500 Square Foot of History

“His bedroom and his bathroom looked out on a tiny court containing a sundial and a silversmith. Few people who walked down St James’s Street knew of the court’s existence.” – The Human Factor by Graham Greene

One November day, many years ago, I was walking back from a meeting near St James’s Park in London and spotted an intriguing passageway I’d never noticed before. Lined with dark panels, it appeared to lead to a little courtyard and the sign on the wall named it Pickering Place. Peering down the covered passage, what I glimpsed of the courtyard appeared secluded and private, so I carried on my way but, curiosity piqued, I looked it up on the train home.

As a teenager, my father had given me Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City to read, and, as an already-avid crime fiction fan, the idea of a varied and eccentric community investigating a murder immediately popped into my head. The idea recurred several times over the years, and I even spent a month in San Francisco in my twenties, staying in a Barbary Lane-style courtyard, exploring the city I’d read so much about, but the idea was transient and unfixed, and the exact way in which I could bring these people together in a UK setting eluded me.

Until the day I discovered Pickering Place. Described as the smallest residential square in London – and it really is small, about 500 square feet – it was rich with history. Sometimes, it only takes a word or a phrase to spark an idea for a writer, and ‘the smallest square in London’ was enough for me. The idea for a crime novel set in a London square immediately began to form, and that was before I read the wealth of history in this tiny place. 

Formerly part of Henry VIII’s real tennis courts, it was acquired by builder Thomas Stroud in 1731, who built many of the houses surrounding the square. By 1741 however, William Pickering, a coffee merchant, had taken ownership. He was son-in-law to Widow Bourne, the founder of Berry Bros. & Rudd Ltd, the historic wine merchants who have been operating next door on St James’s Street since 1698.

In the 18th century, Pickering Place became something of a ‘scene’ and, as a secluded, unseen corner of St James’s, attracted all sorts of unsavoury activity from the aristocratic society in the neighbourhood. It gained a reputation for gambling, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, bare-knuckle boxing, and even as a location for illegal duels. One of its most famous duellists was rumoured to be Beau Brummell, famous dandy and inventor of the cravat, whose statue stands in nearby Jermyn Street. It has even been suggested that the last duel in London was fought there, but since pistols were the weapon of choice for duellists by then, the limited square footage would make that unlikely. The words ‘fish’ and ‘barrel’ spring to mind.

The square appeared to clean up its act in the 19th century however, becoming home to the Texan Republic’s legation until Texas joined the United States in 1845, and in 1914 was put to use as a temporary recruitment and sign-up spot for The Royal Fusiliers. The historians at Berry Bros. & Rudd even discovered photographs in their archive from 1922 showing Pickering Place being used as a film set, the film’s title unknown but featuring two duelling, costumed swordsmen. A source of those ‘last duel’ rumours, perhaps. In the 1950s, writer Graham Greene lived there, in a flat above an oyster bar and below General Auchinleck, using the square as inspiration for the living quarters of Colonel Daintry in his novel, The Human Factor. 

Did you know London still had lamplighters? I didn’t, until I went back to Pickering Place to explore. I found that not only was the square truly tiny, it was also very beautiful, with Georgian architecture, iron railings, and an original, still-used Victorian gas lamp. My fictional Marchfield Square sprang fully to life for me that day, albeit on a larger plot and with fewer people, and the story of a special and quite improbable place in London was born.

Sadly, Pickering Place’s gas lamp has now been converted to LED but there are still over 250 left in the area, looked after by a devoted group of skilled engineers. The commitment of others to preserve and document our history also inspired the second book in the Marchfield Mysteries, Murder Like Clockwork, although setting the books in London has provided an embarrassment of riches in that respect.

While the idea for Marchfield Square appeared to download itself to my brain in a single moment – an eclectic residential community in the heart of London, overlooked by a wealthy, somewhat mysterious widow – the rest of the story came in snippets, inspired by the history of the square. The characters include a coffee addicted writer, a military man, and a retired film actor, all part of a community of found family hiding their secrets in the shadows… And then I asked the question: what would happen to that community if the wrong person moved in? 

When I finally sat down to write 10 Marchfield Square it was 2021. Even for me, that was a long time for an idea to percolate, but sometimes, the moment is just right. Publishing was rediscovering the joy of crime novels with heart and humour, and the book flowed easily, and I had a great time planting little references to Pickering Place in its pages.

One thing most writers have in common is our curiosity, our need to look up (and subsequently rabbit-hole) even the idlest of thoughts. And even if that research never makes it into a book, I sure none of us would have it any other way. 

For more in depth history about Pickering Place, do visit the sites of Berry Bros. and Rudd, The London Gasketeers, and The Paris Review.

Murder Like Clockwork by Nicola Whyte. (Bloomsbury Publishing)

An empty house that isn't empty. A victim who vanishes. An impossible crime? Every Thursday at midday Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr Petrov is never home - in fact he seems to use the house purely as storage for his impressive collection of antiques - but that doesn't affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the dozens of beautiful clocks that decorate the tall, elegant, empty London mansion. Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic. Fifteen minutes later, the police arrive... and find nothing. No body. No blood. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the clock in that back bedroom, which is now running four minutes slow. With no victim, the police are convinced there was no murder, but Audrey knows better. A man has been killed, and if they won't do anything about it, she - and her annoying friend Lewis - will. Whodunnit is one thing, but this detective duo must also wrestle with when - and where on earth is the body? It's not long since they solved the murder of their neighbour, so they're not rookie sleuths, and at least this time the case has no connection to their home. Does it?

More information about Nicola Whyte and her books can be found on her website. She can also be found on Facebook. She can also be found on Instagram, X, Bluesky and Threads @nixawhy.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Stuart Turton

Name: - Stuart Turton 

Job: - author and journalist

Website: - https://www.Stuturton.com

Instagram @stuturton

X @stu_turton

Introduction

Stuart Turton is the bestselling author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (aka 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle) which won the 2018 Costa Book Award for First Novel, Best Novel in the 2018 Books Are My Bag Readers Award and was also shortlisted for the Debut book of the Year at the Specsavers National Book Awards and longlisted for both the CWA New Blood Dagger  and the Gold Dagger at the  CWA dagger awards. In 2019 it was shortlisted again for the Best Debut Novel at the Strand Magazine Critics’ Awards and longlisted for the Glass Bell Award. The Japanese edition of the book was shortlisted in 2019 For the Best Honkaku Mystery Novel translated into Japanese in the last decade. 

His second book, The Devil and the Dark Water won the 2020 Books Are My Bag Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Japanese version was nominated for the 2023 Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Mystery Fiction in Translation.

His most recent book is The Last Murder at the End of the World and was longlisted for the 2025 Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I’m currently reading the North Woods by Daniel Mason and it’s so astonishingly good that I want to quit reading, sulk, and then immediately try to replicate its ambition and beauty. It’s wondrous, expanding the scope of what a novel can be while telling a great story. God, I’m depressed again now.

Have any gothic book spooked you and if so which one and why?

I’m not easily spooked, unfortunately. Typically, I find gothic novels so daft that I end up laughing rather than trembling. This is sort of what I’ll be talking about at the festival, actually.

Which two gothic writers would you invite to dinner and why?

The Bronte sisters. I reckon they’d drive each other absolutely nuts and it would be fun to watch.

How do you relax?

Relax? I could do my job in a bed with no material difference to the outcome. Honestly, there’s nothing hard about it. Relaxing is for people with work to do. 

Which gothic book do you wish you had written and why?

I’m good on that front. If I’d written Dracula or Frankenstein, I’d be long dead, and would have spent my entire life without the internet. No thanks!

If you were to write a gothic book, where would you set it and why?

There’s always a bit of gothic in my novels, so I’ve sort of covered what I wanted to do. My first novel was set in a creepy old house with secrets in every corner, and my second was set on a haunted boat. I feel like I’ve got my gothic fix.

How would you describe your latest published book?

Agatha Christie does Lost. Except weirder.

Which 3 gothic films would you rewatch and why.

Oh god, I don’t really watch many movies. Can I pass?

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda’s?

I really like being let out of my office and chatting with people with similar interests. It’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

 

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Abi keeps them safe. One hundred and twenty-two islanders and their three beloved scientists live in harmony, kept safe from a poisonous security barrier with the help of Abi's instructions. Niema keeps the islanders occupied. Niema is one of the scientists who remembers what life was like before the fog. She ensures that all of the islanders have a job to do, and everyone loves her. Almost everyone. Emory can't stop asking questions.

But then one of the scientists is found dead, and their murder triggers the dropping of the security barrier. The only way to reinstate it is to find the killer. But can Emory ask the right questions? They have 107 hours to solve the murder before the fog sweeps in. Can they stop the end of their world?

 

Information on how to buy online tickets can be found here. The programme can be found here.

Forthcoming Books from Bloomsbury

 January 2024

By night, Vivian Parry performs the role of Manhattan’s sharpest theatre critic, immersing herself fully in every show she sees. By day, she uses work, sex, and psychotropic drugs to keep her comfortably numb. Desperate for a promotion and at the urging of her editor, she agrees to an interview with David Adler, an enigmatic graduate student. When he later disappears, Vivian soon learns from his devastated fiancée that she was the last person to have seen him alive. The police refuse to investigate his disappearance and Vivian finds herself obsessed with what happened, assuming the role of amateur investigator. But as she gets closer to the truth about David Adler, she finds that the boundaries between theatre and reality are more tenuous than even she could have believed. Here in the Dark is by Alexis Soloski.

The Grief House is by Rebecca Thorne. Everyone is lying. But the dead know the truth A week-long grief retreat on a beautiful country estate with no phones and no wifi isn’t ex-tarot reader Blue’s usual getaway. But ever since her mother’s death she’s been carrying a secret. Could this finally help her let it go? When she arrives, it’s raining, and there’s something strange about the house. Only a few guests have made it through the weather. As the owners, Molly and Joshua Park, try desperately to cling to normality, the storm worsens until they’re stranded in the house – cut off from the outside world. And after one of the guests disappears in the night, Blue wonders who around her, the Parks and the guests, is telling the truth about why they’re there – and whose grief might be hiding a deeper secret. The floodwater rises. Everyone is keeping secrets – but only one is a killer. Can Blue escape with her life, and her sanity?

March 2024

Sophie King is missing. Her parents, Harry and Zara, are distraught; for the last seventeen years, they've done everything for their beloved only daughter and now she's gone. The police have no leads, and Harry and Zara are growing increasingly frantic, although they are both dealing with it in very different ways. Increasingly obsessed with their highly suspicious neighbour who won't open the door or answer any questions, they are both coming to the same conclusion. If they want answers, they're going to have to take the matter into their own hands. But just how far are they both prepared to go for the love of their daughter? Finding Sophie is by Imran Mahmood.

The Last Murder at the End of The World is by Stuart Turton. Solve the murder to save what's left of the world. Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 92 hours, the fog will smother the island - and everyone on it. But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer - and they don't even know it...

My Favourite Non Fiction Reads 2023

This year I haven't read as many non-fiction books as I would have liked. However, the following are the non-fction books that I did read and enjoyed. They are in alphabetical order :-

Great and Horrible News: Murder and Mayhem in Early Modern Britain by Blessin Adams (Harper Collins)

Nine historic crimes. One familiar obsession. In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore, but desperate confessions and the grandest, most righteous human drama. Bookshops saw grisly stories of crime and death sell like hot cakes. This history unfolds the true stories of murder, criminal investigation, early forensic techniques, high court trials and so much more. In thrilling narrative, we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net. We untangle the mystery of a suspected staged suicide through the newly emerging science of forensic pathology. We see a mother trying to clear her dead daughter's name while other women faced the accusations - sometimes true and sometimes not - of murdering their own children. These stories are pieced together from original research using coroner's inquests, court records, parish archives, letters, diaries and the cheap street pamphlets that proliferated to satisfy a voracious public. These intensely personal stories portray the lives of real people as they confronted the extraordinary crises of murder, infanticide, miscarriage and suicide. Many historical laws and attitudes concerning death and murder may strike us as exceptionally cruel, and yet many still remind us that some things never change: we are still fascinated by narratives of murder and true crime, murder trials today continue to be grand public spectacles, female killers are frequently cast as aberrant objects of public hatred and sexual desire, and suicide remains a sin within many religious organisations and was a crime in England until the 1960s. Great and Horrible News! explores the strange history of death and murder in early modern England, yet the stories within may appear shockingly familiar.

Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy by Steven Powell (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc)

Love Me Fierce In Danger is the story of James Ellroy, one of the most provocative and singular figures in American literature. The so-called "Demon Dog of Crime Fiction," Ellroy enjoys a celebrity status and notoriety that few authors can match. However, traumas from the past have shadowed his literary success. When Ellroy was ten years old, his mother was brutally murdered. The crime went unsolved, and her death marked the start of a long and turbulent road for Ellroy that has included struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, and jail time. In tracing his life and career, Steven Powell reveals how Ellroy's upbringing in LA, always on the periphery of Hollywood, had a profound and dark influence on his work as a novelist. Using new sources, Powell also uncovers Ellroy's family secrets, including the mysterious first marriage of his mother Jean Ellroy, eighteen years before her murder. At its heart, Love Me Fierce in Danger is the story of how Ellroy overcame his demons to become the bestselling and celebrated author of such classics as The Black Dahlia and LA Confidential. Informed by interviews with friends, family, peers, and literary and Hollywood collaborators, as well as extensive conversations with Ellroy himself, Love Me Fierce In Danger pulls back the curtain on an enigmatic figure who has courted acclaim and controversy with equal zealotry.

The Mysterious Romance of Murder: Crime Detection, and the Spirit of Noir by David Lehman (Cornell University Press)

From Sherlock Holmes to Sam Spade; Nick and Nora Charles to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin; Harry Lime to Gilda, Madeleine Elster, and other femmes fatales—crime and crime solving in fiction and film captivate us. Why do we keep returning to Agatha Christie's ingenious puzzles and Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled murder mysteries? What do spy thrillers teach us, and what accounts for the renewed popularity of morally ambiguous noirs? In The Mysterious Romance of Murder, the poet and critic David Lehman explores a wide variety of outstanding books and movies—some famous (The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity), some known mainly to aficionados—with style, wit, and passion. Lehman revisits the smoke-filled jazz clubs from the classic noir films of the 1940s, the iconic set pieces that defined Hitchcock's America, the interwar intrigue of Eric Ambler's best fictions, and the intensity of attraction between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. He also considers the evocative elements of noir—cigarettes, cocktails, wisecracks, and jazz standards—and offers five original noir poems (including a pantoum inspired by the 1944 film Laura) and ironic astrological profiles of Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and Graham Greene. The Mysterious Romance of Murder is written by a connoisseur with an uncanny feel for the language and mood of mystery, espionage, and noir.

Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare (Vintage Publishing)

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Ian's childhood with his gifted brother Peter and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be 'the complete man', and he would strive for the means to achieve this 'completeness' all his life. Only a thriller writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction.

Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury Books

 

July 2022

Don't be ordinary, Leo. Passion has its price.'1883. Leo Stanhope, transgender journalist and amateur detective, and his wife Rosie have come to Portsmouth - but this is no simple seaside retreat. While Rosie's sister expects them for dinner, two young people have been killed by the docks. Having learned from experience, Leo wants to leave this to the police. When detectives dismiss the victims as only 'molly-lads' and misfits, though, he knows he has to help. But what connects the two victims, a boy from the streets and a young woman with a strange tattoo? And why is Leo himself being watched? As he begins to uncover a web of theft and secrets surrounding the murders, Leo's investigation draws him deeper into Portsmouth's underground nightlife, the dangers of the Navy dockyard - and uncomfortably close to the in-laws he had just begun to get to know. Can he find the truth without losing his chosen family? Just how much will he risk to bring the right people to justice? The Blood Flower is by Alex Reeve.

All I Said Was True is by Imran Mahmood. When Amy Blahn was murdered on a London office rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. She held Amy as she died. But all she can say when police arrest her is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find Michael - there is no evidence that he exists. And time is running out before they have to either charge Layla with Amy's murder, or let her go. As a lawyer, Layla knows that she has only forty-eight hours to convince police to investigate the man she knows only as 'Michael' instead of her. But the more she attempts to control her interviews with police, the more the truth leaks out - and how much of that truth can Layla risk being exposed?

September 2022

Turning Blue is by Benjamin Myers In the depths of winter in an isolated Yorkshire hamlet, a teenage girl, Melanie Muncy, is missing. The elite detective unit Cold Storage dispatches its best man to investigate. DI Jim Brindle may be obsessive, taciturn and solitary, but nobody on the force is more relentless in pursuing justice. Local journalist Roddy Mace has sacrificed a high-flying career as a reporter in London to take up a role with the local newspaper. For him the Muncy case offers the chance of redemption. Darker forces are at work than either man has realised. On a farm high above the hamlet, Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets that will shock even the hardened Brindle. Nobody knows the bleak moors and their hiding places better than him. As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from the tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity who has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.

As autumn draws in, a series of unexplained vicious attacks occur in a small northern town renowned for being a bohemian backwater. As the national media descends, local journalist Roddy Mace attempts to tell the story, but finds the very nature of truth brought into question. He turns to disgraced detective James Brindle for help. When further attacks occur the shattered community becomes the focus of an accelerating media that favours immediacy over truth. Murder and myth collide in a folk-crime story about place, identity and the tangled lives of those who never leave. These Darkening Days is by Benjamin Myers.

Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury Publishing

 January 2021

Wicked deeds require the cover of darkness... A struggling silhouette artist in Victorian Bath seeks out a renowned child spirit medium in order to speak to the dead - and to try and identify their killers - in this beguiling new tale from Laura Purcell. Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another... Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back... What secrets lie hidden in the darkness? The Shape of Darkness is by Laura Purcell.

Post Mortem is by Gary Bell. Can Rook keep his criminal past a secret when facing the most dangerous case of his life? Thirteen men have died in a London prison. Barrister Elliot Rook QC, who risks losing everything if his secret criminal past is revealed, must defend Charli Meadows, the vulnerable single mother accused of smuggling the deadly tainted drugs inside. But just as Rook becomes suspicious of those closest to Charli, a note arrives at his flat - threatening violence if the trial is not called off. While Rook battles to defend Charli and protect himself, his young protege Zara Barnes is fighting for her livelihood. In a few short weeks, only one tenancy at the legal chambers will be available to the ever-multiplying mass of pupils. Determined to make it hers, Zara takes on her biggest solo case yet. But will her gamble pay off?

Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith is by Richard Bradford. Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the great modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. The triangular relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality - by parts self-destructive and malicious - and her fiction has been largely avoided by other biographers. She was openly lesbian and would, in modern times, be venerated as a radical exponent of an LGBT lifestyle. However, her status as an exemplar of gay radicalism is undermined by the incontrovertible fact that she was gratuitously cruel and exploitative of her lovers. In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great, and most controversial, writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's best-sellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, her anti-Semitism and her misogyny.

February 2021

Lightseekers is by Femi Kayode. Three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, their killings - and their killers - caught on social media. The world knows who murdered them; what no one knows is why. As the legal trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for some answers to his son's murder. Philip is an expert in crowd behaviour and violence but travelling to the sleepy university town that bore witness to the killings, he soon feels dramatically out of his depth. Years spent first studying, then living in the US with his wife and children mean he is unfamiliar with many Nigerian customs and no one involved in the case seems willing to speak out. The more Philip digs, and the more people he meets with a connection to the case, the more he begins to realise that there is something very wrong concealed somewhere in this community.

March 2021

The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer is by Shrabani Basu. In the village of Great Wyrley near Birmingham, someone is mutilating horses. Someone is also sending threatening letters to the vicarage, where the vicar, Shahpur Edalji, is a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England. His son George - quiet, socially awkward and the only boy at school with distinctly Indian features - grows up into a successful barrister, till he is improbably linked to and then prosecuted for the above crimes in a case that left many convinced that justice hadn't been served. When he is released early, his conviction still hangs over him. Having lost faith in the police and the legal system, George Edalji turns to the one man he believes can clear his name - the one whose novels he spent his time reading in prison, the creator of the world's greatest detective. When he writes to Arthur Conan Doyle asking him to meet, Conan Doyle agrees. From the author of Victoria and Abdul comes an eye-opening look at race and an unexpected friendship in the early days of the twentieth century, and the perils of being foreign in a country built on empire.

Musician Charlotte Dove has vanished after playing in a concert for a prestigious orchestra led by a conductor world-renowned as a charismatic, obsessive genius who pushes his musicians to their very limit. The police insist that there are no signs of foul play and that with Charlotte's passport missing, she is unlikely to be in any danger. But where did Charlotte go? And why would she leave without a word to her husband, fellow musician Henry, having just secured the job of a lifetime? Journalist Richard Blake is struggling to find work in the new online world. He sees Charlotte's disappearance as an opportunity to restart his career by exploiting the growing obsession with true crime podcasts. But the more he delves into Charlotte's past, and the more his audience grows, bringing him into direct conflict with the police, the murkier her story becomes... The Disappearance of Charlotte Dove is by Alice Clark-Platts.

April 2021

Greenwich Park is by Katherine Faulkner. Helen has it all... Daniel is the perfect husband. Rory is the perfect brother. Serena is the perfect sister-in-law. And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare. When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel. Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen's friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret...

May 2021

When the police are called to the report of a late-night shooting, they expect it to be drugs or gang-related. They don't expect to find a young student executed on his way home. Jordan Radley was an aspiring journalist: hard working, well-liked, dedicated. His first major story - looking at the fallout following the closure of a major local factory - had run recently and looked to be the first step in his longed-for career. Even after the story ran, Jordan continued to stay in contact with those he interviewed: he was on his way back from their social club the night he was murdered. But as the detectives quickly discover, not only was Jordan killed, but those responsible also broke into his house, taking his laptop and notes. What was he researching that might have led to his death? And can this really be linked to another case - long ruled an accident - in the same area or are the police being forced to prioritise those with the best connections rather than the ones that most need their help? One Half Truth is by Eva Dolan.

June 2021

I know What I Saw is by Imran Mahmood.  I saw it. He smothered her, pressing his hands on her face. The police don't believe me, they say it's impossible - but I know what I saw. This is Xander Shute: once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets. As he shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat, he hears its occupants returning home, and scrambles to hide as the couple argue. Trapped in his hiding place, he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder. But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can't have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice? As Xander searches for answers, his memory of the crime comes under scrutiny, forcing him to confront his long-buried past and the stories he's told about himself. How much he is willing to risk to understand the brutal truth?

Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury Publishing

July 2020

Murder by Milk Bottle is by Lynne Truss.  The August bank holiday is approaching and after two extremely high-profile murder cases, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But then they find the bodies - and the milk bottles.  Three seemingly unconnected victims - a hard-working AA patrolman, a would-be Beauty Queen, a catty BBC radio personality - have all been killed with the same, highly unusual murder weapon. Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick and Inspector Steine are initially baffled, the town is alarmed, and the local newspaper is delighted: after all, what sells papers better than a killer on the loose?   Can our redoubtable trio solve the case and catch this most curious of killers before they strike again?

October 2020

The Devil and The Dark Water is by Stuart Turton.  A murder on the high seas. A detective

duo. A demon who may or may not exist.  It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage.  A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered. And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel. Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes? With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger on-board.  A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board... 

Scatter her Ashes is by Heine Bakkied.  Thorkild Aske returns in the second in this brilliant, darkly funny crime series from a fresh voice in Nordic Noir Disgraced, damaged former police officer Thorkild Aske has stopped taking his painkillers after his last experience searching for the missing in northern Norway. Wracked by withdrawal and desperate for work, he reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of two schoolgirls for crime fiction superstar Milla Lind - but Lind clearly has more invested in the case than fiction. When Thorkild discovers that her previous investigator was murdered on the job, no-one will explain why - all he has to go on are files about unrelated cases from all across Norway. Oh, and his ex-wife wants to talk. What could possibly go wrong?

November 2020

The headlines scream warnings about the 'Butcher of Berner Street!' and the journalist behind them - Leo Stanhope - is secretly thrilled to see the effect his words are having. Leo's previous work has largely been concentrated on more mundane issues but when an anonymous letter summons him to a club in East London, only for the owner of the club to be found murdered shortly afterwards, Leo sees a story worth pursuing. Not to mention an opportunity to make a name for himself. Yet the more Leo digs, the stranger the story becomes, taking him from the club to a nearby convent, and into the past of a very unusual woman. But he is not the only one hunting for a killer. And it seems Leo's initial newspaper reports may have put someone else in grave danger…  The Butcher of Berner Street is by Alex Reeve. 

Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury

January 2020

Arthur Conan Doyle was not just the creator of the world's greatest detective, he was also an intrepid global traveler - and travel writer. His descriptions of the journeys he made and the adventures he embarked upon - from the Arctic to the Alps, West Africa to Egypt and across every ocean in between - are brought to life with insight, humour and exceptional evocations of place. Conan Doyle’s Wide World: Sherlock Holmes and Beyond is by Andrew Lycett.

February 2020

Between the To Evils is by Eva Dolan.  As the country bakes under the relentless summer sun, a young doctor is found brutally murdered at his home in a picturesque Cambridgeshire village. Is his death connected to his private life - or his professional one? Dr Joshua Ainsworth worked at an all-female detention centre, one still recovering from a major scandal a few years before. Was he the whistle-blower - or an instigator? As Detective Sergeant Ferreira and Detective Inspector Zigic begin to painstakingly reconstruct Dr Ainsworth's last days, they uncover yet more secrets and more suspects. But this isn't the only case that's demanding their attention - a violent criminal has been released on a technicality and the police force know he will strike again: the only question is who will be his first victim.

The Cambridge Spies continue to fascinate - but one of them, John Cairncross, has always been more of an enigma than the others. He worked alone and was driven by his hostility to Fascism rather than to the promotion of Communism. During his war-time work at Bletchley Park, he passed documents to the Soviets which went on to influence the Battle of Kursk. Now, Geoff Andrews has access to the Cairncross papers and secrets, and has spoken to friends, relatives and former colleagues. A complex individual emerges - a scholar as well as a spy - whose motivations have often been misunderstood. After his resignation from the Civil Service, Cairncross moved to Italy and here he rebuilt his life as a foreign correspondent, editor and university professor. This gave him new circles and friendships - which included the writer Graham Greene - while he always lived with the fear that his earlier espionage would come to light. Agent Moliere: The Life of John Cairncross, the Fifth Man of the Cambridge Spy Circle is by Geoff Andrews.

March 2020

It's the winter of 1948. The four great railway companies have just been nationalised and Jack Wenlock – the last of a fabled cadre of railway detectives – is thrown out onto the street.  Penniless, with new bride Jenny to support, and hiding from a murderous organisation called Room 42, Jack's prospects look bleak.  But then a letter arrives from a mysterious Cornish Countess revealing that Jack's mother – long believed to be dead – may have survived a shipwreck off the coast of Java. Seizing the opportunity to track down his only remaining family member, Jack and Jenny board a boat heading East.   The trail takes them to a run-down Siamese hotel where a motley assortment of drifters has washed up. Here a spy, an assassin, a deserter, an old soldier and a fading Hollywood movie star all await the arrival of a missing part for a flying boat and a journey that will take them into the realm of myth.  But if Jack is ever to see his mother again, he has to stop them…  The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness is by Malcolm Pryce

April 2020

A Bangladeshi camp. A British ambassador. A Harley Street doctor. Investigative journalist Casey Benedict is used to working on stories that will take her from the bottom to the top of society - stories with a huge human cost. And her latest case is no different. A frantic message is found hidden in clothes manufactured for the British high street. They take the girls... Casey and her team at the Post know they are on the brink of a major expose but identifying the factories in which the clothes have been made is one challenge, following the trail of those taken is another. Their attempts to find the girls will take Casey from her London newsroom across the world and into the very heart of families who will be destroyed if what she uncovers is ever revealed.  The Dead Line is by Holly Watt

June 2020

Post Mortem is by Gary Bell QC.  Once a petty criminal  now a highly respected QC Elliott Rook has years of legal experience  - and he will need everyone of them if he is to see his latest client acquitted.  A batch of tainted drugs has killed thirteen inmates at a London prison and a vulnerable young officer, Charli Meadows has been charged with smuggling them into prison.  Charli insists that she is innocent but as Rook begins to investigate the charges that first saw the prisoners incarcerated a threatening note arrives at Rook’s flat, warning him off the case.  

My Name is ..............

My name is Gary Bell and I’m a barrister. I haven’t always been a barrister. My life has gone through many phases. I started off as a coal miner, following in the footsteps of my father. Next I did a succession of jobs – apprentice mechanic, fork lift truck driver; bricklayer; pork pie production line worker and fireman, before getting in trouble with the police for fraud and going to prison for a spell. I was pretty useless and feral. A petty criminal and football hooligan incapable of holding down a job. My father had abandoned the family years before. My mother had sadly died of cancer. I was estranged from my siblings, sleeping rough during the last year of my teens. Into my twenties it all changed. I'd tried to be like Frank Sinatra and do it my way, but I came up short. I realised that to make anything of myself in life I needed an education. 

I went to college to do my O and A levels, then onto University to read law. After that it was bar school, pupillage, tenancy and thirty years at the bar. There are several types of barrister. My type isn’t the most lucrative, but it’s the most exciting, crime. They’ve yet to make a TV series about ‘Rumpole of the Chancery Courts’ or ‘Kavanagh Tax QC’. That’s another important bit. Only around 14% of barristers become QC’s. In crime that means you get to deal with the most serious cases, the most gruesome murders or serious frauds. I was fortunate enough to be appointed a QC in 2012. I’ve always had itchy feet. Always wanted to squeeze every last drop from this short time we spend on earth. During my life as a barrister I’ve also become a qualified pilot, was an award-winning stand-up comedian, have written for several newspapers and have a column in the Spectator, presented my own TV show on BBC 1 and now I’ve turned my hand to crime writing. 

After the success of my autobiography, ‘Animal QC’ (Animal being my football hooligan nickname and QC my current title) I was approached by a film producer friend, Pete Czernin, who put me in touch with a literary agent Eugenie Furniss. She introduced me to another agent, Rory Scarfe. Rory had a brilliant young  writer on his books, Scott Kershaw, and he suggested that Scott and I collaborate to write a crime thriller. We met and got on famously and the net result is our first book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt. The second book, County Lines, is currently being written. 

The principle character, Elliott Rook, is loosely based on me. I had wanted him to be dashing and thin, but Scott kept me grounded insisting he was shambling and fat. After thirty years at the criminal bar, being involved in cases incorporating just about every crime from shoplifting to mass murder, I’ve a wealth of material to weave into the Rook stories based on real cases. Most of the anecdotes and scenarios in the books actually happened. Only the names have changed. 

The Bar is a fantastic profession. You very rarely work in the same court from case to case and it’s brilliant walking into a random robing room and encountering old friends you’ve known and worked with for decades. It’s not like the public perception, an ancient, stuffy profession. In my life I’ve been sacked as a fireman, a bricklayer and a fork lift truck driver at Asda for having a criminal conviction and therefore being too dishonest to put out fires, lay bricks or load pallets onto lorries, but when I applied to become a barrister, having declared my conviction, the message from my Inn, the Inner Temple, was that everyone was entitled to a second chance in life. 

But there is still much to be done. The Bar is working hard on diversity, ensuring we have more BAME and socially deprived barristers. Rook’s sidekick, Zara, illustrates the struggles to become a barrister. She is a gay, dual heritage (Pakistani and English) woman from a working class Midlands’ family struggling to make her way at the bar. 

It is a struggle to become a barrister. Not only is it a struggle it’s an unequal one, particularly for those without money or connections. I had to sleep rough in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for a while in my early days as an unpaid pupil barrister. But the greater the struggle the more the sense of achievement when you overcome barriers to success. My message to anyone with a dream is simple. If it’s an uneven playing field (which it will be) and therefore much harder for you than for others, don’t moan about it, try harder. If you have the ability and determination you’ll succeed, and that success will taste much sweeter than if it was given to you on a plate. 

Beyond Reasonable Doubtby Gary Bell is published by Raven Books on 13 June.

Elliot Rook QC is one of the greatest barristers of his generation. He is also a complete fraud. Elliot Rook is the epitome of a highly successful, old Etonian QC. Or so everyone believes. In fact, he is an ex-petty criminal with a past that he has spent decades keeping secret. Until now... An unidentified young woman of Middle Eastern origin has been found murdered on the outskirts of Rook's home town. Billy Barber - a violent football hooligan and white-supremacist - is accused of her murder. Barber insists that Rook must defend him. If Rook refuses, Barber will expose him, bringing crashing to the ground the life and career that Rook has spent his life building. 

Grantchester - behind the scenes with creator James Runcie

Go Behind the Scenes of Grantchester!

Don’t miss an opportunity to see London Book & Screen Week Ambassador James Runcie (The Grantchester Mysteries) for this special event on Wednesday 13th March!

Led by TV personality Reverend Richard Coles (BBC One The Big Painting Challenge, QI, Have I Got News For You?), the author behind ITV’s hit series will be in conversation with lead scriptwriter Daisy Coulam, to dive behind the scenes of the popular TV show.

James and Daisy will discuss the inspiration behind the stories, the challenges of adapting to screen and key moments from the last four series: From the bromance between Sidney Chambers (James Norton) and Geordie Keating (Robson Green), to tackling homosexuality and the church, and introducing the new vicar William Davenport (Tom Brittney).

Attendees will also be treated to a preview of James’ new novel - The Road to Grantchester - a captivating prequel published by Bloomsbury on 21st March.

Ticket information can be found here.