As obvious as it sounds, I don’t find murder funny. After twenty-five years as a full-time police officer and six police procedural novels, I turned to cosy crime in an attempt to lighten the mood.
During my police service, spent predominantly as a detective, I worked on a vast number of murders. It was something that gave me endless inspiration for writing fictional murder investigations that were as true to life as possible. In the world of policing, something that is never far away – whatever the intensity of the situation – is gallows humour. It was never far from my working day, nor my writing.
Earlier this year, I decided to change both working aspects of my life. Using parts of beautiful Kent as a backdrop, I penned my first cosy crime mystery, Murder in the Village, complete with retired detective Harry Powell. Being a little jealous of his lifestyle, I decided to call it a day and retire from Kent police. It was a very strange change for me, yet undoubtedly the right one. For many of us, 2020 put a lot of things into perspective, and so instead of fitting writing around my day job, it now is my day job. Creating an English village setting for my new series where everything was picture perfect, murder rate aside, was a lot of fun.
Over the years, I’ve spent a great deal of time in Kent’s villages, whether out on enquires or for less stressful reasons. I’ve been fortunate to have these locations on my doorstep. I used Chilham as a basis for the Belinda Penshurt cosy series, inspired by its castle, tea room and two pubs, adding in parts of Lenham and Challock for good measure with Tenterden making a veiled appearance as Upper Wallop. It won’t surprise you to learn that I didn’t make official on duty calls to these particular areas when investigating murders. Throughout time, these quintessentially English villages have been the scenes of suspicious deaths, yet they were few and far between.
Now that I’m free to write without the self-imposed rigid rules of how a murder investigation team works, it is gloriously refreshing. Whilst writing police procedurals, I had found myself on dozens of occasions reaching for a copy of some police reference book or other, or randomly asking a room of my colleagues, ‘Can anyone tell me exactly how long gunshot residue stays on someone’s hands?’ This was met with odd looks and the question, ‘Aren’t you currently working on a stabbing?’ Followed by, ‘Is this research for a book?’
I still make sure the basics are correct, that goes without saying. Besides, after spending longer as a police officer than not being a police officer, some things are ingrained. Like the humour. It’s a coping tactic of normalising the weird and bizarre. And there’s plenty of that to go round.
It’s worked for one of my characters, Harry Powell, my retired detective inspector. His character as a serving police officer had a different view of the world to the one he has now as a civilian – a smidge less jaded and worn down with a touch less cynicism. He is the only character to feature in all of my books, police procedural and cosy crime, and I’ve loved writing him from a different angle. Retired colleagues had repeatedly told me that giving back their warrant card gave them a totally different mindset, something I hadn’t believed until I handed over mine.
My protagonist, Belinda Penshurst, is the amateur sleuth who keeps Harry very much on his toes. She has a blatant disregard for following the rules and openly mocks the retired DI for his attempts to keep her on the straight and narrow. In Murder in the Village, they team up, parts of their character rubbing off on each other.
In time, I wonder whether retirement will see me stick to the rules or allow me more freedom. Belinda seems to have a lot more fun than Harry. Just saying…
Murder in The Village by Lisa Cutts (Bookouture) Out Now
Meet Belinda Penshurst. Castle owner, dog lover… crime solver? Belinda Penshurst loves her home village Little Challham, with its shady lanes, two pubs and weekly market, and she’s determined to keep it peaceful. She may live in Challham Castle but she knows almost everything that goes on under her nose. So when irritable pub landlord Tipper is found dead in his cellar, she’s perfectly placed to investigate. Retired detective Harry Powell moved to Little Challham for a quiet life. He didn’t expect to be dragged into a murder investigation. But the police don’t seem half as enthusiastic as Belinda about the case, and there are strange things happening in the village. Particularly the number of dogs that have disappeared lately… Is there a dognapper snaffling schnauzers and luring away Labradors? Is Belinda barking mad to be worried that her brother Marcus was arguing with Tipper on the day he died? Belinda and Harry track down the suspects: the rival landlord, the outraged barmaid, the mysterious man in the black car following dogwalkers around. But are the dogged detectives running out of time to sniff out the killer, before he starts hounding them?
You can find Lisa Cutts on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter @LisaCuttsAuthor
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