Murder, Rob Wrote
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Do you know what your book’s about?
I thought I did. There I was, at the front of the church hall, being introduced by the chairperson, looking forward to my first public event as an author. My appearance in the local paper the week before seems to have drawn a good number of people. They look keen, friendly and welcoming, laughing as I recount some of the strange and amusing incidents from my time as an environmental health officer (EHO). I should tell them more about my work. Instead I launch into my talk. Holding up a copy of my first published book, No Accident, I tell my audience to feel free to ask questions at any…
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Why I Wrote No Accident
When you set out, you never quite know how things will turn out. I wanted to create something new, something different and exciting to entertain murder mystery readers. No Accident, the first book in the Downland Murder Mystery series, was actually the third book I wrote, featuring my sleuth Kent Fisher. The first novel wasn’t quite good enough. It led to a second, No Bodies, which was intended to be the first book in the series, but couldn’t be. Picture the scene. Kent Fisher is approached by an old family friend, whose wife has been missing for a year. When asked to investigate, he responds by saying, “Who you think…
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Why do I write murder mystery novels?
The easy answer would be to say I love Agatha Christie, crime dramas and complex puzzles. I was huge fan of the Famous Five by Enid Blyton when I was a child. I was an even bigger fan of Scooby Doo when it came on the TV in the early 70s. To me it was a US version of the Famous Five, updated and made funny by that lovable dog and his Scooby snacks. I was 12 or 13 when I read Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Seventeen when I tackled Murder on the Orient Express. After that, crime didn’t feature in my reading until the 1980s, when I discovered Sue…
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A funny thing happened on the way to publication
You’ll never believe what happened when I wrote my first murder mystery novel. That’s right, I couldn’t solve the murder. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m jinxed or far too clever for my own good. All I did was set out to create a different kind of detective. That’s what all crime writers want to do, isn’t it? The trouble is, my detective wasn’t a detective or a police officer. I couldn’t have someone walk into his office and hire him to investigate. As he wasn’t a police officer, he couldn’t go out and investigate a murder. Equally, he wasn’t some older woman in a village who solves…
