michael’s words:

“My new series features Detective Winter Cooper of Scotland Yard and is set in the 1950s.

“Detective Cooper’s first case is based upon a real event, the Eastcastle Street robbery — Britain’s biggest cash-in-transit hold-up at the time. In May 1952, robbers used two cars to sandwich a Post Office van in London and escaped with mailbags containing £287,000 (estimated to be worth approximately £8,500,000 today). It was a case that shocked the nation and embarrassed the Government, with Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanding daily updates from the Police Commissioner. Despite the involvement of over a thousand police officers, and the offer of a £25,000 reward, no one was ever caught.

“This is my take on that case, and while it is a deviation from my contemporary novels, I hope readers will embrace Winter Cooper with the same enthusiasm that I have put into creating him and this new series.

“Working with Sapere Books again was an easy decision to make. Over the past five years, they have given me so much support as a writer and I cannot thank them enough. When I ran the idea of this new series past them, their backing was unflinching.”

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Valerie Holmes, author of the Yorkshire Saga Series.

Staring out of my study window I see a brick wall. Not a theoretical one that means I have writer’s block, which I do not actually believe in as a professional writer, but a literal brick wall.

This may not appear to be the most inspirational of vistas, but I am fine with it.

Inside my study I am surrounded by my writing workspace; my research books, my trusty printer and personal items that make me smile.

Centre stage is my lovely laptop with its two screens. One is usually displaying research sites and email tabs, the other Word documents — my current WIP.

The brick wall rarely gets a glance because, once my laptop is on, I dive into my inner vistas. The beautiful scenery of North Yorkshire’s open moorland and coastline with its sweeping bays and rugged headlands. These are the settings against which my romantic adventures play out. Hence the Yorkshire Saga Series and my many novellas.

It is a world I am familiar with because I grew up in a bay town on the northeast coast and have happy memories of running with my dog along the open expanses of fine sandy beach, climbing the dunes which were covered with needle-sharp marram grass.

The area is steeped in history, from the old abbeys and market towns to the beautiful city of York. I still return regularly to explore the area: the monk’s trods that cross the moorland, the fishermen’s cottages that line the harbours and the old inns of the bay towns such as Whitby, Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay. Then there are the manor houses and halls, each with a story to tell — inspiration for my next adventure is found in all. The darker era of smuggling provides further scope to add drama and menace.

The beauty of having a laptop is that it is mobile. I have written in cafés, on trains, on picnic tables by the sea, and in hotels — but the real work, the editing, polishing and research, happens at my desk, ignoring the blank brick wall.

I have a flexible routine, writing every day. Life happens, events happen, but the one thing that is constant is the desire to write, which never goes away — or not yet — and I hope never will so long as readers enjoy my adventures.

What better motivation is there for an author to continue to write?

Alistair Forrest is the author of the action-packed Roman adventures Sea of Flames, Libertas and Vipers of Rome. He is currently working on a new series, The Britannia Conspiracy, set in the period during Caesar’s invasion of Gaul.

Every year I climb into old jeans, don an Indiana Jones-style hat, and dash a hundred yards down the road to assist in an archaeological dig.

I live on the island of Alderney, which just happens to have an ancient Iron Age settlement, on top of which is a Roman village. Next to this is one of Europe’s best-preserved Roman forts, which was built to protect trade routes between Europe and Britain.

I’ve got to know both of the lead archaeologists — Dr Phil de Jersey and Dr Jason Monaghan — and confess that I’d like to know what they know, as long as it fits my ideas for a new historical fiction series.

So far I’ve struck lucky.

We know for sure that Iron Age folk lived and loved on this tiny island a few miles off the Normandy coast. We’ve found the skeletons, complete with bronze torcs and jewellery.

Our team, Dig Alderney, is bent (both literally and figuratively) on scraping away aeons of history to find the story behind these settlements. And at every layer we have been able to confirm that the Romans first came to this Channel Island in around 56 or 55BC when Julius Caesar was conquering Gaul and had set his sights on Britain, just across the English Channel.

Later, the Romans built a fort which has stood intact since the 4th century. Sadly, the huge central tower has long gone, its stonework no doubt used  to build medieval houses in the vicinity, and part of the south wall tumbled onto my local beach who knows when, where its parts can still be seen to this day.

The area is crowded with archaeological features. Some relate to German activity (Alderney was occupied during the Second World War) or Victorian fortifications inside and around the fort. Modern roads partly conceal what we know is an Iron Age cemetery discovered in 2019.

Two skeletons were discovered back then. That’s when I got involved after arriving on the island to write, and I was given backroom jobs like pot-washing, shovelling and making sandwiches. Just to be there was a privilege!

This is now a long-term project to learn more about the Roman and Iron Age settlement on Longis Common, a few yards from my home. How extensive is the Iron Age cemetery, and where was the village in which these people lived?

We hope to discover how far the Roman buildings extend, and if this was the site of an earlier Roman fort that predated the 4th century one, or the vicus municipal administration settlement that grew up close to a fort, or a purely civilian village?

Of course, I already know the answers because they’re in my head, as you would expect from an adventurous historical fiction author.

I know I’m on to a winner. Take this exuberant comment by Dr Monaghan: “Finds include pottery, metalwork, glass, building materials, human bones and food remains including animal bones. The finds need to uncover more about the people who lived and were buried there. We want to learn about their lifestyle and how ancient Alderney was connected to the wider world.”

I’d call it making the facts fit a good story, and I’m already well into book two of The Britannia Conspiracy series. This series begins with coded messages from Julius Caesar to attend a secret conference on this island to plan his expeditions to Britain.

Should it be a full-on invasion, or a trade expedition? Either way, he’s in for some surprises, especially as far as the local Celts are concerned!

 

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Daniel Colter, author of the Knights Templar Thriller Series.

Writers are a strange breed.

We invent friends in our heads, decide how they speak, what they wear, where they go, then spend countless hours conversing with them. No two writers share the same head-friends, oddly, despite running in the same  social circles. Neither do any two writers develop a story the same way.

Specific routines keep us on track, or don’t (looking at you, internet), and each work proceeds at its own pace. Most writers are one of two species: a plotter or a pantser. A plotter maps out each scene, chapter, and verse before putting fingers to keyboard. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants, beginning with an idea, then writing towards a vaguely defined ending. I mapped out my first novel, Brotherhood of Wolves, but tossed the map aside by chapter 3. I found pantsing more rewarding, and still do, because much of the fun (and frustration) is writing myself into a corner and finding a path out.

My novels are historical fiction, where history provides setting, culture, and place. History can also frame the plot. Story is given precedent over history, however, because the goal is to entertain, not to educate. One or more characters are historical persons and the fictional protagonist lives within their orbit. Historical fiction should stay true to history and the fiction takes flight where history grows murky — which it usually does, especially the further back in time one travels. The murk is where the fun begins, in my opinion, and its where the what if fleshes out the story, where the pantser finds out what happens to his head-friends.

Writers are also strange creatures.

Some writers have habits, like a dog that circles exactly three and a half times before lying down, and these rituals are intended to fuel creativity. Isabel Allende started her first novel on January 8, 1981, and that day became a ceremonial start date for all her subsequent works. The poet Friedrich Schiller kept rotten apples in his desk and, when his mind needed a jolt, he would give one a sniff.

My writing rituals are more mundane and less … smelly. I start with two (not one, not three) cups of coffee. I keep a stuffie of Curious George on my desk, in honour of Curious George Rides a Bike, the first book I read cover-to-cover. I say hello to George each morning.

Ritual also comes from my father. He was a painter and writer and used a second-hand desk as his art space. I acquired that desk, set to rehabbing it, but foolishly sanded the top to expose wood veneer over composite. I left his dried paint splashes along the edges, though, and I touch them when I write. They make me think of him, and thinking of him puts me in a creative mood. I told him I had begun writing historical fiction, his favourite genre, but he passed away before reading Brotherhood of Wolves. I often wonder what he would think of my series, and suspect he would be pleased (except for the part where I ruined his desk).

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight contemporary romance author Patricia Caliskan.

I wrote my third novel, When We Were Us, at my bureau, which has become my writing enclave. Something about opening the bureau desktop gives me a sense of immediacy which speeds the writing along. I write upstairs, free from distractions, except for my dogs who stop by to visit, but basically closed off from everything except the world I’m creating.

I never thought I had any writing rituals until people began asking the question. I realised that I have rituals in general. All three of my novels were largely written at night. Once the demands of the day are over, night-time is not only the perfect fit in a practical sense but allows me the space I need to daydream on behalf of my characters, and fully immerse my thoughts in the world of the book.

I’m a huge advocate of those tiny details which promote wellbeing, even when I’m not writing. So, before I get back to my latest manuscript, I mix essential oils for my diffuser, which works like magic for changing up the mood, and I set a timer to monitor my working hours.

I find having scheduled time slots super helpful. I can show up and do the work and know exactly how much time I’ve spent on the novel, which is reassuring when I’m trying to find enough time to work on a project.

I switch on my moon light, as I call it, a perfect orb of white light, and always freshen up my perfume before I write. I think of perfume as a superpower. A favourite scent signals that we’ve got work to do and someplace else to be.

I usually start by reading over where I left off to reacclimatise. I try not to spend too much time agonising over a word choice or a sentence formation until I’m at the editing stage. I have a natural tendency to edit as I go, wanting the work to be as close to the final manuscript as possible, which can hinder the drafting process.

When it comes to first drafts, I remind myself of my own advice: to just get it all down. I need solitude to do that, and sitting at my bureau, I feel enclosed in the world of the book. When it comes to editing, I usually end up inadvertently making a playlist to score parts of the novel or characters, which I find helpful with tone and pace. Once I have a completed manuscript, I print the work out and read it aloud, because if the writing doesn’t sound right, it isn’t right, and needs reworking.

Writing fiction requires both discipline and detachment, and my little bureau space provides just that!

Congratulations to Eric Helm, whose thrilling Vietnam War adventure, Proxy War, is published today!

Proxy War is the twenty-ninth book in the Vietnam: Ground Zero series: action-packed, authentic historical thrillers set during the Vietnam War.

Republic of Vietnam, 1969

The American government has known for a long time that there were Soviet advisors in North Vietnam, but now it seems they are ready to strike.

Intelligence has been gathered suggesting that Soviet fighter pilots have engaged in aerial combat with American Air Force and Navy pilots.

As of yet the Americans have not retaliated, as the UN is terrified of the Vietnam War escalating into a global nuclear disaster.

But the Soviets have been spotted engaging local Vietnamese troops and it seems they are readying for an attack.

U.S. Army Special Forces Major Mack Gerber and Sergeant Major Anthony Fetterman have been on light duties in Vietnam, during a relatively peaceful period in the war.

But after a visit to a Special Forces Camp, they are told that the enemy have been increasing their assaults on the base.

What are the Soviets planning? How large is their army?

Can the US Special Forces stop their deadly attack…?

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight C.P. Giuliani, author of the Tom Walsingham Mysteries Series.

Every year, as soon as summer comes, I move my writing to the garden house. It’s not really cooler, as temperature goes, but it feels summery and pleasant. I love the tall ceiling, the terracotta floor, the desk that used to belong to my great-grandfather, and the view onto the garden. There’s a little pond outside the French windows, and the birds bathing or drinking are, I confess, something of a distraction — but they also provide a cheerful break whenever I find myself stuck. A paragraph refusing to take the right shape? A character mutinying? A dull passage? I step away from the desk and watch while the blackbirds play in the water — and, more often than not, a solution will suggest itself.

For all its rustic pleasantness, the garden house has decent Wi-Fi — which is rather essential when my pile of reference books is not enough to confirm some detail — and is equipped with an electric kettle to make cup after cup of tea, which is a fundamental of my writing method.

In truth, beyond the insane amounts of tea, I have little in the way of a writing routine. Working in theatre means that my hours are flexible. Sometimes I write in the morning, sometimes very late at night, sometimes both; sometimes I must snatch the odd hour here and there, between a rehearsal session and a meeting with the techs. One thing I do is to always keep a notebook with me. Through the years, I’ve learnt to keep a dedicated notebook for each project, beside a general one for everything and anything: notes, stray ideas, snatches of dialogue overheard or imagined, lists, questions… It’s the general notebook that I carry around, so I can jot down anything that occurs to me — to be transferred to the relevant one later. This means that I do some of my writing at the theatre, at the vet’s, as I stand in a queue at the Post Office…

My family, friends and colleagues have developed a high degree of amused tolerance for my ‘Notebook Moments’, when I drop whatever I’m doing to take a note; strangers are occasionally a little put out until I explain that, for one thing, I’m prone to forgetting what I don’t write down and, for another, sometimes an idea will present itself in a very iridescent shape, little more than a flicker of colour under the surface of the water — and will need to be recorded quickly and thought through in writing, at least a little, if it’s to be of any use.

So to recap, I’m absent-minded, easily distracted, forgetful, and can’t keep a routine… I suppose it’s no wonder that a quiet, pleasant place like the garden house is important to my writing process.

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight David Field, author of numerous historical series including the Bailiff Mountsorrel Tudor Mystery Series and the New World Nautical Saga Series.

I’ve always written stories, even as a child, then I progressed from childhood scribbles to more serious attempts at literary glory on an old upright Olivetti typewriter (one of those with a red and black ribbon, if you’re old enough to remember) when my handwriting graduated from ‘untidy’ to ‘execrable’.

Reluctantly I then honoured my mother’s wish, and my father’s insistence, and got a ‘real job’ as a criminal trial lawyer, which was about as relaxing as standing on one leg on the top outer ledge of The Shard in London, without the reassurance of a safety harness. To relieve the stress I decided to start working on a novel — but what should I choose for a genre?

A good friend of mine who already earned a precarious living as a novelist was insistent that one should always write about things that one knows, and by this stage I knew two things outside my professional straightjacket — some history from my schooldays, and the streets of my home town, Nottingham. During the final years of my working life I spent stolen moments imagining the lives of those living in Nottingham during the Luddite Riots, and In Ludd’s Name was eventually published by a boutique publishing house owned by an old school friend.

Bitten by the bug, and buoyed up by having finally been published, I grew ambitious, and searched the history books for possible storylines, most notably from that most colourful of periods of English history, the Tudor era. The literary world seemed to be awash with Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I and even ‘Bloody Mary’, but two seminal characters from that era seemed never to have received much attention from novelists.

First was the progenitor of the Tudors, the boy from Wales, Henry VII, and I climbed inside his head to bring to the pages that followed his boyhood imprisonment in a bleak castle in South Wales, his youthful exile in Brittany, his triumphant return at the head of a ramshackle army that deposed Richard III at Bosworth, and his love match with Elizabeth of York that brought the Wars of the Roses to an end in the nursery rather than on the battlefield. To my delight, and secret surprise, I found a publisher — Sapere Books — and Tudor Dawn was launched.

Then — unbounded joy and amazement! — Sapere wanted another one, so this time I focused on a butcher’s son from Ipswich who rose from obscurity to become Archbishop of York, Papal Legate for life, Lord Chancellor and the diplomacy coach of choice of Henry VIII. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s spectacular downfall was just as dramatic, and The King’s Commoner was published, as testament to the fact that I had a second novel in me.

Dozens of titles have since been published, all by Sapere Books, and all ‘historical’ in genre. As one of the characters in Alan Bennett’s delightful creation, The History Boys, says of history — ‘It’s just one ******* thing after another’, and so it has been for me.

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Neil Denby, author of the Quintus Roman Thriller series.

Inspiration can come at any time of the day or night, but I find that the small hours are awash with ideas — plot lines, character development, a resolution to a particularly tricky scenario — so it is important that I keep a notepad and pencil by the bed. It may be old-fashioned but it is also reliable and has the advantage of not involving bright screens.

Frustratingly, come morning, I cannot always decipher what I have written down, but sometimes there are gems. These may be character or plot evolution, or perhaps just phrases, but I know I would have forgotten them completely if I had not made a note.

While out walking — an excellent way to clear the brain of fog — I defer to modern technology and record voice notes on my mobile phone. The same principle applies — if there is no immediate record, the thoughts can be lost.

These brief lines are later transferred to a laptop. This is strategically placed in a corner of my study so that I am not distracted by the view outside the window. A row of reference books and one of my favourite possessions, an original Steve Bell cartoon, are all that I have for company. It also helps if I can visualise a character or a place, so I keep a sketchpad on my desk where I can create basic images — maps, plans, sometimes the progress of marches or battles. These drawings help to maintain consistency and authenticity.

This is my primary space, where the words are typed up. I add to them, enhance them, contextualise them, read them back. I often discover that I have used a particular word or phrase twice or more. Or if there is something I’m not sure about, I look it up. The reference books help to straighten out facts and also to find alternative words. Roget’s and Brewer’s and Fowler’s and Chambers provide a wealth of information unmatched by an American-leaning internet. I admit to slipping down rabbit holes of etymology and semantics, but find it strangely satisfying.

I always have to read what has been written, in context with the book so far. Traditionally that would have meant printing the manuscript out and sitting down with a pencil. Happily, that is no longer the case. Instead (thanks to everything going up into the Cloud) I can now read and review on my iPad. This means I can lounge in a chair, or sit outside, or read whilst travelling. So it is more a case of recreating the experience of the reader to see how and if things work.

Of course, there are edits, and actual printouts sometimes, but that is basically it: pencils and pads and technology.

Oh technology, where were you when I had all those essays to write at school?

We are delighted to announce that we have signed a new series of historical naval adventures by Daniel Donato.

In Daniel’s words:

“The series follows English privateer Gideon Locke during Queen Anne’s War, which engulfed the colonies from Newfoundland all the way down to the Caribbean. With the Royal Navy tied up back home, it largely fell to privateers to protect the colonies.

“The story begins in 1707 with Gideon newly returned from a disastrous privateering venture, leaving him destitute and shunned by his fellow privateers. His fortunes change, however, when a charismatic captain recruits Gideon on his next venture. But by the time Gideon realizes that change in fortune was for the worse, it’s too late, and he finds himself caught up in a plot to kidnap the son of a prominent English Governor and deliver him to the French.

“As the series progresses, we’ll see Gideon fight to redeem himself, earn a reputation and climb in rank until he’s ultimately in command of his own vessel.

“I was very fortunate to meet Amy Durant at the Historical Novel Society Conference in Texas last year, and even more fortunate that she was interested in this series. It’s a dream come true to be working with a publisher like Sapere Books who understand that there’s quite a hunger out there for historical action and adventure.”

Following the success of her Jane Austen Investigations series, we are thrilled to announce that we have signed a new dual timeline series set in the modern day and Tudor times by Laura Martin.

In Laura’s words:

“I am absolutely delighted to be writing a new dual timeline series for Sapere. With threads of the present day and Tudor times, as well as hints of the occult, the books are fantastically interesting to research and write. In the present day the series follows two friends — Alice and Lydia — whose lives are ripped apart when Lydia suffers a catastrophic accident whilst they are playing with a Ouija board. Alice tries to move on with her life until it becomes apparent Lydia’s condition is linked to an unsolved mystery in the past.

“Vivacious and charming, Bessie Blount is an immediate favourite at court when she joins the household of Queen Katherine of Aragon. With her skill at singing and dancing she soon catches King Henry VIII’s eye and quickly has to learn how to navigate the intrigue and politics at court. When she falls pregnant with the King’s son she begins to wish for a normal life, but the price she has to pay is watching her firstborn son grow up from afar. She cannot guide Henry Fitzroy through the dangerous world of the Tudor court, and cannot stop worrying about her eldest son’s safety.

“The happenings of the present day and the Tudor times are inextricably linked and only by unravelling the mysteries of the past can Alice have any chance of saving her friend.

“I am thrilled to be working with Sapere again on this new series. The whole team are wonderful to work with and have a way of making the complicated process of producing a book appear seamless.”

In the Jane Austen Investigations series:

Death of a Lady

Last Impressions

A Poisoned Fortune

The Body on the Beach

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed a new series of Ancient Rome novels by Alistair Tosh.

Alistair is the author of the Edge of Empire series — gripping adventures set in the tumultuous Roman Britain of the second century AD.

In Alistair’s words:

“My new series takes place during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) between Carthage and the Roman republic in the important theatre of Iberia (Spain/Portugal). It focuses on the lives of two historic figures: Hasdrubal Barca (Carthage) the younger brother of the legendary Hannibal and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio (Rome), uncle of the famous Scipio Africanus. The novels will follow the ebb and flow of their lives and fortunes as their armies struggle for dominance of the land and its warring tribes.

“I discovered the stories of Hasdrubal and Gnaeus quite by accident. Last year I spent several months in Andalusia, Spain and was seeking a subject for a magazine article to aid with the marketing of my most recent trilogy. I thought of writing something about Rome’s impact on the province and during my research stumbled across their story. There’s a lot to tell.

“I am delighted to be working with Sapere Books. It was clear from the start that Sapere not only treat their authors fairly but understand the commercial fiction market, has scale, industry expertise and a strong focus on digital marketing.”

We are delighted to announce that we have signed a new series of Tudor mysteries by Kate Robertson.

In Kate’s words:

“The series follows Anne Winston, a lady at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Quiet and unassuming, she is a keen observer and has a skill for puzzling out problems.

“When we first meet Anne, she has just returned to court from burying her husband. She soon learns that her nephew has been arrested for sedition and must race against the clock to prove his innocence while also being drawn into the emerging spy network under Sir William Cecil, the Secretary of State.

“As the series progresses, we will see Anne uncover intrigues and conspiracies, using her powers of observation and ability to go unnoticed in most situations. I wanted to write a story about an older female protagonist who discovers the power of her voice and finds her agency in a complicated world, all while trying to right wrongs and find justice for the forgotten.

“I met Amy Durant at the Historical Novel Society Conference in San Antonio in 2023. I initially pitched her a different story but when she asked what else I had, I knew I needed to share Anne, my most personal protagonist, entrenched in the Tudor era, which is my first historical period love.

“I’m excited to work with Sapere — it’s inspiring to work with a publisher that knows and loves historical fiction so well.”

We are delighted to announce that we have signed a series of Roman military adventures by Jeff Jones.

In Jeff’s words:

“Legion of the Damned is set in the middle of the first century when Rome was arguably at the pinnacle of its power and follows the career of Marcus Corvo, a man seemingly destined to forever live in his ancestors’ shadows. After a reckless act of bravery turns the tide of a battle, Corvo expects to be severely punished but is instead promoted and recruited for a clandestine rescue mission deep in enemy territory. But this is no ordinary mission and Corvo is obliged to recruit men from the gladiatorial arenas, prisons and mines. His small force is to comprise of expendables — a legion of the damned.

“In the coming series, Corvo’s adventures will take him and his men from the desert sands of Parthia, to the forests of Germania and then to Britannia where he will arrive in time to be caught up in Boudicca’s rebellion.

“The idea for Legion of the Damned has been bouncing around in my head for some time now and my original intention was for it to be made into an historical fantasy novel. When Sapere Books asked whether I’d be interested in writing Roman historical fiction I jumped at the chance. I knew that I could make the idea work.”

Congratulations to Eric Helm, whose nail-biting military drama, Pioneer Post, is published today!

Pioneer Post is the twenty-eighth book in the Vietnam: Ground Zero series: action-packed, authentic historical thrillers set during the Vietnam War.

Hawaii, 1969

U.S. Army Special Forces Major Mack Gerber and Sergeant Major Anthony Fetterman knew the promise of R&R in Hawaii was too good to be true.

Barely a day into the trip, they are called into a top-secret meeting to discuss classified intelligence. But when they get there, the generals in charge seem reluctant to share any information.

Gerber and Fetterman have recently come back from a mission in Vietnam. Though they were successful, the location where they established their base camp went against instructions from their superiors – and they covered certain things up in their final debrief reports.

All had seemed well when they first returned to the US, but now Gerber is suspicious that a case is being built against them.

Gerber and Fetterman are told they have been called to Hawaii to share base-building tactics with a new team working on the set up of a mission that will take place in Vietnam. But are they really being used for their expertise, or is someone setting them up for a fall?

How loyal are the fellow green berets who served with them in combat? Will secrets be spilled about their time in the jungle?

And will Gerber and Fetterman’s illustrious careers end in tatters…?

We are thrilled to announce that we have awarded winners in all six of the writing competition briefs that we set last year.

Each chosen author has won a five-book contract to work on the series they submitted for.

Screenwriter Richard Kurti has won The Medici Murder Mystery series brief.

The Second World War Aviation Thriller series brief was won by debut author Patrick Larsimont.

Established romance author Laura Martin scooped the Jane Austen Detective series brief.

Ghost-writer Bob Robertson snapped up the Age of Sail brief.

Academic author Neil Denby scooped the Ancient Rome Historical thriller brief.

And American author Rachel McDonough won the Tudor Maid Diaries series brief.

The quality of the entries were so strong that we have also awarded honourable mentions in nearly all of the categories and we are speaking to the shortlisted authors about writing other historical series for us based in the time period of their submission.

The shortlisted authors are:

Donna Gowland and Leann McKinley for the Jane Austen brief.

Daniel Colter and Ava McKevitt for the Ancient Rome brief.

David Bailey, David Mackenzie, Tony Rea and Suzanne Parsons for the WWII brief.

Kate MacCarthy for the Medici brief.

Alice Campbell, Angela Ranson, Katharine Edgar, Valerie Boyd and Maria Hoey for the Tudor brief.

Following the success of the first competition we are hoping to run the competition again later this year with a fresh set of writing prompts.

Congratulations to Ros Rendle, whose moving romantic saga, Resistance of Love, is published today!

Resistance of Love is set in England and France before and during World War II, and is the second book in The Strong Family Historical Saga series.

After spending ten years in Australia, Delphi Strong is on a ship back to England with her daughter, Flora.

While on board, Delphi meets Rainier, a charming vineyard owner on his way home to France. Forming an instant mutual attraction, the two share a whirlwind romance before disembarking.

Unable to forget her, Rainier crosses the channel a few months later and asks Delphi to marry him. Equally lovestruck, Delphi accepts, and she and Flora join Rainier in France.

However, their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when war breaks out and the Nazis begin to occupy the country. Forced to flee to the Free Zone in the south, the family must now pull together to resist the enemy…

 

Click here to order Resistance of Love

Following the publication of Alexandra’s Walsh’s captivating Marquess House Trilogy – dual timeline conspiracy thrillers with ingenious twists on Tudor and Stuart history – editorial director Amy Durant has signed her fourth book.

In Alexandra’s words:

“It’s very exciting to be working with Sapere Books on my new publication. THE WINDCHIME is a story that is very special to me, as it involves some of my own family history. Once again, it’s a dual timeline novel, with the split moving from the present day to the Victorian era. Set on the Pembrokeshire coast, it involves a multi-generational family with a secret at their heart. It also explores hereditary madness and the contrasting treatments of mental health in the Victorian era and the present day.

“A love story brings it all together as the present-day characters uncover the tragedy that took place in the past. I hope everyone enjoys this shift of era and will like my new characters. Once again, it’s been a pleasure to work with everyone at Sapere Books and be part of the Sapere family. Not only is the support and guidance of the publishing team of Amy, Caoimhe, Richard and Natalie, invaluable; the encouragement, friendship and advice of the other Sapere Books authors has been extremely helpful and has offered great inspiration.”

Click here to order THE CATHERINE HOWARD CONSPIRACY

Click here to find out more about The Marquess House Trilogy

Stephen Taylor is the author of A CANOPY OF STARS, a thrilling historical 19th century saga stretching from the legal courts of Georgian London to the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt.

Hi Stephen! Welcome to the Sapere Books blog. Could you tell us a bit about what first got you into writing?

My addiction has been with me for over twenty years now. When I was younger, if somebody told me a good joke, when I retold it it was twice as long, embellished, the story enhanced, the characters fleshed out. With me, it was never just about and Englishmen, an Irishman, and a Scotsman. It was an Englishman in a bowler hat with a monocle, an Irishman in a donkey jacket with a pint of Guinness and a Scotsman in a kilt with a set of bagpipes (and yes I know that this is stereotypical).

Tell us about where you write and your writing habits.

I started by writing during my lunchtime at work, but now I write in my home office. I keep a working week, Monday to Friday and write for two and a half hours a day. I seem to need that discipline.

What part of the writing process do you find most difficult?

Probably research: it’s a double edged sword — part good, part tiresome. The rewrites are also tricky, as you can edit forever, endlessly trying to improve what you have written. I aim to stop after five rewrites.

Do your characters ever seem to control their own storyline?

The received wisdom is that you determine your storyline and not let your characters deviate from that. However, after I develop my characters, they tell me where they want to go, what they want to do. I follow them, and my stories are character led. I still have a structure in my mind — A to B, but the characters say how I get there.

Do you find it hard to know when to end a story?

Not usually. I have a prompt to myself that sits just below the line I am typing. It reminds me to keep some control over the characters.  It says: INTRIGUE — CONFLICT — CLIMAX — RESOLUTION. i.e:

Open with a big question or hook: INTRIGUE. Then you have the problems your hero is up against: CONFLICT. This builds to a CLIMAX. This is followed by the RESOLUTION.

What is your favourite book?

If you ask me this next week, you may get a different answer. I would say my favourite book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My favourite character is Uriah Heep, from David Copperfield. Dickens’ image of him is wonderfully unpleasant — he’s so slimy.

What book do you wish you had written?

Anything by Norman Mailer. As a writer, he is so far above me. He’s much more than a storyteller.

Tell us something surprising about you.

I was brought up in Manchester, but I was born in Yorkshire. My mother traveled back to Yorkshire so that my birth there would give me residential status to play cricket for Yorkshire — nobody ever believes that, but I promise that it’s true. Unfortunately, it was a feat that I never achieved, the White Rose County being unappreciative of my cricketing skills.

 

Preorder A CANOPY OF STARS here!

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Linda Stratmann is the author of the MINA SCARLETTI INVESTIGATIONS, a traditional British detective series set in Victorian Brighton.

More than a year ago, I determined to write a book in which Mina Scarletti, disabled by the scoliosis that twists her spine and cramps her lungs, is taken ill and solves a mystery while confined to bed. It is not a new concept. In The Wench is Dead, Inspector Morse solves a Victorian murder while in hospital, and in Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, Inspector Alan Grant, hospitalised with a broken leg, explores the fate of the Princes in the Tower.

But these are historical puzzles, and therefore considered suitable to engage the mind of a bored invalid. In His Father’s Ghost, Mina has additional challenges. She is intrigued by a current conundrum, the disappearance of a local man while out sailing, declared legally dead, but his actual fate unknown. Her doctor, however, has advised her against any activity that might tax her delicate health, and that includes solving mysteries. She has to use all her ingenuity to gather the information she needs. In doing so, she finds that she has uncovered evidence of past crimes and scandals. Her enquiries are a catalyst that set off a train of events that ultimately have dramatic and life-changing consequences for several prominent citizens of Brighton.

One of the themes which I explore in this book is hallucination. Mina, when stricken by a fever, sees and hears things that reveal what is troubling her. The son of the vanished man, disturbed by significant events, has terrifying visions in those dark hours that lie between sleeping and waking.

I really enjoyed my research for this book. I visited the fascinating Police Cells Museum of Brighton, and read about the curious spiritoscope, an apparatus designed to prove that it was spirits and not the medium who cause the movement of the divination table.

It was my real pleasure to include two characters who have appeared in previous books, the flamboyant actor Marcus Merridew, fresh from his acclaimed season as Hamlet, and the creepy young photographer Mr Beckler.

While editing the manuscript, which was completed at the end of 2019, I was struck by how Mina’s plight echoes our current time. She is ill with a lung infection, and effectively on lockdown. But when she scents a puzzle, it gives her strength. She needs not only warmth and air and nourishment, but material to keep her busy mind alive.

 

Click here to pre-order HIS FATHER’S GHOST

Jane Cable is the author of ANOTHER YOU and ENDLESS SKIES, modern romantic sagas that draw on the Second World War.

Although I hated history at school, in my adult life I have become a total history buff. Not history about royalty, wars and politicians though – the history of ordinary, everyday people. A history I feel connected to and is more often than not local.

For my contemporary romances the history I choose is sharply focussed, linked to the setting. For Another You, the most gripping part of Studland’s past was its role in the practices for D-Day, and for Endless Skies I decided to stay with World War Two. The book is set in Lincolnshire, so to my mind is inextricably linked with Bomber Command.

The wartime setting for Endless Skies is RAF Hemswell, now an industrial estate best known for its antiques centres and markets. In fact, that was the reason I went there in the first place. But wandering around the old barrack buildings, I could almost see the airmen on the stairs and hear the stamp of their boots in the parade ground. This had to be the place.

The staff at Hemswell Antique Centres were able to give me a leaflet with a short history of the base, and that set me off on my research. While we were in Lincolnshire I walked its buildings and roads then drove around the area, so I was totally familiar with the terrain, and once we were back at home I started to dig deeper.

Here the internet is invaluable, and there are a number of websites giving the history of RAF bases. Hemswell was one of the first to be operational right at the beginning of the war, but as I dug deeper I found two Polish squadrons had been based there in 1942-3 and had suffered huge losses. I knew exactly where to focus my research.

This is where local history becomes exceptionally localised for me: one place at one point in time. In Endless Skies my protagonist, Dr Rachel Ward, is an archaeologist and my own work made me think of hers: researching a site, carrying out a survey, opening a trench, trowelling into every corner then digging out a single artefact. She finds … well, it would be spoiling the story to tell you. I find words.

But sometimes before you focus down you need to pan out, so I read around the subject: first-hand accounts from wartime bomber crews; memoirs of civilian life on RAF bases. For background on Hemswell itself I was very lucky – it was where The Dam Busters was filmed in the 1950s, and there was both a book and documentary about making the movie so I could watch almost contemporary footage.

There was also a treasure trove on the internet about the Polish airmen who crewed the station, and seeing photographs of them was quite an eerie experience. In fact, I ended up with far more information than I could possibly – or would want to – use in the book. But the level of detail gives me confidence my historical details are correct.

But equally interesting to me were the ghost stories associated with Hemswell: a pilot in flames on the runway, the echoes of 1940s music and the sounds of bombers taking off and landing. And having researched them, it would have been such a shame not to use at least one of them as well. Although my ghosts, of course, are completely fictional.

 

Click here to order ANOTHER YOU.

Click here to pre-order ENDLESS SKIES.

Keith Moray is the author of the SANDAL CASTLE MEDIEVAL THRILLERS, historical murder mysteries set in Yorkshire. The first two books in the series, THE PARDONER’S CRIME and THE FOOL’S FOLLY, are available to pre-order.

I live within arrowshot of the ruins of Sandal Castle. As a family doctor in Yorkshire, for thirty years I saw it most days while driving around the area on my morning visits. Nowadays, in semi-retirement I go running around the old battlefield where thousands of knights and soldiers once fought and died during the Wars of the Roses.

I plot and daydream when I run. Happily, a short story entitled The Villain’s Tale about a miscreant in a rat-infested dungeon in Sandal Castle won a Fish Award. It spurred me on to start plotting the Sandal Castle Medieval Thrillers.

Sandal Castle

The fine old motte and bailey was built in the 12^th century by the De Warenne family during the reign of Henry I. From the 14^th century it passed into royal ownership and is best known for its involvement in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, when Richard, Duke of York was mortally wounded.  His son, King Edward IV established it as one of the two bases for the Council of the North in 1472. Effectively, this was the government for the North of England. After he died, his younger brother, King Richard III began rebuilding the castle in 1483. The work stopped when he lost his life at Bosworth Field in 1485.

Robin Hood

Thanks to television and movies, most people associate the outlaw Robin Hood with Sherwood Forest and Nottingham. However, the medieval ballads say that his stomping ground was actually Barnsdale Forest, which once covered a vast swathe of Yorkshire. The ballads also mention King Edward and various Yorkshire characters, such as George-a-Green the Pinder of Wakefield, and many actual locations in Wakefield are referred to.

The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield

In medieval times, The Manor of Wakefield was the largest in Yorkshire and one of the largest in England, covering some 150 square miles. The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield are a national treasure, consisting of a continuous recording of court proceedings from the late thirteenth century until the 1920s.

The outlaw and bowman Robert Hode, a sure candidate for being the historical Robin Hood, is mentioned in the Court Rolls of 1316.

 The Sandal Castle Medieval Thrillers

If you look at the picture of Sandal Castle today you will see exactly where I had the germ of the idea for The Pardoner’s Crime, the first novel in this series. It is a view of the castle from under what I fancifully call Robin Hood’s tree. I blended historical facts, medieval ballads and a good deal of imagination to come up with a historical whodunit.

There are three completed novels and a fourth in the pipeline. They are not all about the same characters; indeed they are set at different times, because Sandal Castle with its fascinating history is the historical backdrop to them. They are all inspired by Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and some of the characters that he described so beautifully. The Pardoner’s Crime fuses The Canterbury Tales with the Robin Hood legends. The reader is challenged to uncover the true villain in each novel.

 

Click here to pre-order THE PARDONER’S CRIME.

Click here to pre-order THE FOOL’S FOLLY.

Sandal Castle image credit: Keith Moray

David Field is the author of the Carlyle & West Victorian Mysteries.

As a historical novelist in search of bygone eras to recreate, I’ve always been fascinated by the late Victorian period. It was a time of contrasts, with vast scientific, medical and technological breakthroughs coming at a time when ordinary folk were obsessed with communicating with the dead. Victoria seemed destined to rule forever over a rich empire, while her subjects in its industrial cities, and most notably in its London capital, were existing in conditions of abject poverty.

Following the success of my Esther & Jack Enright mystery series, which began with the search for Jack the Ripper and ended just as the nineteenth century was about to, I was urged to return to this rich seam of inspiration, and there was – for me, at least – one obvious place to start.

When Arthur Conan Doyle abandoned medical practice and created his fascinating character Sherlock Holmes, he was inspired by his memory of a real life Sherlock. His name was Dr Joseph Bell, and he had taught anatomy to his classes of medical students at Edinburgh University, one of whom had been Doyle himself. Bell had what was then a unique approach to his analysis of the cadavers that were to be found on his mortuary slab, something that is second nature to modern forensic examiners, but was revolutionary in its day. He approached ‘cause of death’ by examining, not just insides of the bodies, but the clothing and personal possessions with which they arrived, and telltale indications on the skin, such as needle marks, abrasions, rough working hands and suchlike. From this he made logical deductions that were of value to police in unexplained death enquiries, and he taught his students to apply the same techniques when they went out into the world.

There must have been several generations of medical graduates from Edinburgh who were taught ‘the Bell method’, and it was no great stretch of the imagination for me to create Dr James Carlyle, anatomist and general surgeon at Whitechapel’s London Hospital – a medical doctor with the same professional training as Conan Doyle and the same inquisitive, logical mind as Joseph Bell.

His first challenge – described in the first novel in my new series, INTERVIEWING THE DEAD – is to debunk the panicked belief among the populace of the East End that the spirits of those buried in a Plague Pit in Aldgate have returned to take their revenge for the disturbance of their resting place. That belief has taken hold easily, given the obsession with Spiritualism that gripped the country during this period.

But there were also other ‘spirits’ abroad, and they were advocating for great social change. Chief among these were the Suffragists, who campaigned for ‘votes for women’ and Suffragettes who took on entire police forces in public demonstrations. There were also other groups of feminists, as we would call them today, who advocated for equality of admission to professions such as medicine and the law. This was how Dr James Carlyle’s daughter, Adelaide, was created, as a young woman whose opinion of men and their dominance of society could not have been any lower – until she meets my third new character, Matthew West.

Although the Anglican Church was ahead of all other Protestant movements in the 1890s, it was demonstrating a social elitism that drove away ordinary working folk, and left the pastoral door open for more working-class religious initiatives and crusades among the poor. ‘Methodism’ had become a religious movement of its own, with its own hierarchy, but its progenitor, ‘Wesleyism’, still had its head above the parapet, and Wesleyan street preachers such as Matthew West might be found on corners, in market places, and outside factory and dockside gates.

Matthew has his own reasons for wishing to hose down any belief in the return of vengeful spirits of the dead, and when he finds himself associated with Dr Carlyle in the search for the truth, he comes up against the fiery Adelaide, who works as her father’s assistant. They influence each other’s views on life as they are drawn imperceptibly into a mutual attraction.

The stage is set for my next series. I hope you’ll join me in following the exploits of this unlikely trio, and I look forward to learning your reaction to them.

Click here to pre-order INTERVIEWING THE DEAD!

Sapere Books has reached its second birthday!

We now have a family of over 50 authors and plenty of chart successes under our belt.

To celebrate our first two years as a company, we threw a party in London and caught up with our fabulous authors over drinks and nibbles. All have exciting new projects brewing. Here is a taster of what to expect from our authors in 2020.

Graham Brack is working on a historical fiction series, the Master Mercurius Mysteries, set in the 17^th century. The first book, Death in Delft is already available to pre-order, and more will follow later this year.

Keith Moray has written the Sandal Castle Medieval Thriller series, historical murder mysteries set in Yorkshire. The first book, The Pardoner’s Crime, is available to pre-order, and more are soon to follow.

Alis Hawkins’ brand-new Medieval novel The Black and The White will be published later this month.

David Field is working on a brand-new Victorian mystery series, the Carlyle & West Mysteries, which will launch very soon.

Jane Cable has another thought-provoking romance with echoes of the past launching soon.

Gillian Jackson has written a new psychological thriller, which will be released this summer.

Natalie Kleinman will be joining our excellent Regency Romance authors with her sparkling new books, which will feature strong and resourceful heroines.

Ros Rendle will be launching her Strong Sisters series this year – sweeping sagas that will explore family relationships and rivalries.

Seán Gibbons’ gritty urban crime series set in Galway will launch later this year.

Stephen Taylor has a series of 18^th century novels coming out soon.

And there are new books coming out soon from fan-favourite series, such as Alexandra Walsh’s Marquess House Trilogy, Elizabeth Bailey’s Lady Fan series, J C Briggs’ Charles Dickens Investigations series, Gaynor Torrance’s DI Jemima Huxley series, Charlie Garratt’s Inspector Given series, Michael Fowler’s DS Hunter Kerr series, Valerie Holmes’ Yorkshire Saga series, Marilyn Todd’s Julia McAllister series, Simon Michael’s Charles Holborne series, John Matthews’ Jameson & Argenti series and Linda Stratmann’s Mina Scarletti series.

 

For more information on our latest releases and ebook deals sign up to the Sapere Books newsletter.

To celebrate International Women’s Day (8^th March) we asked five of our authors to tell us all about their favourite female writers. Read on to find out more about their literary heroines!

Alis Hawkins, author of The Black and the White and Testament

My all-time favourite author is Joanna Trollope. An odd choice for a crime author? Not at all. Wonderful writing transcends genre, and she inspires me by drawing characters with a fine eye to dialogue and interaction; by bringing whole scenes to life with a few telling details; by making her readers care passionately about what happens to her characters.

Joanna Trollope has shown me how essential it is to do your research meticulously, to immerse your readers in the world you’re writing about – whether it’s a cathedral close or a dairy farm, a ceramics factory or a Spanish vineyard – but never to include a single unnecessary fact that might slow the action down.

Each Joanna Trollope novel begins with a single key event that turns the lives of all her interrelated characters upside down – and what else does a murder at the beginning of a book do but that?

Order THE BLACK AND THE WHITE here

Order TESTAMENT here

M. J. Logue, author of the Thomazine and Major Russell Thrillers

My busy little mind raced over all the possibilities – Tanith Lee, Storm Constantine, Dorothy Dunnett, Helen Hollick … but there can be only one, for me. Aphra Behn, of course. It’s not the what or the how of her writing, but the enigma and the old-school glamour of the writing persona she created – the international woman of mystery, the myths with which she surrounded herself – that inspires me. (Three hundred and fifty years later, she’s still a mystery!)

She was the first female literary professional, she did all her own publicity, and she’s still incredible. Possibly a spy, possibly bisexual – both, I suspect, images she manipulated to the hilt – and definitely a woman who knew how to work an audience. The fact that her plays and poems still resonate with us now is remarkable. She created characters that speak to us, no matter what clothes they’re wearing.

Order AN ABIDING FIRE here

Or find out more about the Thomazine and Major Russell Thrillers here

Deborah Swift, author of Past Encounters and The Occupation

The first Rosie Tremain novel I read was Music and Silence, set in the Danish court in the early 17th Century. Marvellously atmospheric, it shifts between different narrative styles: small vignettes that add up to a magnified version of life in Copenhagen that is so real, you feel you are there.

I’ve read all her other books since, including the more contemporary The Road Home, about an economic migrant arriving in the UK, who observes with bafflement the English obsession with status and success. I admire Tremain’s precision, and that is something I want to achieve in my own writing.

Order PAST ENCOUNTERS here

Order THE OCCUPATION here

Gaynor Torrance, author of the DI Jemima Huxley Thrillers

I write in the genre I love to read, and being an avid reader of crime fiction, there are so many female authors whose work I admire. A particular favourite of mine is Sophie Hannah. I first stumbled across her books by chance, when I borrowed a copy of Little Face from my local library. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down.

Since finishing that particular book, I’ve worked my way through much of the Culver Valley Crime series. I adore the originality and complexity of Sophie’s plots, which have lashings of intrigue and misdirection. The central characters, DS Charlie Zailer and DC Simon Waterhouse, are such a great pairing. They’re both so dysfunctional and vulnerable in many ways, yet somehow form a compelling and likeable team.

Order REVENGE here

Or find out more about the DI Jemima Huxley Thrillers here

Alexandra Walsh, author of The Marquess House Trilogy

She may be old-fashioned, and her comments can make me wince, but take away the occasionally dubious contents of a bygone era and Enid Blyton remains a huge inspiration with the breadth of her storytelling skill. In her adventure books, her plotting is deft and sharp, while in her fantasy books her imagination is broad and tantalising.

As a child, she shaped my reading habits but my eureka moment came when I was reading In the Fifth at Malory Towers. I was already harbouring ambitions to be a writer, but it was only a dream. Then, the heroine of the series, Darrell Rivers, wrote the school pantomime. Suddenly, I thought, If Darrell can do it, then so can I! My life path was set. From reading Enid Blyton’s work, I learned that girls were stronger and more effective if they worked together, that girls could do as much as boys and usually more, and that if you were determined you could solve anything – lessons that still resonate today.

Order THE CATHERINE HOWARD CONSPIRACY here

Or find out more about The Marquess House Trilogy here

DEATH IN DELFT by Graham Brack is the first historical murder investigation in the Master Mercurius Mystery series: atmospheric crime thrillers set in seventeenth-century Europe. Click here to pre-order.

Most crime writers have a keen sense of place. Something about a setting grabs them and tells them there is a story here.

So it was with me. When you live in Cornwall, the quickest place to get to on the continent is Amsterdam, because there is a flight from Exeter, so over the years my wife and I have been frequent visitors to the Netherlands.

The first place we went was Delft. As is well known, Delft is the city of Vermeer; but it is also the city of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the father of modern microscopy. Not only did they live within around 250 metres of each other, they were born within a few days of October 1632. Can you imagine being a schoolteacher who had two such boys in their class?

I was turning this around in my mind when the idea came to me that people often ask whether detection is an art or a science. Well, if these two could not tell you, who could? Making them into detectives in their own right would be a bit of a stretch, but they could vie to assist a third person, and that’s how my Dutch series was born.

In the year 1671, three young girls disappear from their homes in Delft. Two come from poor families, but one is the daughter of a local dignitary. The mayor recognises that he needs help to find these girls, and writes to the nearby University of Leiden, asking the Rector to send the cleverest man he can spare.

Master Mercurius is undoubtedly clever. He is, in effect, an Oxbridge don transported to another time and country, but like many an academic he is completely wrapped up in his subject – moral philosophy – and has very little experience of the world. He does not want to let the Rector and the University down, but he is acutely aware that brains alone will not solve this mystery. Fortunately, he has Vermeer and Van Leeuwenhoek to help, and together they set out to retrieve the girls and discover the culprit. In a nutshell, that is how I came to write Death in Delft, in which Mercurius narrates – very frankly – his experiences.

I don’t think it counts as a spoiler if I say that he is successful and returns to his study with something of a reputation. Unfortunately for him, in 1674 the Stadhouder – the man we know as King William III – needs some assistance in putting down a conspiracy which seeks to remove him from power. It seems likely that someone in high places is pulling the strings, so William needs an intelligent outsider to look into the matter, and his gaze falls upon Mercurius, who is summoned from Leiden. In Untrue till Death Mercurius will find himself personally threatened – and since he is no man of action, he does not enjoy it at all.

However, success in unravelling this mystery only means that when William next needs help he thinks once more of Mercurius, so in 1676 our hero is packed off on a boat to London as part of the embassy negotiating the marriage of William III and Princess Mary. The trouble is that somebody does not want the wedding to go ahead, so in Dishonour and Obey Mercurius finds that there is more to marriage preparation than sitting down with the young couple to talk them through their vows.

Mercurius is a very reluctant detective, as he never tires of telling us. He likes nothing better than sitting quietly reading a book, ideally in a tavern where people leave him alone. As a man of the cloth, he has a strong moral sense but he is a bit squeamish about the punishments of the day. Of course, he knows that a couple of hours of misery on a scaffold are nothing compared with what awaits an unrepentant criminal in the next life, but he feels responsible for one and not for the other.

He also has no idea at all about women. He is not immune to their charms; in fact, he spends much of his time under the spell of young women, but Mercurius has a little secret.

And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll have to read the books to find out.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a timeless love story! We’ve chosen four of our favourite romantic reads for you this February.

Summer at Hollyhock House, Cathy Wallace

After breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, Faith Coombes is looking for a new start. Her search leads her back to where she began: the village where she grew up, home to her best friend and an old flame. As the summer wears on, Faith finds solace in her familiar surroundings, and her feelings for the boy she once adored begin to rekindle. But as memories of hurt and heartbreak start to resurface, Faith must decide whether she can put the past behind her and give love a second chance.

A charming and heart-warming tale of missed opportunities, self-discovery and the bittersweet sting of true love, Summer at Hollyhock House is sure to bring both tears and laughter.

FIND OUT MORE

Girlfriend, Interrupted, Patricia Caliskan

After a whirlwind romance, Ella Shawe takes the plunge and moves in with her boyfriend, Dan – plus his two children and pet dog. Far from domestic bliss, Ella must now learn to cope with a resistant family, a hellish mother-in-law and Dan’s impossibly perfect ex-wife. But with the future of her blossoming relationship on the line, Ella is determined to find a way to fit into the chaos…

Full of modern dilemmas and sparkling humour, Girlfriend, Interrupted is a fabulous British comedy with a spirited and relatable heroine at its heart.

FIND OUT MORE

Women Behaving Badly, Frances Garrood

Three very different women are all stuck with impossible romances: Alice has an irresponsible ex and a noncommittal lover; Mavis is having an affair with a father of two; and Gabs is a high-class escort who has fallen in love with someone she can never be with. In the eyes of the Catholic church, all three women have gone astray. But their priest, Father Cuthbert, is determined to reform them. As Alice, Mavis and Gabs form an unlikely friendship, each begin to question what is most important to them – and it soon becomes apparent that the lively trio can’t be ‘cured’ that easily…

Original, uplifting and fabulously witty, Women Behaving Badly is a moving tale of heartache, self-love and the warmth and power of female friendship.

FIND OUT MORE

Another You, Jane Cable

Following the breakdown of her marriage, Marie is still learning to heal. But as the head chef of The Smugglers – the pub co-owned by her ex-husband – she finds herself constantly stretched and plagued by headaches. With local celebrations planned for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Marie expects to be busier than ever – but she could never have prepared for the changes that are about to hit. Paxton, a charming American soldier, seems to be just what Marie is looking for: a bit of light-hearted fun. But as they grow closer, she begins to wonder if he is all that he seems…

Drawing on World War II history as well as the horrors of modern combat, Another You is a sweeping story of trauma, courage, and self-reclamation.

FIND OUT MORE

 

Like the look of these romantic reads? Sign up to the Sapere Books newsletter for new releases and deals in romantic fiction.

Sapere Books are proud to be sponsoring the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Popular Fiction Award. Read on to find out more about this year’s sparkling shortlist!

The Glittering Hour, Iona Grey, Simon & Schuster

Set in 1925, The Glittering Hour is a beautifully written historical saga with a clandestine romance at its core. Young socialite Selina Lennox lives a life of reckless hedonism: drinking, partying and often having her exploits captured by the press. However, one night, a chance encounter with struggling artist Lawrence Weston changes everything. An intense attraction between the two blossoms into forbidden love, but as the summer draws to a close, the dark side of pleasure is revealed to both.

Ten years later, Selina’s nine-year-old daughter, Alice, is staying at Blackwood Hall with her grandparents. And as she reads Selina’s letters, the mystery of her mother’s past heartache begins to unravel…

The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton, Anstey Harris, Simon & Schuster

The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton is a charming, powerful story of friendship and healing in the face of heartbreak. Residing in Paris with her long-term partner, cellist Grace Atherton lives in a blissful bubble of music and love. But when her world falls apart, Grace seeks comfort from two unlikely allies: eighty-six-year-old Maurice Williams and tough-talking teenager Nadia. All three have buried secrets and sufferings but, as their bonds grow, each are gradually compelled to open up. As the pain of the past begins to ease, the trio embark on a journey toward renewed happiness, self-acceptance, and hope.

The Flatshare, Beth O’Leary, Quercus Fiction

The Flatshare is a quirky, uplifting romcom that follows two people thrown together at just the right moment. When her relationship falls apart, Tiffy Moore agrees to share a one-bedroom flat with Leon Twomey. However – since Tiffy works 9 to 5 and Leon is a palliative care nurse who works nights and weekends – the two initially never meet. Through post-it note conversations, Tiffy and Leon slowly win each other’s trust and friendship, and are able to support each other through the pressures and frustrations of their difficult circumstances. With its poignant explorations of justice and unhealthy relationships interwoven throughout, The Flatshare is both an entertaining and heart-warmingly tender read.

Poppy’s Recipe for Life, Heidi Swain, Simon & Schuster

Poppy’s Recipe for Life is a warm and witty story of unlooked-for romance, family ties, inner demons, and the power of community. Poppy can’t wait to live out her dream of moving into a cosy cottage in Nightingale Square, close to a community garden where she can indulge her love of making preserves and pickles. However, when old family tensions once again bubble to the surface, her idyllic happiness is threatened. Amidst the complications, Poppy must also learn to get along with her prickly new neighbour, Jacob. But as the two grow closer, she begins to realise that the surly recluse may be more than he seems…

 

The winner will be announced at Leonardo Royal London City Hotel on Monday 2nd March.

Jean Stubbs is the author of the INSPECTOR LINTOTT INVESTIGATIONS series and the BRIEF CHRONICLES series. In celebration of her life and work, we asked her daughter, Gretel McEwen, to share her memories of Jean and her writing.

We lived in a world of stories, the line between reality and fiction often blurred. As a child, my mother had always made up plays and stories — her brother an unwilling but worshipful bit part player. A generation later, my mother made up fictional characters for my brother and I — she brought them to life with special voices and we talked to them. Alfred was a gentle and not very bright giant whose answer to any question was 29!

My mother had her first novel, The Rose Grower, published at the age of 35 and from that moment our house was filled with a whole cast of characters. I came home from school one day to find her weeping over the death of Hanrahan (Hanrahan’s Colony). And the hanging of Mary Blandy (My Grand Enemy) brought very dark clouds into our house.

As my mother surfed her way through this creative theatre, we learned to read the signs — coffee cups on every surface, a sink full of dishes and no plans for supper meant a good and productive writing day. A house full of the smell of baking, a gleaming kitchen and rice pudding in the oven either meant the dreaded writer’s block or a completed first draft. So we too surfed, adjusted and gloried in the passing show. My mother always wrote on our vast Edwardian dining table, and her writing companion was always the current much-loved cat. They had their own specially typed title page upon which to sit, since she had learned the hard way that cats like to sit on the top copy with muddy paws! The mystery cat was the black one who sat on a certain stair — but when you went to stroke him he was not there … another blurred line…

I felt closely involved with each novel as it progressed. At the end of a good writing day, my mother would read aloud to me the latest chapter — a fine reader with a different voice for each character, once more bringing it all to life. She wrote in long hand at first, then, as the book grew, she typed chapters then full copies and carbon copies for her publisher, Macmillan. Later, she was one of the early authors to use a word processor. When the first print draft came from the publisher, we would sit at each end of the dining room table and proofread — calling out corrections to each other and marking them on the manuscript.

Publication day was a celebration, shopping an occasion, dinner parties a reason for more excellent cooking, and royalty cheques a relief! When I left home, I greatly missed being a bit part player in this imaginative and unpredictable life of stories — and I missed the ghostly companions.

 

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE INSPECTOR LINTOTT INVESTIGATIONS

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE BRIEF CHRONICLES

Deborah Swift is the author of PAST ENCOUNTERS and THE OCCUPATION.

During World War Two, the Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by the Germans. I saw a picture online of a British ‘bobby’ or policeman talking to a Nazi soldier, and it sparked my interest. Jersey is a tiny island, only eight miles long, so I was fascinated to find out how the population managed to keep up their morale, when as many as fifteen thousand (yes, you read that right) Germans had taken over. What happened to the Jews on the island, or to the other groups that the Nazis considered ‘undesirable’? How did it feel to be invaded by a foreign army?

The story became much more interesting and involved the more I uncovered. At the beginning of the war, Jersey had been ‘stood down’ for military action, as nobody believed the Germans would want such a small territory. Men of fighting age had been sent elsewhere, so it was a population of women and farmers. When the invasion came, it was a total surprise and there were no defences in place. After a brief bombing campaign, the German army just walked in. Before long, white ‘surrender’ flags were fluttering from Jersey houses.

This was the beginning of Nazi rule on the islands, which was supposed to be a ‘peaceful’ occupation. Of course, when you are invaded it might look peaceful, but underneath the tensions soon began to show. The oppressive Nazi force vastly outnumbered the British people left on the island. Those that remained had to find ways to resist, and ways to outwit the unwanted intruders in their traditional way of life. German rule took over – people had to speak German, cars had to drive on the right, many things that had been allowed before, such as owning a car or a radio, were ‘verboten’ – forbidden. The Germans began a vast building programme to fortify the island, which they intended to use at a military base to attack England. The vast concrete fortifications were built by slave labour.

My story is based on several true accounts, although I have welded them together and compressed them into a fictional narrative. Céline and Rachel’s story was inspired by the true Jersey story of Dorothea Weber, who hid her Jewish friend Hedwig Bercu from the Germans. More on this surprising real life story can be found here.

Fred’s story in The Occupation is based on a number of accounts of life in the Germany army, and in the French Resistance. I was interested to examine the idea of occupation from the point of view of both the occupier, and the occupied. What always interests me in fiction is the conflicts that arise because of the circumstances of war, where one nation is pitted against another, and people who might have been quite amicable before the conflict are forced to swear allegiance to a sharp division between one side and another, when in reality, and in people, many shades of grey exist.

For an overview on the occupation of Jersey, the BBC history site has several pages on this topic. For more on Deborah’s books, find her at www.deborahswift.com or on Twitter @swiftstory.

 

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE OCCUPATION

 

Image Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-228-0326-34A / Dey / CC-BY-SA 3.0. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Hi Michael! Welcome to the Sapere Books blog!

We are very excited to be publishing your HUNTER KERR detective series. Could you tell us a bit about what first got you into writing?

I started at about the age of twelve, and it was a science fiction apocalyptic story, written in two exercise books from Woolworths.  I had an uncle, who was not only an avid reader but had a wonderful imagination, and as a teenager, I would spend many autumn and winter nights with him developing characters and drafting first chapters in front of a glowing coal fire with just a single table lamp burning. It made for a wonderful atmosphere and it was my uncle who introduced me to crime fiction.

Where and how do you like to write?

I have a study set out with everything I need. I start my day walking my dog on fields at the back of my home, and as I’m walking, I am working through what I will be writing when I return. I then hammer away at my keyboard for about five hours, doing some refining along the way, and then take my dog out for his second walk, reflect on the piece I have just written and do a mental edit. I’ll then return and make a few adjustments.

What part of the writing process do you find most difficult?

I am a constructive plotter, and so work out a beginning and end, and build in significant events in the middle, to drive the story. In my study I have a huge whiteboard, and I ‘run’ my stories as if they were a major incident (from my detective days), with photographs, timelines, and spider lines connecting characters to story, so I can keep track.

How much research do you normally do before you start writing?

Not a great deal. Because my crime novels are based very much on my previous career as a detective, I am drawing on those experiences.

How real do your characters become?

Many of my characters are based on people I know or have met, so it’s quite easy for them to own their story.

Do you ever feel guilty about killing off your characters?

Not the villains. As I have said above, they are generally based on the villains I have come across during my career and so I find bumping them off quite cathartic.  However, I have just killed off one of my leading detectives in my Hunter Kerr series and I had a great deal of angst about doing so.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on a new character who is a forensic psychologist in a psychological thriller, which is a huge shift for me as my previous novels are police procedurals.

What is your favourite book?

I am such an avid reader I don’t have a favourite book or character. However, there are a few recent reads that stand out among others, and they are: Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes; The Dry by Jane Harper; Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson; Fall from Grace by Tim Weaver, plus The Bone Field by Simon Kernick.

Which book do you wish you had written?

The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver – I love the unique element of a paraplegic crime scene examiner detecting a crime from his bed.

Tell us something surprising about you!

I am also an established artist. I have exhibited in London’s Mall Gallery with The Society of Marine Artists, The Society of Oil Painters and the British Federation of Artists. In 2009 I was awarded the SAA Professional Artist of the Year.

 

Michael Fowler is the author of the DS HUNTER KERR INVESTIGATIONS series.  

Click here to order HEART OF THE DEMON – the first book in the series – now!

COLD DEATH – the second book in the series – is available to pre-order.

 

Happy new year to all of our wonderful authors and readers, and thank you for your continued faith and support! 2019 saw us expand our list with some incredible titles and we can’t wait to share more with you this year.

Here’s what to expect from 2020:

We will soon launch our non-fiction list, led by Sapere co-founder Richard Simpson. Richard is on the lookout for military history titles – backlist in particular – and aims to launch the first few books on our second anniversary in March.

Our ‘call for nautical fiction’ has been successful and we will soon be releasing Irving A. Greenfield’s Depth Force series – thrilling submarine adventures set in the 90s, as well as the first in a series of Second World War naval thrillers by Justin Fox, and a trilogy of Tudor nautical adventure books by David Field.

We also have plenty of exciting new projects from our current authors, so look out for the next books in the series you already love! These include the final instalment of Alexandra Walsh’s Marquess House Trilogy; the next ghostly adventure in Linda Stratmann’s Mina Scarletti series; a new Lady Fan regency mystery from Elizabeth Bailey and a return of Charles Dickens as private investigator in J C Briggs’ Victorian series.

We also have brand new authors launching next year and plenty more fan favourites! Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with our latest releases and monthly deals.

Renowned for her wit, humour, realism and sparkling dialogue, Jane Austen is hailed as one of England’s greatest writers. To celebrate her birthday (16 December 1775), we asked three of our Regency romance authors to tell us what her work means to them and how it has influenced their own writing.

Elizabeth Bailey, author of the Brides By Chance series

When I first read Pride and Prejudice, I was already educated to a degree on the period by an addiction to the works of Georgette Heyer. It was a revelation reading a novel contemporary to the era. The style was different, uncluttered by period description, Austen assuming that knowledge in her readers not necessarily available to the 20^th century eye. Yet the detailed descriptions of the lives she depicts gave me a rich understanding of the thinking and mores of the day, and her dry humour and insights into humanity’s foibles made me realise that people don’t change very much. The same emotional dilemmas beset the human heart, regardless of the time in which they may be living. The trappings may be different, the moral values tighter or looser, but essentially the human condition remains constant. An invaluable lesson for a writer.

Order IN HONOUR BOUND here.

Or find out more about the Brides By Chance series here.

Valerie Holmes, author of The Yorkshire Saga

My work was strongly influenced by Jane Austen’s novels, which are as refreshing today as they were when she wrote them.  Social realism and romantic comedy blend subtly to provide moral lessons on life as she saw it: she could have coined the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’.

In 1775, Jane, a lively rector’s daughter was born into a world that restricted women by gender, social strata, the control of male relatives and wealth or a lack of it. Jane described Regency, but did not glorify fashionable finery, wealth, social meetings or snobbery — deliberate or unintentional.

Whether master or servant she wanted people to be unselfish, just and to be aware of the dangers of making quick and personal judgements.

Jane revealed the failings of would-be lovers, but also their ability to change. The resulting memorable novels have happy, hopeful endings.

Order TO LOVE, HONOUR AND OBEY here.

Or find out more about The Yorkshire Saga here.

Natalie Kleinman, author of The Reluctant Bride (forthcoming)

I couldn’t honestly tell you when Jane Austen first came into my life but, when she did, she came to stay. As with any society, there is good and there is bad, the haves and the have nots, but as a reader and a lover of romantic fiction I want to be whisked away to a time and place where I can remove myself from the mundane to a world of fashion, excitement and yes, romance, and that’s what her books do for me. Not that Miss Austen is universally kind to her cast of characters, but isn’t that what makes them seem so real? She has a talent that makes them leap from the page.

The films and TV productions that depict her work have only added to my enjoyment with their amazing sets and beautiful costumes. So on this day, her birthday, I would like to thank her for the abundance of pleasure she has given me over so many years.

Natalie’s Regency romances are forthcoming in 2020 and will feature spirited heroines, determined to succeed against the odds.

 

Featured image credit: Photo by Elaine Howlin on Unsplash.

Hi Keith. Welcome to the Sapere Books blog!

Can you tell us a little bit about what first inspired you to write the Torquil McKinnon Investigations?

Well, I have been a crime fiction reader most of my life and always wanted to be a crime writer. I began writing children’s stories for The People’s Friend when I was a medical student at the University of Dundee. Then when I qualified, I wrote for the Kingston-upon-Hull’s dial-a-bedtime story service, until I had to give it up and focus on my medical practice. One of my forebears was a piper, and I thought that if I ever did write a crime novel it would have a piper in it. The germ of an idea was there.

A few years later I started having bagpipe lessons from a good friend and golf partner, who happened to be a retired pipe major. So, actually playing the pipes seemed to germinate the idea. Then we went on a family holiday to Tobermory in Mull and the whole thing seemed to unfold before me. A remote Outer Hebridean island with a primitive golf course and the smallest police force in the country, the Hebridean Constabulary. The ingredients were there, it just took a visit to a Highland Gathering on the mainland and I started to plot The Gathering Murders.  The characters grew on me and the series just developed.

What was your reason for creating the fictional island of West Uist instead of choosing a real Scottish location?

I suppose I just fell into it. I had written several westerns long before I ever went to the USA, so I just started writing, amalgamating my own memories into my own wee island in much the same way that I had created towns and counties in the Southwest of America. I wanted West Uist to be Scotland in miniature. This is why the terrain varies, there is a great variety of surnames (far greater than in the Outer Hebrides) and I have introduced a different theme with each novel.

What are your typical writing habits? Do you work on a set schedule each day? Do you plan thoroughly before you begin writing?

I am an opportunistic writer, so I write when I have done all of my essential chores for the day, such as looking after my small practice. I am also a medical journalist and have a written a weekly column in the local newspaper for 38 years, so I can identify with Calum Steele, the editor of the West Uist Chronicle. Because I used to write short children’s stories and now write a newspaper column, I tend to write in short segments. It has become part of my writing psyche. This suits my opportunistic method of working.

I carry a notebook everywhere and am forever jotting snippets down, to be incorporated later. I plot late at night in longhand. When I am actually writing then it will be on the computer, and that can be literally any part of the day.

I do plan it out and have never felt brave enough to just type and see where the story goes. I have  a method of writing a novel that seems to work for me. A crime novel has so many elements to it: main plot, subplots, clues and red herrings. I work out each chapter and have a fair idea of what has to happen in each one.

What part of the writing process do you find most difficult?

Plotting is never easy. I go around asking myself ‘what if?’ That’s why I need my notebook handy. I would say it is 80 per cent of the work in writing the novel.

When I am working on the plot, I often play the pipes like Torquil (except he is a virtuoso and I am so abysmal that I am forbidden from playing if there is anyone else in the house). And I also putt golf balls across the landing into my study or chip balls onto the settee. Strangely enough, it facilitates ideas.

In terms of the visceral structure of the novel when I actually write, the middle part is the hardest for me. The first part is scene setting, putting people in the right places and ensuring that the crime happens early on. The middle part is about planting the clues, the red herrings and keeping the subplots going without letting them take over. The end part I already know what should happen, so the middle is about ensuring that you have put everything in place so that you can build it up for the final denouement.

Do you always know ‘who done it’ before you start drafting each novel?

Yes, in virtually all of my books I know who, where, when and how. But, I have to admit that I have on one occasion changed my mind while well into the story. It seemed to work, but I’m saying no more!

The sixth book in the series is due out soon – will that be the end for Torquil, or do you have ideas for more mysteries?

Gosh, I am honestly not sure. I would like to think there will be more, but I am working on other projects at the moment, which I am excited about. Torquil may not have finished with me yet.

And finally – tell us something surprising about yourself!

One of my hobbies is conjuring and I am a paid up member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

 

Click here for more information on Keith Moray’s Torquil McKinnon Investigations series.

 THE DEADLY STILL, book five in the series, is available to preorder now.

GET THE DEADLY STILL HERE!

David Field is the author of The Tudor Saga Series. The Queen In Waiting is the fifth book in the series.

There were many victims during that turbulent period in English history that we call the Tudor era, and not all of them were obvious. ‘Popular’ history has a habit of creating fixed mental images of those who lived their lives in the maelstrom of Tudor Court politics, and it’s only when you examine the actual facts that the doubts begin to creep in. A  prime example of a Tudor ‘identity’ whose place in the ‘fake news’ of the period has set her character in concrete is Mary Tudor, the only child of Henry VIII and his first – and longest lasting – Queen, Katherine of Aragon. Mention Mary and the word ‘Bloody’ appears like magic before her name, conjured up by usage and with little regard to the circumstances that led her to burn Protestants at the stake.

Mary was born in February 1516, the only surviving child from her mother Katherine’s long and miserable litany of stillbirths and miscarriages. Katherine may well have suffered from gynaecological problems that Mary inherited, because Mary is recorded as having endured menstrual disorders as a young woman. These were no doubt the early warnings of the phantom pregnancies and uterine blockages that would deny her issue of her own, and lead ultimately to her death.

But in her very early years we are given a picture of a rosy-cheeked, chuckling little infant with her father’s distinctive red hair being bounced gleefully on Henry’s knee as he resolutely hid from the world his inner torment that Mary was not a boy. His obsession with begetting a male heir, more perhaps than any natural lust for Anne Boleyn, led to Katherine’s eclipse, and as she entered puberty Mary was forced to watch from very distant sidelines as her beloved mother suffered the public humiliation of the annulment of her marriage to Henry, and her replacement on the throne by ‘the night crow’ Anne Boleyn. Anne completed the insult by giving birth, in almost indecent haste, to Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth.

Humiliation was piled on humiliation as Mary was declared a bastard, and her place in the succession was taken by Elizabeth. The newly demoted ‘Lady Mary’ was stripped of her own former household and sent to live with Elizabeth in Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, denied access to her mother Katherine, who pined her way to a heartbroken death in a remote castle in Cambridgeshire. Mary was reported to have been ‘inconsolable’ at her mother’s death, and suffered from unspecified illnesses for several years during which she was estranged from her father.

The execution of Anne Boleyn and the bastardisation of Elizabeth would have been of little comfort to Mary once Henry’s new wife Jane Seymour gave birth to the heir apparent Edward, who, under the baleful influence of the Seymours who governed the nation as part of his Regency Council, proved to be far more aggressively Protestant than his late father, while Mary was equally determined to both pursue and promote the Catholic religion of her late mother. The two never saw eye to eye, and during a disastrous attempt at reconciliation during the Christmas of 1550, the thirty-four year old Mary was reduced to tears when rebuked by her thirteen year old half-brother, in front of the entire Court, for her fervent adherence to her faith.

The death of Edward was probably the greatest catalyst for Mary’s subsequent actions. It was learned that in his fear that England would slide back into Catholicism should Mary become Queen, Edward had bequeathed the throne to their distant cousin Jane Grey, from an obscure Leicestershire offshoot of the wider Tudor family. Not only that, but the Council of State initially supported Jane, and Mary was obliged to claim her throne by superior force of arms.

She was now 37, beyond the customary ‘sell by’ date of Tudor women, unmarried, childless, and suffering from gynaecological issues. She was probably both flattered and relieved to receive an offer of marriage from her second cousin Philip of Spain. There seems to be little doubt that for him it was a marriage of greed, furthering his ambition to rule most of Europe, but for Mary it seems to have been a love match. Then history repeated itself through a phantom pregnancy and a terrible slow decline with what may well have been ovarian cancer. One can only feel desperately sorry for the lonely old woman on her death bed when one reads that, on learning of Mary’s demise, Philip wrote to his sister that “I felt a reasonable regret for her death.”

Is it surprising that Mary Tudor was hardly a bundle of laughs during her lifetime? Her mother was publicly humiliated, she herself was bastardised by her loving father, her half brother ridiculed her faith, her Council of State preferred a country girl over her as Queen, and her younger sister was prettier, more socially accomplished, and more loved by the people, while her husband regarded sexual relations between them as some sort of public duty. Add to that her almost permanent ill-health, and it is difficult not to reach behind the public persona she left behind in order to give her a consoling cuddle.

In the latest novel in my Tudor series, The Queen in Waiting, I chose to depict the reign of Mary through the eyes of Elizabeth, another victim of their times. I could only describe the events of Elizabeth’s life through the actions of Mary, and they were harsh when considered without regard to the events that forged them. Sinned against or sinning? Your choice.

 

Order THE QUEEN IN WAITING here.

Or find out more about The Tudor Saga Series here.

 

Image credit: Portrait of Mary I of England and Ireland by Hans Eworth. (Public domain).

Simon Michael is the author of the Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers, set in the 1960s. The Waxwork Corpse is Book Five in the series.

Like all the books in the series, The Waxwork Corpse is based on real events and real cases but this one you may remember, because it made the headlines.

In 1984 a man was arrested in connection with the death of his wife, a body having been found in Wastwater, the deepest lake in England, almost a decade after she went missing, supposedly with her lover.

I learned of the case while waiting in a barristers’ robing room for a jury to return with a verdict. How the killer had dropped the body tied to a kerbstone, in the middle of the night, from an inflatable dinghy into the dark waters of Wastwater. How it had, in a one in a million mischance, landed on the ledge of an underwater pinnacle named Tiffin’s Rock. How, in another extraordinary twist of fate, the ledge was at the perfect depth for the water temperature to preserve the body (the tissues had become “adipose”, wax-like, and so remained recognisable so many years later). And how, extraordinarily, the police happened to be looking for a missing young woman in the same area shortly after an amateur diver first saw the body underwater.

It would, I knew, make a wonderful story, and some years later, following the killer’s conviction for manslaughter and his discharge from prison, I got in touch with his solicitors. Did they think the man would allow me to interview him with a view to writing the story, I asked? They replied in the affirmative and, to my complete astonishment, sent me the case papers, witness statements, photographs, pathology and scientific reports — the complete file.

By then the man was out of prison, running a small B&B in a remote part of England. I got in touch and asked if I could come to interview him, and he agreed. Perhaps rather thoughtlessly in retrospect, I decided that the trip offered the perfect opportunity to take my wife and new-born daughter for a short break away from London.

The plan was to drive from London on Friday afternoon and spend the weekend at the B&B. My wife could walk on the beach while I conducted the interview. However, what nobody predicted, including The Met Office, was that one of the worst storms of the century was due to strike Britain that day.

By dusk, tall vehicles on the motorway in front of us were blowing over. Power lines were brought down by uprooted trees, huge swathes of the countryside were plunged into complete darkness as the electricity supply failed and torrential rain was hurled from the skies. Traffic was guided off the motorway and down narrow country lanes, at one point even being directed over waterlogged fields.

We finally arrived at our destination, a small seaside town, several hours late and in pitch darkness. It was still pouring, the fierce winds howling through the deserted streets and whipping the rain almost horizontal. There was no electricity; even the traffic lights were out.

Eventually, we found the address. We climbed out of the car and, immediately drenched, stepped over dislodged branches and other detritus and ran up the path to the front door. We were exhausted and irritable, with a baby who’d been inconsolable for hours.

I knocked on what we hoped was our host’s front door. At first there was no answer, but then a flickering light swayed down the hallway towards the door. A huge shadow darkened the glass, and the door was opened by an extremely tall man holding a storm lantern.

It was a scene straight out of a horror movie. He offered us hot drinks but my wife, completely spooked by then, insisted we went straight to bed. We climbed the narrow stairs, tired and famished, and entered our dark bedroom. My wife barred the door with a chair.

The next day, the weather was improved and the power restored. I asked my questions about the case and the evidence and the killer’s motivation, while my wife took the baby for a walk on the beach. The interview went well, and it was agreed that I could use the story as long as the man’s identity was obscured to protect his children.

Halfway through I realised that the man sitting opposite me was admitting, completely calmly, that he killed his wife in a fit of uncontrolled anger.

That afternoon I reported some of what I was told to my wife. As I repeated the story and saw the growing horror on her face, it dawned on me that staying for the weekend in an isolated B&B with a man possessing such an uncontrolled temper that he could kill his wife with his bare hands, no longer seemed like such a good idea.

We left that afternoon.

If you want to find out what the killer’s real motivation was, and whether or not he was actually guilty of murder, you’ll have to read The Waxwork Corpse!

 

Order THE WAXWORK CORPSE here.

Or find out more about the Charles Holborne series here.

Graham Brack is the author of the JOSEF SLONSKÝ INVESTIGATIONS series.

When I started writing the book that became Lying and Dying, I didn’t have a detective in mind. There would have to be one, of course, and because I wanted it to be realistic he would have to be part of a team, but the character of Slonský was not central to my thinking.

I can remember precisely when he appeared. My brother and I were at the National Theatre; during the interval I described the story, and together we arrived at the notion that a senior Czech detective must have worked under Communism and would therefore probably have some skeletons in his closet. Moreover, everyone he knew would have similar problems, so it would be understandable if he had little or no respect for anyone of his own vintage.

The world-weary detective is a lazy trope, so I made Slonský enthusiastic about his work. He loves his job. He believes it matters, and he has no patience with corrupt colleagues. And then it came to me that the biography I had proposed for him, in which he spent around half his career under Communism, and half after it, meant he must be coming up to retirement. That provided a rich vein of character analysis, because he dreads retirement; there is nothing else in his life, so he wants to go on as long as he can, and the fact that his bosses know that gives them the only hold they have over him.

Thus, Captain Lukas is able to get him to take a trainee officer, Jan Navrátil. Slonský has had partners before, but they quickly apply for transfers. Navrátil can’t do that. He is a fast-tracked police academy officer with a law degree, fierce intelligence, a strict moral code and an open and trusting nature. Slonský comes to realise that Navrátil is incorruptible and probably always will be, and that when he is gone Navrátil has the potential to reach the very top of the tree – provided he listens to Slonský’s sage advice. Shaping Navrátil’s police career will give Slonský the nearest thing he can have to a legacy. Later they are joined by a woman officer, Kristýna Peiperová, who doesn’t have a law degree but balances that by knowing much more about how the world works. Slonský enjoys training her too, and he honestly does not know which of them will get the top job first, but he doesn’t care. Male or female doesn’t matter; all he wants is someone who can bring about the clean, efficient police force he wanted to join.

I sat down to write one Saturday morning, and after a page or so the police car pulled up and Slonský climbed out. Battered, inelegant, disinclined to waste any effort, cunning, cynical and sharp-tongued, he appeared in my mind’s eye and somehow took over. A story in which he was a necessary figure but not the star was seized and made into a section of his biography. Whenever he walked into a scene, it livened up, and I found if I just listened to him he told me so much about himself.

He doesn’t eat well, but he eats a lot. He is a typical Czech, he believes, devoted to beer and sausages. He lives in a dingy one-room flat, so he spends most evenings in bars. He was married, but his wife left him, and he took it for granted that they were divorced, which proved not to be the case. He believes that nobody can work on an empty stomach, that you should never miss a chance to eat or pee (because you don’t know when the next one will come) and that not everything about the old days was bad.

His name was derived from the Czech word slon, meaning elephant. It seemed appropriate, given his size and his memory, and it was gratifyingly similar to the Czech surname Slánský.

After Lying and Dying was published, a woman wrote to me to say that Slonský was appallingly non-PC in his language but his instincts were good; he was meticulously fair, and therefore free from prejudices such as sexism and racism; and, she said, while she wouldn’t invite him to dinner, if she were ever murdered she would want him to be investigating her death. I think he would allow himself a smile if he heard that.

Click here to order LYING AND DYING now!