Cherringham: Dead in the Water An exclusive extract

Dead in the Water is the first full-length novel set in the sleepy English village of Cherringham, featuring the unlikely sleuthing duo Sarah Edwards, an English web designer, and Jack Brennan, American ex-cop. The last episode, A Death in the Family, saw Jack rush back to the US to be with his family, leaving Sarah behind…

On the night of the school prom, popular teacher Josh Owens is found dead in the Thames in a drug-related accident. At first, it seems to be another sign that Cherringham High is spiralling out of control but the new head isn’t so sure, and quietly calls in local sleuth Sarah Edwards. Sarah is initially reluctant to take on the case, especially without Jack. But with the possibility of serious drug dealing at her daughter’s school, she feels compelled to get involved. However, it quickly becomes clear that there is more to Josh’s death than meets the eye, and that Sarah’s own life could be in danger. Solving crimes just isn’t the same without Jack…

------

“That your lot, Maddie?” said Billy Leeper, sliding two pints of lager across the bar, shouting to be

heard over the music and noisy crowd.

Maddie looked down at the tray of drinks she’d just ordered.

A big round – and now she realised she’d forgotten to order her own drink.

“Sorry, Billy – one more glass of white wine, please. Any old thing will do – long as it’s nice and

cold!”

She watched the barkeeper disappear down to the other end of the bar, then looked around.

The Ploughman’s was as packed as she’d ever seen it. Cherringham’s favourite local pub – not as posh as the Angel farther up on the High Street, but still the go-to place for any village event.

And tonight, there was more than just the usual Friday night crowd.

A mob of her fellow teachers had come down after the prom for a well-deserved pint, and some of the now-departing pupils were happy to drink with them. She recognised a few of the boys and girls in their smart suits and gowns, knocking back drinks as if they did it every weekend.

Well, she thought, they probably do.

“Here you go,” said Billy, adding a glass of white wine to the tray. “On the tab?”

“Thanks, Billy.”

She picked up the tray and turned to go.

“They’re all eighteen, I’m assuming?” said Billy, nodding towards the students dotted around the

pub.

“Oh, I’m sure they are,” said Maddie, not at all sure, but moving off quickly towards the tables at

the rear of the pub.

On the way, she passed a crowded table by the dartboard and spotted a few of the lower sixth formers, standing with pints and bottles in their hands. Now, this lot definitely weren’t eighteen.

Should she say something?

She could see Callum Brady in the group. And Liam Norris and Jake Pawson.

The Usual Suspects, as they were known up at the school.

In T-shirts and jeans, looking aggressive even just standing there and drinking.

And liable to cause trouble if she told Billy they were underage.

They certainly did plenty of that at school.

Sooner they were gone… the better.

Jake caught her eye – and the whole group stopped talking and turned to look at her.

The look – a challenge.

As if to say: go on then; just try to get us thrown out.

If you got the balls.

She turned away and carried on walking with her tray of drinks to the back of the pub.

Dammit, she thought, what kind of coward am I?

But when she got to the back room of the pub, she put the encounter with the dartboard crowd to the back of her mind.

In the time she’d been gone, her group had grown even bigger. Someone had shoved three tables together. Now there must be nearly twenty – teachers and students both – all laughing, joking, telling stories. All glad the year was over: summer, university, the future… beckoning.

She lowered the tray onto the nearest table and everybody cheered and grabbed their drinks.

She picked up her white wine and waved to Tim sitting at the middle of the table, talking to one of

his star English pupils – or at least, listening to his tipsy rambling.

He gave her a long-suffering smile and mouthed “sorry”.

The boy had taken her seat. She smiled back and mouthed back – “no problem”.

“Here you go, Maddie,” came a voice from the end of the table.

She turned around – it was Josh Owen. A teacher the kids definitely adored.

A free seat next to him.

Should she?

With a quick glance at Tim, she skirted a group of locals, hemmed in by students, and threaded

her way round to the other end of the large table.

“I could say I saved it for you, but that would be lying,” said Josh.

“Well, you certainly know how to flatter a girl. So, how did you like your first Cherringham prom?”

“Good fun, hmm?” said Josh. “I had some great students in that year – sorry to see them go. Nice kids.”

“If only they were all nice.”

“Goes with the territory.”

Maddie took a sip of her wine.

“You talk to the new head?”

“Not tonight,” said Josh quietly. “Not the right time.”

“But you are applying for the deputy job?”

“You bet. There’s a lot needs changing – and from what I’ve heard so far, I like her plans.”

“I just hope I’m part of them,” said Maddie.

“You will be – if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

She laughed.

“Hark at you, deputy head, sir, hiring and firing already.”

“You bet. Mind how you behave, Ms. Brookes.”

“Always…” she said, laughing.

She liked teasing Josh, playing with him. He had a sparkle, as if he really enjoyed life.

Unlike…

She couldn’t help but look down the table at Tim, still involved in a long, deep conversation.

Her boyfriend.

How she hated that word. God, she was nearly thirty.

Maybe I should start calling him my partner? But do I even want that?

Fiancé?

Though not official yet…

Someone brought another tray of drinks over and everyone starting grabbing their refreshed pints and glasses.

As she stared – Tim looked over at her.

He smiled.

She smiled back.

And had a thought… what if Tim wasn’t here?

***

Then the seat next to Tim – empty.

With a nod from Tim, she sailed away from Josh.

“There you are!” Tim said. “I was just saying that I want to do some real camping trips this summer! Get some good long walks in. Proper treks – you know?”

She nodded. She noticed Tim looking at her.

“How does that sound to you?”

A smile. “Yes. Shake off the school year. Sounds great…”

Tim smiled at that, then turned back to the group.

Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of Josh getting up from the other end of the table.

He looked – for a moment – confused. She watched him head into the front bar and thought… Strange…

But then she too got lost in the excited talk of summer plans, the precious time away from kids

and school…

The first full length Cherringham novella, Dead in the Water by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards is published 10^th October by Bastei Entertainment, price £6.49 in eBook

The latest episode, Cherringham: A Death in the Family is free until 17^th October: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cherringham-Death-Family-Cosy-Crime-ebook/dp/B0191RZEXU

The end of Cherringham.....

CHERRINGHAM: A COSY CRIME SERIES

MATTHEW COSTELLO & NEIL RICHARDS

A CRIME FOR EVERY MONTH OF THE YEAR: CHERRINGHAM IS COMING TO AN END…

Nothing ever happens in the small Cotswold village of Cherringham, making it the perfect place to retire to – or so ex-NYPD Detective Jack Brennan thought. But before long, local web designer and single mother Sarah Edwards had convinced him to help her investigate a suspicious suicide. Since then, he and Sarah have solved mysterious deaths, unlikely accidents and perplexing robberies. “Peace and quiet” never really suited Jack anyway…

“Comparisons with Midsomer Murders are inevitable, but Cherringham comes out on top when it comes to originality and – probably most crucially – the avoidance of irritating stereotypes” Killing Time Crime

“An unlikely pairing but a good one… the mystery itself was well drawn and intriguing.” Liz Loves Books

“A winning charm” Crime Thriller Fella

“A quick engaging read” The Bookbag

“The perfect partnership…I’m looking forward to reading the next one”

Shaz’s Book Blog

Every month, cosy crime fans have been able to look forward to a new episode of Cherringham, the eBook series featuring unlikely sleuthing duo Sarah and Jack, and which has now sold an incredible 65,000 episodes! Released in monthly episodes, it is written by award-winning game and TV writers UK-based Neil Richards and US-based Matthew Costello in a transatlantic collaboration – which mirrors that of Jack and Sarah. The latest series is now coming to an end with A Death in the Family published 8^th February, in which the two are asked to investigate the death of doddery old Harry Platt, who has left a very sizeable estate to some suspicious beneficiaries…

But this isn’t the end of Cherringham! In summer 2016, Jack and Sarah will return in their very first full-length novel. You can keep up to date on exciting news and deals by emailing cherringham@basteientertainment.com, but if you’re new to the series you have plenty of time to catch up, from the very first episode Murder on the Thames. At just £1.49 an episode, what are you waiting for?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Co-authors Neil Richards (based in the UK) and Matthew Costello (based in the US), have been writing together since the mid 90’s, creating content and working on projects for the BBC, Disney Channel, Sony, ABC, Eidos, Nintendo to name but a few. Their transatlantic collaboration has underpinned scores of TV drama scripts, computer games, radio shows, and – most recently – the successful crime fiction series Cherringham. Now into its second season of 12 novellas, Cherringham is popular around the world, having sold over 65,000 copies and has been adapted as a series of audiobooks in Germany.

The Cherringham series is published by Bastei Entertainment, price £1.49 per eBook. For further information, interview requests or review copies, please contact Sophie Goodfellow at ed public relations on 020 7732 4796 or email sophie@edpr.co.uk

To keep up to date on all Cherringham news, just subscribe at cherringham@basteientertainment.com

Matt Costello and Neil Richards on Cherringham - A Murder for Every Month of the Year

Cherringham is an original eBook series of 12 self-contained murder mysteries written in a transatlantic collaboration between Neil Richards and Matt Costello.   Murder on Thames is the first in an innovative Crime series  written in English but published by Bastei Entertainment –  an imprint of one of Germany’s leading publishers  Bastei Lübbe. Published in English first, to be followed by German in March 2014, the crime series features 12  self-contained episodes written by co-authors Neil Richards  (UK based) and Matthew Costello (US based).

In a revival of the Dickensian tradition, a new eBook episode will be published each month with the  second episode Mystery at the Manor to be published  in the UK on the 19th January  2014. Cherringham is a quiet and peaceful town in the Cotswolds. Time moves slowly here, and nothing out of the ordinary ever happens, until one morning a woman’s body is discovered in the river. Sarah Edwards has just returned to Cherringham with her two children following the breakdown of her marriage. Sarah had been friends with Sammi Jackson – the woman in the river – before they both moved to London and she’s certain there is more to her death than meets the eye. But juggling the school run and her job as a web designer doesn’t leave much time  to solve murder mysteries.  After the death of his wife, former NYPD homicide detective Jack Brennan has retired to Cherringham hoping for a quiet life. He soon realises “peace and quiet” isn’t really him and, despite his misgivings, he’s persuaded by Sarah to help her look  into Sammi’s death. It quickly becomes clear that the case isn’t as simple as the police hope. From her violent ex-boyfriend to her alcoholic father, it seems everyone has something to hide. Sarah and Jack will need to use all their wits to get to the bottom of this case.  Small towns hold many secrets, and the quiet and peaceful Cotswolds’ town of Cherringham is no exception! Short but deadly thrilling, Murder on Thames introduces us to the unlikely crime sleuth duo single mother and web designer Sarah Edwards and retired NYPD homicide detective Jack Brennan as they look into the death of one of Sarah’s old school friends.   Thrilling, deadly and anything but ‘cosy’, Murder on Thames brings together the unlikely crime sleuth duo Sarah and Jack for the first in the ongoing Cherringham crime series.

Neil: Matt and I have been writing together since we met in England as Writers in Residence in 1997 on what was in those days called a Multi-Media lab. We had a lot of fun – and discovered we shared a common vision of storytelling. So – when the lab finished, we decided to come up with some TV ideas and pretty quickly picked up some commissions. Since then we’ve worked on TV shows as co-writers; we’ve built interactive projects; created the worlds and scripts for many computer games; and travelled the world mentoring and lecturing on workshops and labs for all media.

Matt: Part of engaging in any great and challenging work, is…who you are doing it with. Some projects can last for years, and there can be creative issues that can have you looking at the four walls, clueless. Who’s in that room with you is important.  But when ideas flow, when you laugh as you build story and worlds, that’s more than rare. So—we started working together, not knowing where that work would lead.

Neil: Matt’s got a terrific pedigree as a horror and sci-fi novelist in the States and although he has in the past co-written books we just never seemed to get round to working on a book together. Last year however we were funded by Screen Australia to write a YA novel to be the heart of a cross-media project. It worked – and we found that our working process, refined over many years in TV, could be adapted to writing books.

Matt: And guiding someone to write prose, to build a novel for the first time, is not easy. I know, I have tried in the past. But having worked across so many platforms, I felt that Neil would totally grasp the challenge (and fun) of creating compelling fiction. The first result, our epic fantasy novel for Screen Australia, was the creative ride of a lifetime. With more to come…

Neil: So… we started to play with some UK-US crime ideas, trying to link the two worlds which separately we know well: New York City and rural England. I’d been working with Bastei so I suggested to Matt that we pitch them our ideas. We pitched the world, characters and stories of Cherringham as we would a TV series and Bastei liked it. They were looking for monthly episodic novellas – and the kind of story shapes we were proposing fit the bill. The commission came quickly – we started writing. It’s a tough schedule – but coming from a TV background that’s nothing new to us.

Matt: And the best thing – besides road trips to the Cotswolds to plot and plan -- the series we would create, Cherringham, would take advantage of who we are -- UK/US -- with our ability to see the other’s take on the world, and channel that into our lead characters.

Neil: Key to everything we do is nailing the ‘world’ of the show/book. We like to go live in the area we’re writing about – in this case the Cotswolds – and work intensively with whiteboards, A3 sheets, filling notepads with ideas for stories and characters. I think we’ve now hired three cottages in different Cotswold villages for a week at a time.  Bursts of two to three hours are followed by capturing everything in note form then sharing tasks. We used to tape-record and then transcribe but we find now that between us we can grab the key material. We walk a lot – and that’s often where the best ideas come from. We sit in pubs and tea-rooms and watch people. Of course, if you’re talking murder you have to keep your voice down…

Matt:  See there is where I disagree with my esteemed colleague. I like when people in a tea house hear us talking about poison, stabbings and ways to make fires look accidental. Though I guess it can be disconcerting when patrons decide to move to a more distant table.  In truth, there is nothing like being in the place where your story will evolve, --walking, thinking, talking. It is perhaps why a collaboration done like that is both a great and a different kind of writing ‘experience’.

Neil: We spend a lot of time hammering out the story shape in note form and then use index cards so we can shuffle the story-beats around – which is pretty much the standard method that any TV writers will recognize. One of us hits the opening chapters – and then we just trade the chapters until the book’s done. I get his chapters, do an edit, then hit the next couple and send them back. He edits and carries on.  With the UK-US time difference this means that when we’re really flowing we can cover the ground extremely quickly!

Matt: We have indeed learned how to use the time difference between us. And when questions or glitches emerge, Skype stands at the ready. And then it’s almost like we’re strolling a Roman Road again, past cow pastures, discussing all the cozy mayhem we’re going to bring to Cherringham.

Neil: We’ve always been pretty good at finding a shared prose voice and the constant internal editing process helps smooth that too.  One area where we do differ is in the planning.  Matt prefers a flexible plan – and he likes to hit the pages fast and see where the story runs within a loose structure. I like to get the chapters and story-beats worked out beforehand so I know exactly where I’m going. We agree to disagree on that one and so far the combination has worked out fine.

Matt: The different approaches probably reflect our different writing backgrounds. I have been known to start a novel with one very cool idea, and not much else. As a solo writer, that works fine but how do you get a collaborator to share that ‘ride’? That’s where the more structured method of TV (and games for that matter) becomes very useful. Also, I think we have struck a balance of locking the story down but still letting the characters stand up, and suddenly take the tale in a direction we did not see coming at all.

Neil: We’ve really fallen in love with Cherringham and its characters. It’s based on a combination of three Cotswold villages (and no, there are no prizes on offer yet for guessing which) and we’ve drawn our own map down to street level so we don’t lose track of who lives where. So far – half way through the series – we’ve got around 60 characters (less the handful who have met a miserable end of course).

Matt: What—no prizes? As a game guy, I’d love to see who could figure out which three villages. But Neil is so right when he talks about loving the village. True, a lot of mayhem does occur there, but what lovely views! And – with quite a nice posh restaurant with an assortment of pubs for every taste.

Neil: I think the series works well as a cosy. The story engine of the village and the single-mum/ex-cop combination generates lots of stories – and the rules of the genre mean we can get away with quite a staggering murder rate.  

Matt: And as Sherlock well knew, a murder isn't always a murder (just as a hound isn’t always a hound.)

Neil: Meanwhile we both continue to write separately and as a team. Matt’s sci-fi novel Star Road is about to be published in the US. And last week the fifth in the Broken Sword game series was released – with script and story from me.  As well as the remainder of Cherringham series to write during the coming year, we have a YA novel which we want to pitch in February. We also have the second and third in the Australian YA series to write if the production company out there gets the go-ahead.

We also have a much darker crime story which we’ve begun to plot – again with a UK-US background. Cosy it ain’t…

Matt: And won't that be fun…after 1200 pages+ of coziness and corpses, to drill down into darker territory? I -- for one -- can hardly wait.

Co-authors Neil Richards (based in the UK) and Matthew Costello (based in the US), are known for their script work on major computer games. The Cherringham crime series is their first fictional transatlantic collaboration.  Matthew has written and designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed The 7th Guest, Doom 3, Rage and Pirates of the Caribbean. He is also the author of a number of successful novels, including Vacation (2011) and Beneath Still Waters (1989), which was made into a movie. Neil has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 20 video games including The Da Vinci Code, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.

More information about Matt Costello can be found on his website - http://www.mattcostello.com/