A regular feature in the magazine, Private Eye, is Pseuds Corner, an absolute delight for anyone who enjoys reading pretentious language popped and brought down to earth like a bust balloon. So that's one pleasure, yes? Call it P1.
Another pleasure is, I'm the first to admit, is eating chocolate. Call that P2.
What a wonderful moment it is when P1 and P2 is combined. Here, without a word of exaggeration, is what came wrapped round a posh box of chocs.
"Chocolate making is a science as well as an art. (Fair enough, but here's where the writer really spits on his hands and gets going.). To be fully appreciated, my chocolates are best eaten in a quiet space with an ambient temperature of 21 degrees C and a glass of still water to cleanse the palate. Your senses of tastes and smell are particularly attuned at 11 am and 6 pm when the distinctive ingredients I bring together will really work their magic."
Yeah, right. That sort of thing really defies comment but it’s clearly written by someone who’s incapable of calling a spade anything but a manually operated earth moving device. Nice chocolates, though.
On another note...(Tra la!) I use Wordpress to host my blog and one of the things it has is a nifty little device that tells you how many people have looked at the blogs. In February it was – get this – 20,126.
Gosh. So, if you’re reading this, you are not alone... Well, you might be. You might be curled up with your laptop, the cat, pretentious chocolate and a glass of something or a cup of the drink that cheers but not inebriates, as the Victorians (bless them!) used to refer to tea. Or coffee or hot chocolate with marshmallows (In cyberspace no one knows if you’ve got cream). You know what I mean.
Anyway, after having a dekko at the figures, I got my calculator out. It’s got Donald Duck on the lid and when you lift it up, it plays “It’s A Small World After All.” which means I usually count numbers on my fingers. However, even if I take my socks off and use my toes, I can’t get up to 20,126 (it’s an evolutionary thing) so I enlisted the help of Donald. And Donald tells me that 20,126 divided by the 28 days of February is 718.78571 per day. So if you happen to bump into the unfortunate soul who’s only made it to point 78571, slip them a bar of (pretentious) chocolate, treat them kindly and, with luck and your help, they may become a whole person.
Happy Mothers' Day everyone. I hope you got some chocolate!
Monday, March 11, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
The refreshment of the spirit.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy Pevensie, after various trying events, such as falling through a magic picture into the Narnian ocean, encountering invisible enemies, sea serpents and being sold (briefly) as a slave ends up in the scary magician’s secret room with a book of spells. What’s she’s looking for (and eventually finds) is a spell to make the invisible Dufflepuds visible but on the way comes across a spell for The refreshment of the spirit. 
I’ll be honest here; if I was asked what would refresh the spirit, I’d immediately think of a tall glass of something alcoholic with ice cubes in it, the sort of holiday that comes at the end of aeroplane journeys or, if I was being healthy, a bracing walk. What CS Lewis comes up with is a story, the best story Lucy’s ever read and, while she’s reading it, she gets totally drawn in, so the story become real, and she’s completely refreshed.
I hope we’ve all had that sort of experience and – I’ve got to hand it to Lewis here – that absolutely is the caterpillar’s boots, as Lord Peter Wimsey said. Stories, whether printed or in ebook form, can completely refresh the spirit. I remember ages ago reading one of those old green-and-white penguin classic crime paperbacks which had a defensive little message on the back. “Detective stories,” it said (I’m quoting from memory here) “are enjoyed by many of our greatest minds and leading men as a relaxation after the cares and troubles of the day”. While one part of me is muttering “patronizing gits,” another would like to point out that if you happen to be one our greatest minds and leading men (or women – I’m not fussy!) I have an excellent series of detective stories featuring Jack Haldean available elsewhere on the website or from, as they say, all good bookshops. And Kindle.
Well, I needed some refreshment of the spirit this week. As Marvin the paranoid android said, “Life! Don’t talk to me about life!” and, amongst the various crumpled leaves in my bed of roses, was the fact that about the last four or five books I’d read had been complete pants. So I tried my own spell for The refreshment of the spirit and pitched on Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Witches books, starring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies. The redoubtable threesome crop up in many other books, of course, but what a sequence! Do yourself a favour and read them. I sometimes think it’s a shame that Terry Pratchett’s got such a reputation for being funny. Yes, of course he’s funny, but he’s so much else as well. And I love the way he bounces folklore around, like a shuttlecock at a badminton game. Elves, for instances. Tolkien was far too reverential about elves and gave Legolas far too much poetry. I prefer Terry Pratchett’s elves:
Wow!
I’ll be honest here; if I was asked what would refresh the spirit, I’d immediately think of a tall glass of something alcoholic with ice cubes in it, the sort of holiday that comes at the end of aeroplane journeys or, if I was being healthy, a bracing walk. What CS Lewis comes up with is a story, the best story Lucy’s ever read and, while she’s reading it, she gets totally drawn in, so the story become real, and she’s completely refreshed.
I hope we’ve all had that sort of experience and – I’ve got to hand it to Lewis here – that absolutely is the caterpillar’s boots, as Lord Peter Wimsey said. Stories, whether printed or in ebook form, can completely refresh the spirit. I remember ages ago reading one of those old green-and-white penguin classic crime paperbacks which had a defensive little message on the back. “Detective stories,” it said (I’m quoting from memory here) “are enjoyed by many of our greatest minds and leading men as a relaxation after the cares and troubles of the day”. While one part of me is muttering “patronizing gits,” another would like to point out that if you happen to be one our greatest minds and leading men (or women – I’m not fussy!) I have an excellent series of detective stories featuring Jack Haldean available elsewhere on the website or from, as they say, all good bookshops. And Kindle.
Well, I needed some refreshment of the spirit this week. As Marvin the paranoid android said, “Life! Don’t talk to me about life!” and, amongst the various crumpled leaves in my bed of roses, was the fact that about the last four or five books I’d read had been complete pants. So I tried my own spell for The refreshment of the spirit and pitched on Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Witches books, starring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies. The redoubtable threesome crop up in many other books, of course, but what a sequence! Do yourself a favour and read them. I sometimes think it’s a shame that Terry Pratchett’s got such a reputation for being funny. Yes, of course he’s funny, but he’s so much else as well. And I love the way he bounces folklore around, like a shuttlecock at a badminton game. Elves, for instances. Tolkien was far too reverential about elves and gave Legolas far too much poetry. I prefer Terry Pratchett’s elves:
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
Wow!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Trouble with spam
By the way, if you leave a comment, could you drop me a quick email? I've had trouble with spam and a lot of legitimate comments seem to end up in the spam. I want to make sure your comment is recognised
Royal Par-King!
The news that Richard the Third’s skeleton has been found in a car-park in Leicester has to be the most interesting news of the week. (For a fascinating personal sidelight on the story, pop over to my pal, Donna Fletcher Crow’s, blog at Deeds of Darkness, Deeds of Light http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/articles.php)
Apart from a sister who lives near Leicester, I can’t claim any personal connection with the not-so-merry monarch, but I did entertain myself, while doing the ironing the other night, by watching the Channel 4 documentary, The King in the Carpark. on Channel 4’s version of iplayer, Four on Demand. It’s up there for another 24 days if you want to take a shufti.
The programme was fronted by the comedian, Simon Farnaby, which, for the channel that brought us Time Team, seems odd. Surely this was a job for Tony Robinson?
I’ve got a shrewd suspicion that it started life as a comedy project that got overtaken by events. The thing is, the chair of the Richard 111 Society, Philippa Langley, looked like such a sitting duck for future sniggering. As she entered the brick and asphalt social services car park, she pointed to where a parking bay was marked with the letter R (the other letters of the alphabet were there, marking the various spaces) and announced tremulously that Richard was there. Yes, that’s right; under the R.
The only thing was that she was right. And that was weird. The archaeologists obligingly dug where she’d indicated and – Lo and Behold! – two leg bones and a curved spine later and blow me, we were looking at the guy himself. The archaeologists clearly didn’t quite know what to make of it; at this stage they hadn’t even found any proof that they were on the site of the old Greyfriars Priory, where Richard was rumoured to have been buried, let alone finding pay-dirt straight off. These Indiana Jones type goings-on don’t generally happen on real digs. What was odd, was that Richard, poor bloke, in addition to his other woes, had a Roman nail rattling round inside his skull. So not only did he have a catalogue of injuries to fuel an entire series of Casualty, he’d also fallen on a very meaty nail. It just wasn’t his day...
As Simon Faranby said, as the science got more and more precise, narrowing down exactly who the bones belonged too, the history got more and more foggier. Because, although Philippa Langley, who raised money for the dig, clearly believed that every nasty thing said about R111 was Tudor propaganda (and was occasionally in tears, such were the depth of her feelings) you can ask, even if you’re not an avid fan of Henry V11, exactly what did happen to the Princes in the Tower. They just seem to vanish. And, as the boys, Edward and Richard, were the sons of Edward 1V, and therefore the obvious heirs to the throne, it seems very much to Uncle Richard’s advantage that they should disappear.
In 1674 the skeletons of two children were discovered under the stairs leading to the White Tower. Charles 11 believed the remains were those of the Princes and had them re-buried in Westminster Abbey. The bones were examined in 1933 and found to belong to two children, one aged seven to eleven and the other eleven to thirteen. As they’d obviously been buried surreptitiously and were the right age, it seems likely that they are, indeed, the remains of the two boys.
The clincher in the chain of evidence to prove the Car Park King was really and truly Richard 111 came in the person of Michael Ibsen, descended from Richard 111’s sister. His DNA was a match and – bingo! There we were. Even Simon Farnaby couldn’t find much comic relief there as it really was jaw dropping.
Michael Ibsen is the nephew of Richard 111, seventeen generations removed. If the story about the Princes is true, maybe it’s just as well those seventeen generations are in the way...
Apart from a sister who lives near Leicester, I can’t claim any personal connection with the not-so-merry monarch, but I did entertain myself, while doing the ironing the other night, by watching the Channel 4 documentary, The King in the Carpark. on Channel 4’s version of iplayer, Four on Demand. It’s up there for another 24 days if you want to take a shufti.
The programme was fronted by the comedian, Simon Farnaby, which, for the channel that brought us Time Team, seems odd. Surely this was a job for Tony Robinson?
I’ve got a shrewd suspicion that it started life as a comedy project that got overtaken by events. The thing is, the chair of the Richard 111 Society, Philippa Langley, looked like such a sitting duck for future sniggering. As she entered the brick and asphalt social services car park, she pointed to where a parking bay was marked with the letter R (the other letters of the alphabet were there, marking the various spaces) and announced tremulously that Richard was there. Yes, that’s right; under the R.
The only thing was that she was right. And that was weird. The archaeologists obligingly dug where she’d indicated and – Lo and Behold! – two leg bones and a curved spine later and blow me, we were looking at the guy himself. The archaeologists clearly didn’t quite know what to make of it; at this stage they hadn’t even found any proof that they were on the site of the old Greyfriars Priory, where Richard was rumoured to have been buried, let alone finding pay-dirt straight off. These Indiana Jones type goings-on don’t generally happen on real digs. What was odd, was that Richard, poor bloke, in addition to his other woes, had a Roman nail rattling round inside his skull. So not only did he have a catalogue of injuries to fuel an entire series of Casualty, he’d also fallen on a very meaty nail. It just wasn’t his day...
As Simon Faranby said, as the science got more and more precise, narrowing down exactly who the bones belonged too, the history got more and more foggier. Because, although Philippa Langley, who raised money for the dig, clearly believed that every nasty thing said about R111 was Tudor propaganda (and was occasionally in tears, such were the depth of her feelings) you can ask, even if you’re not an avid fan of Henry V11, exactly what did happen to the Princes in the Tower. They just seem to vanish. And, as the boys, Edward and Richard, were the sons of Edward 1V, and therefore the obvious heirs to the throne, it seems very much to Uncle Richard’s advantage that they should disappear.
In 1674 the skeletons of two children were discovered under the stairs leading to the White Tower. Charles 11 believed the remains were those of the Princes and had them re-buried in Westminster Abbey. The bones were examined in 1933 and found to belong to two children, one aged seven to eleven and the other eleven to thirteen. As they’d obviously been buried surreptitiously and were the right age, it seems likely that they are, indeed, the remains of the two boys.
The clincher in the chain of evidence to prove the Car Park King was really and truly Richard 111 came in the person of Michael Ibsen, descended from Richard 111’s sister. His DNA was a match and – bingo! There we were. Even Simon Farnaby couldn’t find much comic relief there as it really was jaw dropping.
Michael Ibsen is the nephew of Richard 111, seventeen generations removed. If the story about the Princes is true, maybe it’s just as well those seventeen generations are in the way...
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Romulus and Remus
I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to the programme, but a fairly regular Thursday morning date for me is BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time with Melvin Bragg. If you can’t be near a radio at nine in the morning, it’s on BBC iplayer and usually worth catching. I’m not sure why it’s called In Our Time, by the way, as that sounds like current affairs. It isn’t. The topics discussed range all over the place, from astronomy to Robin Hood. The format is to gather together three academics, specialists in their field, and launch them at a subject.
This week’s topic was a discussion by experts on Ancient Rome, Mary Beard, Tim Cornell and Peter Wiseman, about Rome’s foundation myth of Romulus and Remus. Now, at the risk of impinging on my pal, Jane Finnis’s territory, I found it fascinating.
You see, as foundation myths go, it’s very odd. Very briefly, the twins, Romulus and Remus are the children of Rhea Silva, daughter of King Numitor. Wicked Uncle Amulius, Numitor’s brother, seized power, killed Numitor and all his male heirs and forced Rhea Silva to become a vestal virgin. So far, so fairy tale, especially when the god Mars pops in for a fling with Rhea Silva. The resulting twin boys (difficult to explain for a vestal virgin!) are thrown into the river Tiber to die. You can imagine Wicked Uncle Amulius dusting his hands together and saying ‘ut 'quod tunc’ or ‘that’s that, then’, laughing evilly and twirling his moustache. (Moustaches are obligatory for Wicked Uncles.)
However.... a she-wolf suckles them, a woodpecker feeds them and a shepherd and Mrs shepherd find the boys and bring them up as simple shepherds. Only R+R have charisma, gather followers – lots of them – and are seriously annoyed when they find out about Amulius’s misdeeds. One ex-Wicked Uncle later, and they’re ready to found a city. Only, like an ancient version of Escape To The Country, they can’t agree where to put it. Romulus fancies the Palatine Hill, Remus prefers the view from the Aventine. Things are said, tempers flare and Romulus kills Remus, gets his way and founds Rome.
Okay... the odd thing about this myth, as unpicked by Mary Beard et al, is that although the Romans told and re-told the story, they were seriously embarrassed by it. Fratricide was frowned on and they weren’t very happy about the wolf part either. Because the Roman slang for a lady of uncertain virtue was lupa or she-wolf, many preferred to believe R+R had been nurtured by a kind hearted lady generous with her favours. And why twins? Twins crop up in myths to explain duplication but R+R don’t duplicate or explain anything; one simply murders the other. If you’re inventing a hero, he’s a lot more heroic if he doesn’t murder his brother. There wasn’t really an explanation, just an examination of the oddities of the story and a discussion of how myths and folk-tales come to be created in the first place.
One theory that wasn’t aired was this; what if the heart of the tale is true? What if two abandoned boys were brought up by wolves? (I find the woodpecker a bit hard to swallow!) Put “feral children” into Google and you’ll find examples – some very recent – of more or less just that. The poor kids hardly ever adjust to human society but that could be where the Mr and Mrs shepherd come in.
Interesting, eh?
This week’s topic was a discussion by experts on Ancient Rome, Mary Beard, Tim Cornell and Peter Wiseman, about Rome’s foundation myth of Romulus and Remus. Now, at the risk of impinging on my pal, Jane Finnis’s territory, I found it fascinating.
You see, as foundation myths go, it’s very odd. Very briefly, the twins, Romulus and Remus are the children of Rhea Silva, daughter of King Numitor. Wicked Uncle Amulius, Numitor’s brother, seized power, killed Numitor and all his male heirs and forced Rhea Silva to become a vestal virgin. So far, so fairy tale, especially when the god Mars pops in for a fling with Rhea Silva. The resulting twin boys (difficult to explain for a vestal virgin!) are thrown into the river Tiber to die. You can imagine Wicked Uncle Amulius dusting his hands together and saying ‘ut 'quod tunc’ or ‘that’s that, then’, laughing evilly and twirling his moustache. (Moustaches are obligatory for Wicked Uncles.)
However.... a she-wolf suckles them, a woodpecker feeds them and a shepherd and Mrs shepherd find the boys and bring them up as simple shepherds. Only R+R have charisma, gather followers – lots of them – and are seriously annoyed when they find out about Amulius’s misdeeds. One ex-Wicked Uncle later, and they’re ready to found a city. Only, like an ancient version of Escape To The Country, they can’t agree where to put it. Romulus fancies the Palatine Hill, Remus prefers the view from the Aventine. Things are said, tempers flare and Romulus kills Remus, gets his way and founds Rome.
Okay... the odd thing about this myth, as unpicked by Mary Beard et al, is that although the Romans told and re-told the story, they were seriously embarrassed by it. Fratricide was frowned on and they weren’t very happy about the wolf part either. Because the Roman slang for a lady of uncertain virtue was lupa or she-wolf, many preferred to believe R+R had been nurtured by a kind hearted lady generous with her favours. And why twins? Twins crop up in myths to explain duplication but R+R don’t duplicate or explain anything; one simply murders the other. If you’re inventing a hero, he’s a lot more heroic if he doesn’t murder his brother. There wasn’t really an explanation, just an examination of the oddities of the story and a discussion of how myths and folk-tales come to be created in the first place.
One theory that wasn’t aired was this; what if the heart of the tale is true? What if two abandoned boys were brought up by wolves? (I find the woodpecker a bit hard to swallow!) Put “feral children” into Google and you’ll find examples – some very recent – of more or less just that. The poor kids hardly ever adjust to human society but that could be where the Mr and Mrs shepherd come in.
Interesting, eh?
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Answers...
I’ve half-read a book this week. Well, blow me, I can hear you muttering. That’s exciting news. I’ve read a book too... Yes, well, wait a minute and I’ll explain.
You see, the book wasn’t actually very good. Oh, it sounded all right; a science-fantasy complete with magic set nowadays. Fine. The author can certainly write, too, in the sense of sticking one word with another word and making it sound okay. So why did it fall flat? The answer was quite interesting, for anyone who wants to know about creative writing.
The trouble was, there was nothing to pull you into the world. The hero arrives in a world where magic rules and that’s about it, really. He’s got no problems to solve or questions to answer and neither have we. (At about the halfway point, a villian seems to have suddenly cropped up, so I’m going to persevere for a bit longer, as it might get interesting, but halfway through is too late.)
Now, at this point you might think that I’m unduly attached to problems. (Fictional ones, that is - if anyone wants real life problems, be my guest!) After all, I write mysteries and a mystery that isn’t mysterious isn’t much cop, so you sort of expect random corpses and dodgy goings-on. However, all books need to pose some sort of question and have some sort of problem.
In Anna Karenina,(not, you notice, a detective story)we know by the third line that Prince Stepan’s affair with the French governess has been rumbled by his wife. He’s sleeping in the spare room and life isn’t particularly tickety-boo. How, we ask, is he going to get out of that one?
No prizes for guessing where this one comes from!
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
So which daughter and which man? We want to know...
In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy has two problems at the start of the book. Having got into the quietly sinister Narnia, how’s she going to get out again? Especially when she finds the apparently friendly Mr Tumnus is actually working for the White Witch. Then, having got safely home, she has to convince her brothers and sister that Narnia really exists. I doubt if there’s a person on Earth who hasn’t suffered the frustration of trying to convince others of the truth. There’s some very fervent celebrations in the wizarding world at the start of Harry Potter. Why’s everyone so excited? And how – this question crops up very early – did baby Harry survive the hitherto infallible killing curse? And, not to blow my own trumpet unduly, what, Jack wants to know, really did happen to Mark Helston in Trouble Brewing?
So what are the questions and what are the problems? When an author gets it right, we want to know the answers and that means we want to read the book. Result.
You see, the book wasn’t actually very good. Oh, it sounded all right; a science-fantasy complete with magic set nowadays. Fine. The author can certainly write, too, in the sense of sticking one word with another word and making it sound okay. So why did it fall flat? The answer was quite interesting, for anyone who wants to know about creative writing.
The trouble was, there was nothing to pull you into the world. The hero arrives in a world where magic rules and that’s about it, really. He’s got no problems to solve or questions to answer and neither have we. (At about the halfway point, a villian seems to have suddenly cropped up, so I’m going to persevere for a bit longer, as it might get interesting, but halfway through is too late.)
Now, at this point you might think that I’m unduly attached to problems. (Fictional ones, that is - if anyone wants real life problems, be my guest!) After all, I write mysteries and a mystery that isn’t mysterious isn’t much cop, so you sort of expect random corpses and dodgy goings-on. However, all books need to pose some sort of question and have some sort of problem.
In Anna Karenina,(not, you notice, a detective story)we know by the third line that Prince Stepan’s affair with the French governess has been rumbled by his wife. He’s sleeping in the spare room and life isn’t particularly tickety-boo. How, we ask, is he going to get out of that one?
No prizes for guessing where this one comes from!
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
So which daughter and which man? We want to know...
In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy has two problems at the start of the book. Having got into the quietly sinister Narnia, how’s she going to get out again? Especially when she finds the apparently friendly Mr Tumnus is actually working for the White Witch. Then, having got safely home, she has to convince her brothers and sister that Narnia really exists. I doubt if there’s a person on Earth who hasn’t suffered the frustration of trying to convince others of the truth. There’s some very fervent celebrations in the wizarding world at the start of Harry Potter. Why’s everyone so excited? And how – this question crops up very early – did baby Harry survive the hitherto infallible killing curse? And, not to blow my own trumpet unduly, what, Jack wants to know, really did happen to Mark Helston in Trouble Brewing?
So what are the questions and what are the problems? When an author gets it right, we want to know the answers and that means we want to read the book. Result.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The Next Big Thing
Happy New Year everyone! I’ve been asked to take part in the (rather optimistically) entitled The Next Big Thing, a series of questions designed to uncover the lurking literary genius within. It’s a bit like Mastermind for writers. The last Next Big Thing was by my old pal and fellow Mystery Maker, Rebecca Jenkins, author of the Raif Jarrett eighteenth century crime series The Duke’s Agent etc – really good!) who’s tossed the baton to me.
So.... Lights down, focus on the big black chair, cue music (der, du, du DU derrr, der der, DER) and imagine me poised and ready to answer questions.
Name: Dolores Gordon-Smith
Occupation Pilot, deep sea diver, Formula `1 racedriver, archaeologist, palaeontologist, astronaut...
Voice off: (wearily) Real occupation, please.
Me: Oh, really? But the made up ones are ever so interesting. Oh, all right then. Author.
Voice off: And can we stick to the script, please? There’s Amy Myers waiting to do the Next Big Thing, you know and you’re holding her up.
Me: Okey-doke.
What is the working title of your book?
It’s called Blood From A Stone.
With the Roman protection of Britain crumbling, a terrified Roman citizen buried his wealth in a sacred cave under the altar of the god, Euthius, deep within what was the ancient forest of Andred in Sussex.
In 1780, Sir Jasper Leigh of Breagan Grange, as the area is now known, discovered the treasure. The Breagan Bounty, as the treasure was called. consisted of gold jewellery, coins and a golden box containing a valuable collection of uncut sapphires. The coins and jewellery are now in the British Museum, but Sir Jasper had the sapphires made into a necklace and ear-rings which were passed down to the eldest girl in the Leigh family. How those sapphires turn up at the feet of a murdered man in a third-class railway compartment in 1926 is the basis of the story.
Now, with all that (and much, much more) going on, I couldn’t think of a title for love or money. It was my brilliant daughter, Helen, who came up with Blood From A Stone and I think it’s perfect.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
I was on holiday in Pembrokeshire when we visited Pembroke Castle. Underneath the castle is the Wogan Cave – very dark, very mysterious, with a spiral staircase leading down from (or up to) the castle and just bulging with potential. So I nicked the cave, changed its location, erected an entirely different building on top of it, mixed in some murder and mayhem and sapphires. Oh, and a visit to a haunted house in York fed into the mix as well!
What genre does your book fall into?
Historical mystery. It’s set in the 1920’s which always seem just the right time for detective fiction to me. It’s modern – you call telephone someone and get in a car – but there’s rules in society and codes to follow which, once broken, allow plenty of scope for concealment and strife. Crime is detected by logic but there’s no DNA testing to pinpoint a murderer. Besides that, I’m a massive fan of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse and love being able to write in their world.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?
A movie? Wow. Quite frankly, if anyone wanted to make a film, they could cast Donald Duck and I’d be as happy as a sandboy.
What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?
I hate synopses! One of the many lovely things about Severn House, my publisher, is that they don’t require a synopsis. However, here goes... I can’t do it in one sentence though. Here’s seven:
The small and inquisitive village of Topfordham is agog when the elderly Mrs Paxton goes to Paris with her artist nephew, Terence Napier. When, on her return home, she is poisoned and Napier disappears, Topfordham is horrified. It seems obvious Napier murdered Mrs Paxton in a bid to steal her sapphires. Francis Leigh, Napier's cousin, is convinced Napier is innocent and asks Jack Haldean to help. Oddly enough, Jack is already interested in Mrs Paxton’s sapphires - they've turned up on the floor of a third class railway compartment, scattered at a dead man’s feet. So who's the dead man in the train? And is the bluff, genial Francis Leigh quite as blameless as he appears?
Will the book be self-published or represented by an agency?
None of the above. I haven’t got an agent but am published by the lovely Severn House, one of the largest independents, who publish Jack’s cases in hardback, paperback and on Kindle.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Think of the best Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers you’ve ever read. Yes, that’s the one!
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I suppose the real inspiration was a contract offering hard cash for an “Untitled Jack Haldean” as it was described but, in addition, it was an urge to have buried treasure, ancient Roman stuff, railways, mysterious deaths, English villages and jewels all within a neat and tidy plot. Oh yes, and the Wogan cave. You can think of it as contained chaos.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s really good and it’s out in March. And if you like it and tell me so face to face, I’ll buy you a drink. Now that is a good deal!
And now for the next author in this series...
It’s over to Amy Myers, the prolific author of the Jack Colby series (amongst others) at http://www.amymyers.net/
So.... Lights down, focus on the big black chair, cue music (der, du, du DU derrr, der der, DER) and imagine me poised and ready to answer questions.
Name: Dolores Gordon-Smith
Occupation Pilot, deep sea diver, Formula `1 racedriver, archaeologist, palaeontologist, astronaut...
Voice off: (wearily) Real occupation, please.
Me: Oh, really? But the made up ones are ever so interesting. Oh, all right then. Author.
Voice off: And can we stick to the script, please? There’s Amy Myers waiting to do the Next Big Thing, you know and you’re holding her up.
Me: Okey-doke.
What is the working title of your book?
It’s called Blood From A Stone.
With the Roman protection of Britain crumbling, a terrified Roman citizen buried his wealth in a sacred cave under the altar of the god, Euthius, deep within what was the ancient forest of Andred in Sussex.
In 1780, Sir Jasper Leigh of Breagan Grange, as the area is now known, discovered the treasure. The Breagan Bounty, as the treasure was called. consisted of gold jewellery, coins and a golden box containing a valuable collection of uncut sapphires. The coins and jewellery are now in the British Museum, but Sir Jasper had the sapphires made into a necklace and ear-rings which were passed down to the eldest girl in the Leigh family. How those sapphires turn up at the feet of a murdered man in a third-class railway compartment in 1926 is the basis of the story.
Now, with all that (and much, much more) going on, I couldn’t think of a title for love or money. It was my brilliant daughter, Helen, who came up with Blood From A Stone and I think it’s perfect.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
I was on holiday in Pembrokeshire when we visited Pembroke Castle. Underneath the castle is the Wogan Cave – very dark, very mysterious, with a spiral staircase leading down from (or up to) the castle and just bulging with potential. So I nicked the cave, changed its location, erected an entirely different building on top of it, mixed in some murder and mayhem and sapphires. Oh, and a visit to a haunted house in York fed into the mix as well!
What genre does your book fall into?
Historical mystery. It’s set in the 1920’s which always seem just the right time for detective fiction to me. It’s modern – you call telephone someone and get in a car – but there’s rules in society and codes to follow which, once broken, allow plenty of scope for concealment and strife. Crime is detected by logic but there’s no DNA testing to pinpoint a murderer. Besides that, I’m a massive fan of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse and love being able to write in their world.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?
A movie? Wow. Quite frankly, if anyone wanted to make a film, they could cast Donald Duck and I’d be as happy as a sandboy.
What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?
I hate synopses! One of the many lovely things about Severn House, my publisher, is that they don’t require a synopsis. However, here goes... I can’t do it in one sentence though. Here’s seven:
The small and inquisitive village of Topfordham is agog when the elderly Mrs Paxton goes to Paris with her artist nephew, Terence Napier. When, on her return home, she is poisoned and Napier disappears, Topfordham is horrified. It seems obvious Napier murdered Mrs Paxton in a bid to steal her sapphires. Francis Leigh, Napier's cousin, is convinced Napier is innocent and asks Jack Haldean to help. Oddly enough, Jack is already interested in Mrs Paxton’s sapphires - they've turned up on the floor of a third class railway compartment, scattered at a dead man’s feet. So who's the dead man in the train? And is the bluff, genial Francis Leigh quite as blameless as he appears?
Will the book be self-published or represented by an agency?
None of the above. I haven’t got an agent but am published by the lovely Severn House, one of the largest independents, who publish Jack’s cases in hardback, paperback and on Kindle.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Think of the best Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers you’ve ever read. Yes, that’s the one!
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I suppose the real inspiration was a contract offering hard cash for an “Untitled Jack Haldean” as it was described but, in addition, it was an urge to have buried treasure, ancient Roman stuff, railways, mysterious deaths, English villages and jewels all within a neat and tidy plot. Oh yes, and the Wogan cave. You can think of it as contained chaos.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s really good and it’s out in March. And if you like it and tell me so face to face, I’ll buy you a drink. Now that is a good deal!
And now for the next author in this series...
It’s over to Amy Myers, the prolific author of the Jack Colby series (amongst others) at http://www.amymyers.net/
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