The Dan Foster Mysteries follow the adventures of Bow Street Runner Dan Foster from the 1790s. It’s a series that depends on a steady supply of crimes, and though I’m free to invent what I like, it’s important that those crimes are historically plausible. Many crimes no longer exist – returning from transportation, for example, or highway robbery. Where they do still exist, methods have changed: burglars don’t often have to remove shutters from windows before they can break in, and arsonists don’t rely on a tinderbox to get a fire going. That’s why many of the cases mentioned in the Dan Foster Mysteries are based on actual investigations carried out by the Bow Street Runners. In The Chiff-Chaff Club Murders: A Dan Foster Mystery Novella   (free to newsletter subscribers; see below ) I’ve used two cases. The first is based on the prosecution of thirty-eight year old Thomas Cannon and thirty-two year old James Coddington in 1808, which depended on the laws against sodomy – laws w...

I was particularly delighted to receive my copy of The House on Hunter Street from David Ebsworth because I’d seen an early draft of the novel and we’d discussed aspects of the women’s suffrage movement. While I don’t believe there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to tell the history, it is more complex than many people realise and there’s often a tendency to cling to simplistic interpretations. For example, the idea that the suffragettes won the vote for women is a very popular way of presenting the campaign, but it’s very far from telling the full story or being the only narrative that deserves to be heard.     The House on Hunter Street brings alive one of those perhaps lesser-known narratives of the suffrage movement by focussing on the perspective of a working-class woman, Cari Maddox, and linking the women’s campaign with the struggles of the labour movement. Cari’s story is told against a backdrop of the 1911 dockers’ strikes in Liverpool, which in its turn brings in racia...

Lies at Her Door is a psychological thriller set in one of the more affluent parts of affluent Clifton in Bristol. As a Bristolian, I enjoyed the setting and recognising places familiar to me – though it can feel a bit disconcerting to picture murky deeds and doings going on in them! Still, murky deeds and doings can take place anywhere, as thrillers like this suggest.   Lucy Freeman is in her thirties and after a lifetime of put-downs from her fashion-model-thin and impeccably dressed mother is low on self-esteem. She’s always been unfavourably compared to her rock-star brother who is handsome, glamourous, rich and self-centred. Now her mother is disabled by Parkinson’s, Lucy has to stay at home to look after her, which she does lovingly and conscientiously. Her father, a university lecturer, isn’t much help, and does little to support his daughter. Lucy’s life is about as bleak as it can be.   Something needs to change. Unfortunately, change is often not for the better a...