Lou Gilmond: On researching for PALISADE

 It started with an honourable member: Harry Colbey, although he wasn’t always called that. The member of parliament for Gloucester East had several names before that one stuck, and even then, I had to rob from the grave.

That’s the problem with research. It throws up complications. Neither the man nor the parliamentary constituency exist, but I write political thrillers set in Westminster and like to make sure there are no unfortunate coincidences. No accidental similarities of name that might set tongues wagging and confuse fiction with fact. Particularly since corruption and the choice between right and wrong are major themes of my Kanha and Colbey series of political thrillers.

As I was writing Dirty Geese, the first in the series, I was at the same time digging into MPs connected to scandal. Firstly, to ping out ideas for plot twists for that book and Palisade, the next in the series. But also, to be sure I didn’t use names for my two MP protagonists that were similar to those of anyone who really existed, particularly if linked to disgraceful goings-on or – as it tends to be called when connected to our politicians – sleaze.

Before I turned to writing, I worked for many years in regulatory affairs, which often involved lobbying MPs, ministers, and civil servants. During that time, I visited both the Houses of Parliament and the government departments of Whitehall on a regular basis, and even No 10 on occasion. It didn’t matter how many times I went, I still felt it an honour to be there; to stand, for example, in central lobby, an octagonal room at the centre of the Houses of Parliament and the beating heart of Westminster. Anyone can meet or lobby an MP in this room. It sits at a crossroads, one corridor leading off it to the Lords and another, on the other side, to the Commons. It is a place where members of both sides of the commons and members of both houses meet and mingle, and where the lobby press can interview ministers and backbenchers alike.

From my time visiting Westminster, I had a good grounding on the culture there and of the differing characters of MPs, of ministers and civil servants, but I’m one of those writers who like to be thorough when it comes to research, so I dug on in.

Affairs, theft, bribery, blackmail and sexual harassment: that was just for starters. Call girls, rent boys, aggressive pimps who call late at night, inappropriate content on computers, watching pornography at work, misrepresentation of educations and prior careers, drugs in the workplace, drugs outside of the workplace, vendettas, violence, and fraud.

It seemed that if there was a list of things that MPs shouldn’t be doing, every single item on it had been covered off in some form or other, at some time other.

It didn’t take too long to discover that the name I had chosen for one of my protagonists bore a resemblance to that of a real-life MP connected to one of the more salacious events in my research notes. I won’t say which one. Just a single letter differentiated their surnames. Annoying. The name of my male protagonist had to change. I picked another, and as my research continued, found the exact same thing happened again. Frustrating.

The name of a protagonist is an important cornerstone of any book and as I floundered about, my male protagonist was nameless while that first book, Dirty Geese was written. Then, at the last minute, when the manuscript was due in to my editor, I saw a name on a grave in a little churchyard on the south coast. ’Colbey.’ It was perfect. An honourable sounding name for an honourable MP, and as far as I knew – or to put it more accurately as far as google was aware – there had not been a British MP with that name since Thomas Colby died in 1588, and his version of the name had a different spelling. The given name of Harry came easily after that.

Harry Colbey, a truly honourable member of parliament. A rare and fine thing.

By the time I came to write Palisade, Harry Colbey felt as real as any of the MPs I met with in my time lobbying or in my subsequent research. He was an honest man, a family man, his kids grown up and just recently flown the nest. He had disappointed his wife with his choice of career, leaving his relatively well-paid position at a bank to stand for parliament.

His plan had been to serve his constituents well and represent their interests in the House of Commons to the best of his ability. He had had a brief moment of political stardom, promoted to a junior minister early on, but he wouldn’t do what they told him. He wouldn’t compromise his morals to toe the party line, so he had been kicked back to the backbenches.

There he disappeared from view, working quietly and tirelessly on behalf of his constituents, all ambition for advancement forgotten, much to his wife’s embarrassment and shame. But when Colbey uncovers a corrupt plot between senior ministers and a big tech organisation, he feels he must abandon his hopes of a quiet slide towards retirement and instead stand up and fight for what he believes in, no matter the cost.

Both Palisade, and its predecessor, Dirty Geese, are thrillers that look at corrupt links between politicians and big tech organisations, particularly those who now have advanced AI capabilities at their fingertips. They can be read standalone, or picked up in any order, as each book looks at different aspect of the same conspiracy – although chronologically, Dirty Geese comes first.

I tried hard to make sure that the politics within them is reflective of the way our parliamentary processes really work, or to be more accurate, on occasion don’t work. But both Dirty Geese and Palisade are crime thrillers at heart and they each start with a murder. They both involve jeopardy, deceit, international conspiracy, corruption and a whole catalogue of twists and turns. And they each turn on the hope that there is at least one MP out there who will do what needs to be done, who will stand up and say what needs to be said, and that is the honourable Harry Colbey.

 Palisade by Lou Gilmond (Fairlight Books) Out Now

When opposition Chief Whip Esme Kanha is handed a secret dossier containing evidence of government corruption, she suspects its original owner, a top journalist, was murdered for gathering it. Despite the danger, she feels she must investigate. Meanwhile, lowly backbencher Harry Colbey is working his own leads. A known campaigner against big tech, he is often sent data from anonymous sources and this time round he has something truly alarming. But both Colbey and Kanha must tread carefully in a world dominated by AI, where 'what can see watches, what can hear listens, and what can be followed is tracked'. As Kanha and Colbey again join forces, they are locked into a deadly race against political corruption, no matter what the cost. But when an old enemy returns, it may already be too la

Palisade by Lou Gilmond is published on 21st November and is available to buy in bookshops now.

More information about Lou Gilmond can be found on her website. You can also find her on Instagram @lougilmond

The Age of Curiosity by Leonora Nattrass

It was Christmas 2022, and I was between projects, whiling away the holiday by mulling over my favourite Georgian romantic poets, and wondering if some episode in their often eccentric lives might provide a spark for my next historical mystery.

Modern biographies are all very well, but the most fun and detailed accounts are often contained in older ones, usually heavier on narrative and lighter on analysis. Accordingly, I was sitting in the festive kitchen, idly reading Alexander Gilchrist’s 1880 Life of William Blake, when I first came across the extraordinary story of seventeen-year-old Blake’s involvement with Westminster Abbey. 

Blake, then apprenticed to an engraver in London, was sent to the abbey to make sketches of the tombs and monuments for a forthcoming book. “From 1773, the Gothic monuments were for years his daily companions,” Gilchrist says. “Shut up alone with these solemn memorials of far-off centuries, the spirit of the past became his familiar companion.” 

This seemed very romantic – and nicely humanised by the fact that he often got locked in when the vergers forgot about him. I could already easily imagine strange goings on between the hundreds of eerie carved figures which crowd the abbey. 

But then, reading on, the plot thickened. 

In 1774, members of the London Society of Antiquaries appeared at the abbey, with permission from the king to open the tomb of Edward I, “Longshanks”, of Braveheart fame. The tyrant who threw his son’s lover bodily out of a window, sent Mel Gibson to be disembowelled, and pinched the Stone of Scone. (Other accounts of his character are available.) 

Edward’s tomb was of special interest to the antiquaries, since his will had ordained that after his death (in 1307) his tomb should be regularly opened and his body embalmed so that it might accompany any future English army against the Scots. This task had apparently been faithfully performed throughout the medieval period but the custom had been forgotten during the English Civil War and Commonwealth. 

When Longshanks’ tomb was opened, the antiquaries were delighted to find the still-robed, well-preserved mummy holding replicas of Edward the Confessor’s coronation sceptres which Cromwell had melted down a century earlier.

“I cannot help hoping that Blake (unseen) assisted at the ceremony,” Gilchrist ended his account of this little episode. 

By now, I certainly hoped so too, and only a brief recce on Google revealed that Gilchrist had missed out the best bit: Blake hadn’t just been present; he’d actually been roped in to sketch the mummified body of the king for posterity! 

What could be more fabulous than Westminster Abbey, the Society of Antiquaries, medieval mummies, and William Blake all together? 

The Society of Antiquaries was the archaeological equivalent of the Royal Society for scientists. Its members were very eager to find physical evidence for old historical accounts, some of which read like outrageous fiction to us today. The earth had been created at twelve noon, on the 23 October 4004 BC for instance; and Britain’s origin story involved exiled warriors from Troy fighting giants and tossing them off the cliffs at Totnes. 

The driving force behind the Society’s request to open the tomb was the elderly Joseph Ayloffe, who went on to write the official account of the event, ably assisted by (among others) fellow antiquarian, Daines Barrington. 

Barrington was a member of the Royal Society as well as the Antiquaries and, with the characteristic chutzpah of the times, was a prolific author on a remarkable variety of topics: childhood prodigies (how created?); bird song (a language?); and the possibility of reaching the North Pole (James Cook was to be roped in). With such eclectic expertise, opening the tomb of an ancient king wasn’t going to faze him!

Nowadays such an undertaking would doubtless be hedged about with safeguards and sucked-teeth warnings, but they were an intrepid lot in those days. And even a hundred years later, the Dean of the Abbey cheerfully dug up dozens of tombs on the flimsiest of pretexts. Such irreverence in such a reverent place seemed even riper for murder and mayhem. 

I was lucky enough to see the Abbey accounts for 1774, with all the names of the gardeners, vergers and other abbey servants of that year neatly inscribed beside their wages. Their names make it to the novel, but my badly behaved clergymen are all fictional, along with the outrageous, murderous consequences of what Gilchrist calls that “highly interesting bit of antiquarian sacrilege.”

Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass (Profile Books) Out Now 

London, 1774. The opening of a royal tomb will end in murder...Susan Bell spends her days within the confines of Westminster Abbey, one of many who live in the grounds of the ancient building. Her father, the kindly but foolish Dean of Westminster, is always busy keeping the many canons and vergers in check, when not being romantically pursued by forceful widows. Life at the abbey is uneventful, even after the unwelcome arrival of Susan's cousin Lindley and his unusual scientific demonstrations. That is until the Society of Antiquaries come armed with a letter from King George III. They wish to open the tomb of Edward I, each to investigate their own academic interests - whether it be rumours of the royal body's embalmment, an obsession with Arthurian legends or even a supposed Roman temple to Apollo beneath the abbey's undercroft. However, as the Society prepares to open the tomb, a ghostly figure is seen walking the abbey cloisters, wearing the crown and shroud of the dead king. There is further uproar when one of the Antiquaries is found viciously murdered, and the corpse of Edward I is stolen. With her father's position under threat from the scandal, Susan feels bound to investigate these strange occurrences. Could one of the Society members be harbouring a murderous secret? Or is one of the abbey's own a killer?

More information about Leonora Natrass can be found here.

She can also be found on X @LeonoraNattrass and on instagram @leonoranattrass.