The Case of the Mad Doctor by P D Lennon

 Settling down to read Kei Miller’s poetry* one day, it never crossed my mind that the idea for my first historical crime novel lay within his acclaimed verses. An eighteenth-century serial killer? In Jamaica?

As a crime fiction writer, this was a real “Whoa!” moment. This piece of Jamaican legend had managed to evade me. How? I do not know. I re-read page 47 about five times, intrigued by the knowledge that in or around 1760, a Scotsman sailed silvery blue oceans to the tropical climes of Jamaica for a new life and brought violence. He could have brought tartan, a few kilts or shawls to show off, but no. True, a great majority of Europeans also came to kill, but they had navies and the blessing of queen or king and country. Scottish immigrant Doctor Lewis Hutchinson had no navy, just cruel intent and ammunition. Bows, arrows, muskets and plenty of lead balls.

For years, I delayed writing about Doctor Hutchinson (referred to as ‘Hutchison’ in some journals) because information about his early life is quite scant. Believed to be born in the year 1732, he was twenty-eight when he left Scotland for Jamaica. Where he obtained medical training is unknown. His name is nowhere to be found in the register of Edinburgh physicians, nor was he a student or graduate of Edinburgh Medical School. Where he lived in Scotland or what informed his decision to leave that country is also a mystery.

Although Hutchinson’s infamy is rooted in Jamaican crimes, I do wonder if he was always a brutish fellow who fled Scotland to avoid law enforcers. He settled in Pedro, St Ann, a tiny remote district on the island and built a home boldly titled Edinburgh Castle. Before long he was accused of stealing cattle to start a cattle business - the first sign of his descent into lawlessness. His encore was to launch a vicious assault upon his neighbour, Dr Jonathan Hutton, of such severity that the victim returned to England for a trepanning operation. This was a mere taster of what Hutchinson could do. A lot more evil was concealed up his ruffled cuff sleeves.

Somehow, someway, this mysterious character belonged in a story. What I had to do was work out a structure, and that evaded me for some time until I saw an article about a book called Black Tudors. I liked the idea of gainfully employed Black people in King Henry VIII’s time and wanted to write about a clever Black man. After all, literature has to find space for a different type of hero. They can’t all be Tom Holland lookalikes. King Henry’s Tudor era was sixteenth century. Doctor Hutchinson’s reign of terror came much later in the Georgian era. A light bulb went off. I decided that my tale would be about a smart Black Georgian, a fictional hero to take down the Mad Doctor. Originally entitled The Adventures Of Isaiah Ollenu, it was later changed to The Case of the Mad Doctor in consultation with my astute editor, Craig Lye.

The desolate district of Pedro would have been too restrictive as a setting for the entire book. Instead, much of the island is on show. Spanish Town (St Jago de la Vega), St Catherine, was the capital city and features prominently throughout. A few of the imposing buildings from that era still exist in Spanish Town square, some as ruins, others as local government facilities. The populous and popular Kingston gets a look in too, as does Montego Bay where a magnificent ball is held. Determined to include Jamaican folklore - as not many books do - I added elements of magical realism in the tale, including African mermaids and a rolling calf. Yes, Jamaica’s most terrifying four-legged duppy gets a whole scene to run riot.

Despair can be a close companion when conducting research into what was a barbarous time for people in Africa, the West Indies and the Americas, but creating art through pain is something that writers of dark fiction must get used to.

In the colonial era, unimaginable cruelty was inflicted upon human beings, enslaved and forced to work in degrading conditions to ensure Europe grew wealthy. Doctor Hutchinson ran a sugar plantation and owned enslaved Africans. While we do not know much about their lives, they deserve a voice and were given one.

Combining fiction with dark fact to produce entertainment is a delicate task. Early on, I realised that the only way to write the tale without falling into depression was to include a good dose of humour, which tone is set from chapter one. Whether you chose to root for the good guys or the bad guy, I hope you savour the antics of the very different characters.

 

The Case of the Mad Doctor by P D Lennon (Canelo Press) Out Now.

Inspired by the true story of Jamaica’s first serial killer. Jamaica, 1772. Caribbean jewel, or a killer's playground? On the island of Jamaica, people have started disappearing without trace. Have they run away, trying to start new lives in the British colony under assumed names, or is something darker afoot? Some of the missing had taken out large life insurance policies before leaving England, and so word of the vanishings reaches Bristol when relatives try to collect their pay outs. With suspicion of a grand fraud in the air, ambitious Black barrister’s clerk Isaiah Ollenu is thrown together with pious insurance agent Ruben Ashby and ordered to the Caribbean to investigate. But, confronted by prejudice, untoward characters and vengeful spirits, the task may cost this unlikely duo more than either man is willing to pay…

P D Lennon can be found on X @PaulaDL16 and on Instagram @pauladl16

*Kei Miller - The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, Carcanet Press.

Mel Pennant on Miss Hortense

My protagonist in A Murder for Miss Hortense is retired nurse, keen gardener, renowned cook and fearless sleuth, Miss Hortense, a formidable woman from the Windrush generation. She emigrated from Jamaica in the 1960s and moved to the quiet fictional suburb of Bigglesweigh in Birmingham, where she was not immediately welcomed.   

She takes great pride in her home and is also quite observant about other peoples’, though she doesn’t care what other people think about her. She’s gots skills . . . She can tell when a Jamaican patty doesn’t include all the right ingredients and is an expert at uncovering secrets.

My husband describes Miss Hortense as ‘like water’ – she gets everywhere. She is fearless and will knock down walls to get to the truth. But Miss Hortense also carries a wound. Something very traumatic happened to her thirty-five years ago and when an unidentified man is found dead, her long buried past comes rushing back to greet her. She knows that, in order to solve the crimes of the current day, she must go back and solve the crimes of the past. 

At the heart of my novel is the Pardner. A Pardner, also called Box Hand or Sousou in the Caribbean community, is at its basic level a mutual saving scheme. A group of people come together and pool their resources, then the accumulated wealth is distributed on a regular basis amongst the contributing members.  

In the UK, the Pardner was and still is used by the Windrush generation (‘Windrush generation’ to describe the women and men who came to the UK between 1948 and 1971 from the Caribbean to assist in rebuilding the country after the Second World War, and who went on to make the UK their home). At that time, one of the reasons the Pardner was so prolific was because many Afro-Caribbean communities were excluded from traditional forms of credit and finance and/or distrustful of it.  

At the core of any Pardner there is a person who leads it, often a matriarchal figure, who provides discipline and keeps everyone in line; she is often called the Pardner Lady.  

The idea of the Pardner fascinates me. It was used as a solution to a problem encountered by my grandparents and their generation because of a lack of access to traditional forms of finance. I thought, what other problems might a community like theirs have encountered? What other ideas might they come up with to overcome them? It felt logical to me to extend the remit of Miss Hortense and her Pardner Network to solving crime – and so the Pardner Network of Bigglesweigh was born, originally a group of eight men and women whose mission was to find justice for those who couldn’t find it for themselves.  

The inspiration for A Murder for Miss Hortense partly came from my grandmothers, who were both phenomenal women and my paternal grandmother was even a Pardner Lady. As I’ve got older, I’ve become more in awe of them and their courageousness.

Golden Age crime mysteries were a big influence while writing A Murder for Miss Hortense, along with Barbara Neely’s Blanche White series, whose heroine is an African-American housekeeper turned sleuth and one of the first Black female fictional detectives who used the whodunit as a tool for racial and social commentary.  

A Murder for Miss Hortense is set in the 1960s and 2000s. I wanted readers to understand the history of Miss Hortense and how and why the Pardner Network was created as part of the grounding for what happens in the current day. I’m a firm believer that the past is part of our present.

I hope you enjoy being with Miss Hortense and the Pardner Network as much as I have. I’m really excited for what’s to come.

A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (John Murray Press) Out Now

Death has come to her doorstep . . .Retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she's been short-changed on turmeric before she's even taken her first bite of a beef patty. Thirty-five years of nursing have also left her afraid of nobody - be they a local drug dealer or a priest - and an expert in deciphering other people's secrets with just a glance. Miss Hortense uses her skills to investigate the investments of the Pardner network - a special community of Black investors, determined to help their people succeed. But when an unidentified man is found dead in one of the Pardner's homes, a Bible quote noted down beside his body, Miss Hortense's long-buried past comes rushing back to greet her, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life, one which her community has never let her forget. It is time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her, and the community she loves, tested to their limits.

More information about Mel Pennant can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @MelPennant, on Instagram @mel_pennant and on Facebook.