#TRAVEL TO LONDON WITH GUEST AUTHOR TRACY L. WARD

Charles Dickens Museum

A former journalist and graduate from Humber College's School for Writers, Tracy L. Ward has been hard at work developing her favourite protagonist, Peter Ainsley, and chronicling his adventures as a morgue surgeon in Victorian England. Learn more about Tracy and her books at her website. 

Lost in London: Setting the Scene

When I set out to write my Victorian morgue mystery series, Marshall House Mysteries, there was only one city in the world that could do it justice: London. With its cobblestone alleys, gas-lit streets and fog ridden nights, London has long been a setting for writers of the mysterious and supernatural. It seemed only fitting that Dr. Peter Ainsley, a morgue surgeon tracking down all manner of criminals, using the burgeoning science of forensics, should work and live there.

Today London is a frantic city with a web of criss-crossing transit systems including buses, river taxis and the famous tube. Each day an army of commuters file into the city from far flung suburbs, further contributing to the hustle and bustle of city life. Its skyline is a mixture of buildings old and new with a few notable landmarks like Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the architectural marvel of St. Mary Axe.

Despite a number of modern conventions that would hint otherwise, London still holds a lot of charm of yesteryear. There are a few hidden gems not so easily found by the everyday tourist, but if you are an unrepentant history fiend like I am, these places are non-negotiable when it comes to your sightseeing list.

If you are tickled by dark Victorian tales and enjoy the look and feel of old burial grounds, then Highgate Cemetery is a must. Filled with stone architecture and accents only the death-obsessed Victorians could provide, this off-the-beaten-path tourist site will have you constantly reaching for your camera. The Victorians enjoyed elaborate funerals and often equated their cost with how much their family loved the deceased in life. Nowhere is this more evident that at Highgate, one of London’s Magnificent Seven, a group of seven historical cemeteries scattered throughout the various neighbourhoods of the city. The east side of the cemetery is open every day for free-ranging, but the west side is only available via tours which must be pre-booked.

Another five-star site is the Old Operating Theatre & Herb Garret, an attic space once reserved for medical students who would gather along the amphitheatre style railings to oversee the dissection of a human cadaver. These lectures were performed as a supplement to the medical training students would receive in the hospitals and were quite rare after Britain outlawed the use of purchased bodies (procured from destitute families or nefarious entrepreneurs like Scotland’s famous Burke and Hare). The theatre was also where medical student could oversee surgical procedures facilitated by the large skylight overhead to ensure maximum light.

This is a small museum, but it sure does pack a punch. On display is a variety of Victorian obstetric tools (ouch!), nursing implements, scientific oddities and an assortment of ‘natural’ remedies. The space is high above a historic church and the only way to get there is by a narrow, winding staircase with rope railing. It’s a tight squeeze complete with rickety wooden stairs constructed at a very steep incline, which only further adds to the atmosphere of the place. Unfortunately, there is no wheelchair access.

Another site that greatly contributed to my research was the Charles Dickens Museum in Camden Borough. Already a well-known author by the time he moved his family there, the building is the only one remaining of Dickens’ London houses. The museum is displayed as it would have been during Dickens’ residence and includes his desk and a number of handwritten notes pertaining to his books. This museum offered me great insight into a typical layout of a Georgian terrace home including a kitchen in the basement and the layout of servants rooms (Dickens was fortunate enough to have two or three household helpers). When describing a room in my novels I often use my memories and photographs of this museum to guide me, though sometimes I deviate slightly, but that’s okay. I use Dickens’ home as a starting point and imagine from there.

As an author, I am very fortunate to have chosen a city with so many links to its past that continue to delight visitors today. Visiting these places gave me a real insight into the architecture, street layout and culture of London, one of the oldest cities in the world.

Prayers for the Dying

Dr. Peter Ainsley knew it was only a matter of time before London claims another murder victim, but this time the body is discovered tied to a lamppost four doors down from the house Ainsley shares with his sister and their bedridden father. The day the body is discovered, a maid of their house and Ainsley’s lover, Julia Kemp, fails to return home from errands in the city.

Convinced the body found in Belgravia and Julia’s disappearance are related, Ainsley follows leads that point him to an infamous bookman, Thaddeus Calvin, known as much for manipulating boxing outcomes as he is for his violent temper. Fiercely protected by the neighbourhood he extorts, Thaddeus is like a ghost, so deeply feared even Scotland Yard is unable to charge him for his crimes.

When another young woman’s body, a housemaid like Julia, is discovered floating in the river, Ainsley hastens his desperate search to discover Julia’s whereabouts before she, too, becomes just another murder victim found in the Thames. 

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FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR MARNI GRAFF

Marni Graff is the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney Mysteries, set in England, and The Trudy Genova Manhattan Mysteries. She also co-authored Writing in a Changing World and writes crime book reviews. Learn more about Marni and her books at her website/blog. Marni joins us today to talk about one of her favorite things--stained glass. 

As a writer, I play the “what if?” game when devising action or plot points for my two mystery series. So when my husband and I tired of the crowded, hectic, traffic-laden environment that our lovely Long Island had become, we played the same game. What if we changed the way we ran our lives completely? What if we left LI for the nature-filled riverside property we’d bought for a vacation home “down the road?” Maybe we were ready to go down that road sooner than later.

Moving to coastal North Carolina meant building our own home, something I’d never done before. We rented a cottage nearby, excitedly moving from firming up our plans to hiring a builder while we cleared our land on the Intracoastal Waterway site. One thing we knew from early on: we wanted a stained glass window set into the wall of what would be the living room-library area that opened into the rest of the main floor.

Despite having different decorating styles, mine vintage and Edwardian, Doc’s more Art Deco veering toward Modern, we both adore vintage stained glass, and had been collecting pieces for the new house as we went through the run-up to actually breaking ground. We had a double French painted-on-glass beauty from our current home for our bedroom. We found two windows that would be hung by chains in our master bathroom windows and set about restoring their frames as the house framing commenced. One is from a local church, a large cathedral arch in hues of gold with WELCOME picked out across it in large black letters. At night we turn on the light over our tub, and that window, which faces our driveway, greets our company. But that tall ceiling, soaring to fifteen feet in height in the main room, could handle a much larger piece than we’d come across--yet.

One Sunday we were riding around the small town of Chocowinity, a Tuscarora Indian name for “fish of many waters,” about an hour from our land. A friend had told us about an antique shop that was only open on the weekends. The owners visited the UK yearly and brought back a container of vintage furniture and doors, with the occasional piece of stained glass. It sounded right up our alley.

I saw her the moment we parked. The main window was filled with a large piece of Art Nouveau stained glass. Its center held a hand-painted medallion, a woman’s head with the flowing tresses of the era draped in grape vines. The four corners had Nouveau flowers in jeweled colors of cranberry, blue and green. It took my breath away, as did the price tag once we checked inside.

The owner was lovely and we ended up buying an 1880s English armoire and blanket chest that day. I kept returning to the window and drooling. We’d learned she was from Scotland, and yes, we were spot on. She was from the Art Nouveau period, 1890-1910, and Gerald said he was told she was from a Scottish estate that had been built in 1898. By now we were on a first name basis with Gerald and on subsequent visits, bought a vintage drafting table from the 1940s whose top Gerald had inlaid with marble. It doubles as our kitchen island and pastry roll-out station. But I kept eyeing The Scottish Lady, as we called her.

A few months later our anniversary was approaching, and as Doc and I were discussing how we wanted to celebrate, he turned to me. “How would you feel about asking Gerald if we could put The Scottish Lady on layaway and pay her off?”

 

Building a house takes a while. So did paying off The Scottish Lady, but the two coincided enough that when the builder had scaffolding in place for the beams that stretch across our room and hold the house up, we were able to set The Scottish Lady right into the end wall of the house. She’s fronted on the outside by a plain glass window for protection.

At the golden hours before sunset, sunlight streams through those colors and is reflected on the walls and the books in my library. We’ve lived in The Briary now for thirteen years and The Scottish Lady is still one of my favorite things.

The Scarlet Wench

In the third Nora Tierney Mystery, The Scarlet Wench, American writer Nora awaits the arrival of a traveling theatre troupe, who will stage Noel Coward’s farce, Blithe Spirit at Ramsey Lodge. Her son now six months old, Nora must juggle parenting with helping her friend Simon Ramsey at the lodge. She’s also hoping to further her relationship with the only guest not in the cast: DI Declan Barnes, ostensibly there for a hiking trip. When a series of pranks and accidents escalate to murder, Nora realizes her child is in jeopardy and is determined to help Declan unmask a killer.

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#TRAVEL TO #WALES WITH AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN

Worm's Head on the Gower Peninsula, Wales  (photo by John Ewing)

Author Judy Hogan takes us on a visit to Wales today, setting for her Penny Weaver Mysteries. Learn more about Judy and her books at her website.

The Gower! Gwyr in Welsh. How happy I always was to see the sign in English and Welsh as the bus took the road to the little peninsula near Swansea. My first visit had been in 1981 for one weekend. Then I’d been back for several weeks at a time in 1985, ‘88, ‘90, ‘95 and ‘96.

I loved the diversity of the landscape: chalk cliffs, the sea rolling in to wash against them, with tide pools and, on the cliffs themselves, wild flowers including orchids. I could walk in woods, explore ancient caves back to the Ice Age, see remnants of all the invasions into the land of the Britons, from the Romans, the Vikings, the Norman conquest of the French, and the present day tourists, though most of the “visitors,” as the British call them, came from the UK back in those days.

Today you’d find more Americans as well as more bed and breakfast accommodations, self-catering cottages, and the standby caravan parks and hotels. The landscape remains in some way pristine, and it’s an ideal place to explore if you have no car and like to walk as I did. There are footpaths everywhere and a bus runs along the peninsula.

Mrs. Merrett provided a single room and also gave me an evening meal for a little more per day. She and I became friends, and it was in 1990, when I suffered a minor injury and couldn’t follow my usual pattern of ranging the cliffs and seeking a spot out of the wind to write a poem, that she said, “Judy, you should write a murder.”

Edith Merrett knew I spent my evenings tucked up reading mysteries from the local library. I did begin plotting The Sands of Gower that visit, though I didn’t write it until the following summer. Poetry had been my creative writing focus until then. I tried that mystery for fun, but I enjoyed it for a different reason. Poetry has always helped me express my deep feelings, sometimes ones I scarcely knew I had. Writing fiction made it possible to articulate knowledge I had acquired through relationships, which was only partly conscious, about myself and other people.

I’ve always liked reading about the relationships of the characters, and I enjoy, more than plotting, getting at what people are like when they come into conflict with one another. I’ve had a lot of experience on the black/white line and find few books that explore that. So that became a major theme as my series advanced.

In The Sands of Gower Penny’s black friend Cathy is writing to her. In the second novel we meet Cathy in person, and also the lead detective in the village of Riverdell, Derek Hargrave. By the third book many more black characters appear, and I also began to take up community issues I’d learned about as I worked here in my own village of Moncure for safer nuclear storage, against air pollution, and in local politics. I’ve written sixteen books now and plan to publish them all over the next five years.

Most of the books take place in Riverdell, a central North Carolina village, but two more return to Gower. Penny’s husband is a Welsh detective inspector, whom she meets in The Sands of Gower, and once married, they normally spend part of each year on Gower.

The Sands of Gower

Penny begins a new and lively stage of life, her children raised, with a powerful erotic attraction, and the freedom to cross lines that usually hold people apart. The book is set in a bed & breakfast on the Gower peninsula near Swansea, Wales.

Penny Weaver, luxuriating in her two-month vacation, is disturbed by the murder of a German guest. Penny’s independent, outspoken American lifestyle contrasts with the more conservative ways of the village’s pensioners. In the process of solving the crime, Penny and Detective Inspector Kenneth Morgan are powerfully attracted. This, plus the British post-World War II continuing distrust of the Germans, complicates their investigation.

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TRAVEL TO THE LAKE DISTRICT WITH GUEST AUTHOR MARNI GRAFF

Windermere Quay

Marni Graff, who writes the UK-set Nora Tierney Mystery series, makes a return appearance today to talk about the Lake District and murder. Learn more about Marni and her books at her website. 

The Lake District and Murder

There are many places in Great Britain I enjoy, but one I adore is Cumbria. Land of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Ruskin and the inimitable Beatrix Potter, it comprises almost nine hundred square miles of national park, the largest such area in England and Wales, all lying within the county in an area commonly called the Lake District.

Wordsworth thought his town of Grasmere as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found,” a place picturesque with the bluest skies, fluffiest clouds, and more shades of green in the woods and shores than I’ve seen elsewhere. Cumbria contains England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, and its largest lake, Windermere. There are shallow tarns, rising fells, sparkling ghylls and every species of tree found in Britain in its woodlands. The area’s unparalleled beatify beckons lovers of nature: hikers and campers, fisherman and boaters, artists and writers. Tourists are international and visit at all times of the year, for there are many ancient sites, author’s homes and castles to see in addition to attracting nature lovers.

A haven for backpackers and hikers, walking trails traverse high and low pathways, and are often maintained by local farmers as well as National Trust workers and volunteers. At Grasmere, Dove Cottage still stands, home to Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, from 1799 to 1808. It was here the poet wrote some of his greatest poetry and spent what he deemed the happiest years of his life. The stone, plaster and whitewashed cottage and its gardens have been carefully preserved largely as it was in his day and are open for visits.

The area I’m most familiar with is the village of Bowness-on-Windermere, on the east coast of Windermere, and its neighboring town of Windermere. “Mere” means “lake”, so it’s redundant to say “Lake Windermere” but with the town of the same name, many times it’s written that way to distinguish the two. Windermere (the town) features the Windermere Steamboat Museum, with its collection of early steam craft, including the oldest mechanically propelled boat in the world, the Dolly, built in 1850. Windermere and Coniston Water inspired the Lake in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series.

Bowness holds the ferry dock that takes riders and cars across the lake at its narrowest point to the opposite shore, toward Hawkshead and Sawrey. Potter’s home, Hill Top, is near Sawrey, with her house and gardens another popular site for visitors. Potter bought up huge tracts of land in her lifetime and donated it to the National Trust for preservation. There is also a steamer that takes visitors on rides up to northern edge of the lake to and from Ambleside, site of the ancient Roman fort of Galava. Bowness has a lively quay, lit with colored lights at night, with dozens of watercraft of all types on the lake, and a revitalized town center.

St. Martin's Church

Also in Bowness is the ancient St. Martin’s church, its exterior sandstone, with an unusual tin roof. A church has been on this site from the 1200’s, with some parts still in existence from medieval times, which contrast nicely with the etched glass modern inner doors installed during the change to the new century. Of note is a stained glass window featuring the coat of arms of John Wessington, ancestor to George Washington, which was later used in the American Stars and Stripe flag.

It was an easy decision when I was writing The Blue Virgin, which is set in Oxford, to picture Nora moving to the Lake District. I devised a way for that to happen, and she’s seen packing up for this move as the first book in the series opens.

In the second book, The Green Remains, Nora is settled into Ramsey Lodge at Bowness for at least the next year, working alongside the illustrator of her children’s books, awaiting the birth of her first child. Her stories of a band of fairies are set on Belle Isle, an island in the center of Windermere, so it’s a natural place for her to stay. Of course, she becomes involved in a murder investigation when, during a morning lakeside stroll, she stumbles over the dead body of the heir to Clarendon Hall.

The cover for The Green Remains features a photograph I took during a Windermere boat ride on my last trip to the area; the stone dock and folly are where the climactic action of this book takes place. The mysteries are a mix of cozy and police procedural, as Nora manages to ruffle the feathers of the investigating officers on each case. Nora stays in the Lake District for Book Three, May’s newest volume, The Scarlet Wench.  This time a theatre troupe arrives at Ramsey Lodge to put on Noel Coward’s play “Blithe Spirit.” Chapter epigrams are lines from the play where a series of pranks and accidents escalate to murder at the lodge.

Despite its natural beauty, or perhaps because of it, I’m not the only mystery writer to find the lure of the area lends itself well as a stark contrast to more sinister deeds. Martin Edwards’ Lake District Mysteries feature DCI Hannah Scarlett and Oxford historial Daniel Kind. Rebecca Tope’s series revolves around Simmy Brown, a florist with a Windermere shop who works in Troutbeck. The illustrious Reginald Hill set the majority of his last stand-alone, The Woodcutter, in Cumbria.

With its great wealth of natural beauty, the Lake District is a difficult place to leave. Despite it nature-filled setting, in Nora Tierney’s world, murder still finds its way there.

The Scarlet Wench

In the third Nora Tierney Mystery, American writer Nora awaits the arrival of a traveling theatre troupe that will put on Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit at Ramsey Lodge in England's Lake District. Her son now six months old, Nora must juggle parenting with helping her friend Simon Ramsey run the lodge. She's also hoping to further her relationship wit the only lodge guest not in the cast: Detective Inspector Declan Barnes ostensibly there for a hiking trip. When a series of pranks and accidents escalate to murder, Nora realizes her child is in jeopardy and determines to help Declan unmask a killer.

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