Faith Martin on her journey to writing a classic whodunnit.

Sometimes, writing the book that you always wanted to write isn’t that straightforward.

I was about fourteen when I discovered the crime novels of our wonderful Golden Age authors. Children’s books had lost their appeal and I wanted something more challenging which also entertained me – and in the traditional whodunnit I quickly found my life-long reading obsession.

This literature had it all as far as I was concerned.   Baffling murders, clues, red herrings and memorable characters, all wrapped up in a bygone age that I knew nothing about, but which seemed to me to be filled with charm, atmosphere, elegance and witty humour.

So when I first decided to try my hand at writing a novel of my own, my choice of what kind of book to write should have been obvious, no?

Well…. no.

When I was eighteen my parents were involved in an horrific car accident, and I made the decision to stay at home and become a full-time carer.  This meant that I had the time to write, but also left me feeling ill-equipped to do so.  I would read the ‘about-the-author-blurb’ in the books I was reading, and it seemed to me that nearly all of the writers I admired had been to university and taken degrees (usually in English Literature.)

But I had only my own desire to write and years of reading other author’s works to guide me, and I instinctively felt that trying to write something as complicated as a densely plotted ‘proper whodunnit’ was beyond me. 

So instead I decided to write modern romances which - being the early 1990’s – tended to be about rich and glamorous people, in exotic settings, getting up to no good.   My thinking was, if it turned out that I had no talent and no chance of getting published, at least I’d have a whale of a time and enjoy the process of writing if nothing else!  As I did.  And with the help of a literary agent and after plenty of practise, my first novel, ‘Stolen Fire’ was published in 1993 under the pen name of Maxine Barry.

And after some years producing these, I felt confident enough to try something new. 

So now I was going to write a classic whodunnit, yes? 

Er…. No.

I still wasn’t sure I could measure up to my heroes.   Instead, I decided on staying contemporary and writing police procedural stories about a female detective who lived on a narrowboat and worked out of Thames Valley HQ, by the name of DI Hillary Greene.  These I wrote under the new pen name of Faith Martin.

Yet again I had no high hopes that any publisher would find them good enough, but Robert Hale took them on, and over the next ten years or so produced over 15 in this series.  These originally came out in hardback and were mainly purchased by libraries, and like many authors, I wasn’t well-known, nor was I troubling any bestseller lists.  And after 25 years of anonymity, I never expected things to change. 

But then the Hillary Greene series was published as ebooks by Joffe Books, and suddenly Hillary Greene was finding a wider audience.   And it seemed that readers liked her!

Thus emboldened, I decided to dab a tentative toe into ‘historical’ crime and produced the Ryder & Loveday books, published by Harper Collins, which were set in the 1960’s.  And again, they were well received.

Thus, after nearly 30 years of writing, I finally plucked up the nerve to write something that I had always wanted to write – a classic-style country house whodunnit, set in the golden age of the 1920’s and featuring a traditional locked room mystery.  And created a duo of amateur sleuths to solve the case.

Since I began this process during the doom and gloom days of the lockdowns, I was determined to make it light, entertaining and humorous, and MURDER BY CANDLELIGHT was the result.   Published in January next year, it tells the story of an old lady found dead in her bed, with all the doors and windows locked.  Clues and suspects abound – including the family ghost!  And it’s up to the lazy but amiable Arbie Swift, author of ‘The Gentlemen’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting’ and local vicar’s daughter Val, to sort out the red-herrings from the real clues and uncover the killer.

I only hope my readers are happy with the result.  But for all DI Hillary Greene fans, don’t worry. I’ve just finished writing her latest case also!

Murder by Candlelight by Faith Martin (HarperCollins Publisher)

One suspicious death. Two amateur sleuths. And an utterly impossible crime. The Cotswolds, 1924. At the Old Forge in the quiet village of Maybury-in-the-Marsh a cry of anguish rings out: lady of the house Amy Phelps has been discovered dead. But with all the windows and doors to her room locked from inside, how – and by whom – was she killed? Arbuthnot ‘Arbie’ Swift finds himself in the unlikely position of detective. The celebrated author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting is staying at the Old Forge to investigate a suspected spectre, but now the more pressing matter of Amy’s murder falls to him too. With old friend Val, he soon uncovers a sorry tale of altered wills, secret love affairs and tragic losses – and plenty of motives for murder. When events take another sinister turn, Arbie must find the killer, fast. And to do so will mean cracking a most perfectly plotted crime…

More information about the author and her books can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @FaithMartin_Nov and on Facebook.

Murder by Candlelight by Faith Martin will publish in hardback on 4th January 2024 (£16.99).