KAREN CHARLTON
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  • The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries
    • The Mystery of Mad Alice Lane
    • Smoke & Cracked Mirrors
    • Dancing With Dusty Fossils
  • The Detective Lavender Mysteries
    • The Heiress of Linn Hagh
    • The Sans Pareil Mystery
    • The Sculthorpe Murder
    • Plauge Pits & River Bones
    • Murder on Park Lane
    • The Willow Marsh Murder
  • Detective Lavender Short Stories
    • Death At The Frost Fair
    • The Death of Irish Nell
    • The Piccadilly Pickpocket
    • The Mystery of the Skelton Diamonds
  • Catching the Eagle & February 1909
    • Catching the Eagle
    • February 1809
  • Seeking Our Eagle
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  • Genealogy
    • James Charlton Senior (1700-1770)
    • John Charlton (1746-1818)
    • 'Pious John' Charlton (1769-)
    • James 'Jamie' Charlton (1774- )
    • The mysterious William Charlton
    • The Family Tree: Ten generations
Welcome to the official website of historical novelist KAREN CHARLTON

Article: THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

25/4/2015

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THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

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“Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.” – A. A. Milne

Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I can spend forty minutes at a time with my chin on my hands just staring into space.  I’m usually lost in thought during a walk on the beach and when I’m driving. Sometimes I have no recollection of how I got from A to B. These day-dreaming sessions are as important to me as regular meals and sleep. Without the daily opportunity to disappear into the quiet recesses of my mind, I can become cranky and agitated.
This is where my stories come from. These periods of reflection are the springboard from which my creativity leaps. Plots twist and unfurl in those quiet minutes, characters evolve and settings are enriched with detail. While some authors do mental gymnastics or writing exercises first thing in the morning to wake up their brains, mine has a far lazier more thoughtful start. I have no particular structure or routine. From the moment I get out of bed, my imagination has a free rein to wander wherever it likes, whenever it likes. Maybe into the work in progress; maybe not. Sometimes it wanders all day and doesn't come home. 
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I write when I've got something to write about and not before. And I have to wait patiently for my wandering thoughts to start to make sense. It can be months after the last novel has finished before I know exactly where I’m going with the next.  But when that moment does come, it comes fast. Suddenly my brain clicks into a higher gear and with amazing clarity it shapes a myriad random thoughts into the outline of a full-length novel.  This is my ‘Eureka!’ moment - and I have had one with every book.  Those disjointed, half-formed strands and ideas now make a whole and I have a credible plot and characters with purpose.  It’s a wonderful, satisfying and exhilarating sensation. I know I am lucky I am to be able to take my time, indulge the roaming nature of my imagination and work through this process at leisure. 
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Sadly, quiet reflection time for their work is not something that everyone is allowed. It is my perception that thoughtfulness is generally undervalued in our society. There is hardly any time to pee in most modern workplaces, never mind to sit and think things through.  Our society is obsessed with 'DOING.' Every moment has to be accounted for; every second filled with action. Reflection is regarded as an unnecessary indulgence and day-dreamers and thinkers are viewed with suspicion as lazy wastrels who don't pull their weight in the office. Many professions talk blithely about the importance of evaluation and reflection but they rarely give their staff the time to do it before the next project comes hurtling through the door.

The Internet mirrors this act-now-think-later attitude so pervasive in our society.  A quick Google is all that is needed to confirm that the most powerful tool on earth is full of platitudes about the dangers of over-thinking and the importance of doing rather than thinking. These clichés far outnumber any quotes about the value and satisfaction which comes from reflection. In fact, if the internet is anything to go by, the only people in the entire history of the world who seem to share my pleasure in this pursuit and recognise its importance are philosophers and other artists. 
Yet quiet reflection is essential to creative problem-solving  and the success of projects in every sphere of life and work. How much more creative would our nation be, I wonder, if people were simply given more time to think?
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Article: TEN THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT BOOK PUBLISHING

19/4/2015

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TEN THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT BOOK PUBLISHING

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In a recent survey carried out by YouGov and published in The Independent newspaper, 60% of UK adults declared that being a writer is their ‘dream job.’  14,294 adults were interviewed for this survey. I can only assume – that they all assume – that being an author is both stress-free and lucrative.

In response to this article about the YouGov survey I stuck my tongue in my cheek and jotted down a few observations about the truth behind a publishing contract – especially with a small publishing house. This list of observations is gathered from my own experience and that of fellow authors. I have decided to share it with you below.

If you are ‘lucky’ enough to acquire a publishing deal with a small traditional publisher the following may happen…

1. You probably won’t be paid an advance and won’t see a penny in royalties until six months after the book is published.

2. In the meantime, you will be expected to do an awful lot of marketing to promote the book and this will cost money. A surprising amount of money. You will buy in lots of stock, organise expensive book launches which no one attends and travel up and down the country to poorly attended events where no-one buys your book.

3. You will annoy and pester your teenage children into designing webpages for you. And beg them to teach you about Facebook and Twitter.

4. You will rapidly lose friends – especially on Facebook and Twitter – as you harass everyone you know into buying your book.

5.  Those family and friends who do read your book will make the most bizarre assumptions about upon whom the characters are based.

6. You will soon realise you are spending more time marketing your first novel, than you are writing the second one. 

7. You will harbor a secret hope that despite having no publicist or marketing budget that somehow your novel will make it onto the best-seller list and be signed up for a film deal. You will dream of retiring from the day job, moving to the Mediterranean and spending the rest of your life sipping cocktails beside the pool, while tapping out another best-seller on the laptop.

8.  Everyone else in the world will assume that you are coining in the cash, while you may have an uneasy suspicion that this is just turning out to be a VERY expensive hobby.

9. When your first royalty cheque arrives, you will be devastated and convinced that there should be another zero at the end of that figure.  At this point, your long-suffering partner will lose all patience with you and refuse to support you or your writing anymore. If you are really unlucky, your publisher will fold and disappear off into the ether still owing you money.

10. Despite the fact that your spouse has filed for divorce and the bailiffs are on the doorstep, no-one will ever have any sympathy for you…because you are a writer ‘living the dream.’

Of course, this is the worst case scenario but even authors with the bigger publishing houses have problems. They write to strict deadlines which are often inflexible and can be exhausting. Midlist authors with the Big Five live in constant fear of being dropped by their publisher because of poor sales and as we all know, we are all only as good as our last novel.

Self-publishing authors work to their own timetable but have a massive learning curve to undergo in order to be successful. They need to source decent book cover designers, editors and proofreaders and have to learn how to format.  They are entirely responsible for their own administration, marketing and success and it is not easy to get your novels noticed on Amazon when yours is just one novel among so many millions.

Having said all that – if it works out—being an author IS the best job in the world. Like many novelists, my experience of the publishing industry has thrown up some horrible lows as well as highs.  There is hard work, heartache and disappointment behind every one of my books. But each morning as I climb out of bed with a spring in my step and a smile on my face, I remember the words of Édith Piaf: 
"Non, je ne regrette rien.”
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Writing & Life

31/12/2014

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TOMORROW IS THE FIRST BLANK PAGE OF 365 PAGE BOOK. 
WRITE A GOOD ONE.

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Twelve months ago today, still fragile and hurting after the death of my husband, I posted this on Facebook along with an extensive list of New Year resolutions for myself in 2014. I was still in the 'manic phrase' of grief. That crazy place where you believe that if you move fast enough, renovate everything in sight and briskly work your way through an extensive job list then the pain of your loss will never catch up with you. No, it doesn't always work.  I didn't always manage to distract myself and assuage my grief but it was my way of coping and I accomplished nearly everything on that list of resolutions for 2014, with some spectacular results re: my writing.

But significantly I failed in one particular area – to look after my physical health. Yes, I have stopped smoking but without self-discipline, publishing and writing novels all day at a desk is not conducive to regular exercise and losing weight. So this year I have only three items on my list of New Year resolutions: write a third Detective Lavender Mystery but also discipline myself to take regular exercise and shift some weight.  The comfort eating will stop. 

This is my pledge to myself. Somewhere inside me, is a still-young, slim and attractive woman.  In 2015 I will find that woman. 

Happy New Year to all of my friends and family. Write a good one.
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Writing Update: Jane Scott and The Sans Pareil

3/9/2014

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A sister of gore

PictureThe Sans Pareil Theatre
The Second Detective Lavender Mystery is called 'The Sans Pareil Mystery' after the Regency theatre in London. Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods have a new case to solve when the body of a beautiful, young actress from The Sans Pareil is found in mysterious circumstances. 

I love the theatre and always intended to set this second whodunnit in the heart of Regency London's theatre district, the lively but seedy streets of Covent Garden. Originally, I wanted to feature the world-famous Drury Lane Theatre. However, I soon discovered that in 1810, Drury Lane was shut for rebuilding after yet another devastating fire. 

Swallowing my disappointment, I quickly switched the action to The new theatre on the Strand, The Sans Pareil - and what a fortunate decision that turned out to be.  My research has revealed that in 1810, the Sans Pareil (now known as the Adelphi) was run and operated by a woman: Jane Scott.

Miss Scott not only wrote most the burlettas and Gothic melodramas they performed, but she also starred in them too. For a historical fiction author who likes strong, independent women characters, I have just landed on my feet. I've got a real-life historical trail-blazer in my book. 

If you would like to read more about this amazing woman, whom history has obviously forgotten, then please follow this link:
The Seven Sisters of Gore
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Inspiration

27/8/2014

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Update: 'The Sans Pareil Mystery'

24/8/2014

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'The Strand' in Fiction

Feeling good today because that's another 1,000 words written of 'The Sans Pareil Mystery.' The trouble is though, that we Historical Fiction authors seem to spend three hours researching to every one hour writing. I've been battling away trying to work out the shape, architecture and business landscape of the famous London street, The Strand, in 1810. I'm determined to recreate the noise, sights, sounds and smells of this location in the Regency era to make the experience as authentic as I can for my readers. And what do I end up with after two hours research? Only enough information to embellish three short paragraphs of prose....(sigh)
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News: Distracted author causes mayhem in Supermarket

16/8/2014

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Thoughts from an absent-minded author

I love it when I'm so immersed in my story that I'm still developing the plot as I carry out the more mundane aspects of my life, like strolling around the supermarket. After a two year break (necessary because my late-husband's illness) I now feel like I've returned to my favourite place after a long absence. My head is swimming with ideas, characters are talking to me and settings burst alive in vivid detail.  However, the supermarket cashiers aren't usually too keen when I try to pay for the groceries with a dry-cleaning card...(sigh)
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The Sans Pareil Mystery: Covent Garden Capers

12/8/2014

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Covent Garden Capers

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I've spent a wonderful afternoon writing and researching my latest Regency mystery. Set in Covent Garden in 1810, I found myself exploring more and more websites which detailed the long - and notorious - history of London's modern-day theatrical district. Back in the Regency era, Covent Garden had already established itself as the biggest market for 'fruit, flowers, roots and herbs' in Britain. It also had more prostitutes per square foot than any other part of the capital. The Grand Piazza, originally designed by Inigo Jones back in the 17th century to mimic the great neo-classical piazza's of Europe, was nicknamed: 'The great square of Venus.' 

One contemporary observer declared: 'One would imagine that all the prostitutes in the Kingdom had pitched upon this blessed neighbourhood for a place of general rendezvous. For here are lewd women in sufficient numbers to people a mighty colony. And that a fuel for the natural flame may not be wanting, here is a great variety of open houses whose principal employment is to minister incitements to lust.'

I just hope that Detective Stephen Lavender can keep his mind on the case in this novel!
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Article: All characters in this novel are entirely fictitious...

14/5/2013

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‘ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS NOVEL ARE ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS...’ 
Part One

Q: What’s in a name?

I had a fun conversation with my Mum yesterday.  She had done some family history research into her own ancestors and was bemused to discover that she had a seventeenth century relative called BARNABUS GOULDSMITH.  For some reason this tickled her pink.  She loved the sound of his name and spent twenty minutes persuading me to put Barnabus into my next novel.  To keep the peace and to avoid being disinherited, I finally agreed.  However, I may draw the line at her suggestion that I make him into a smuggler.

This made me wonder how many other authors find themselves under similar pressure to adjust their plots and characters for the amusement of their loved ones?  And more intriguingly, how do authors choose the names for their characters in the first place?
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When I wrote Catching the Eagle the naming process should have been simple.  This novel was based on the true story of our criminal ancestor, Jamie Charlton.  Genealogical research had already revealed the real names of his family, the witnesses at his trial in 1812, the court officials and half the population of rural Ponteland.

But it quickly became obvious that I would have to make some adjustment to those names.  For a start, nearly everyone back in 1812 was called ‘John.’   This included Jamie’s father, son, brother, best friend, the man he robbed and the magistrate who charged him.  Obviously some of them had to go or be known as ‘Jack.’  (Or even Nathanial.)  This tradition of calling children after other family members had helped us trace our relatives back through the centuries and uncover Jamie’s sorry tale of injustice.  But to write a novel about three generations of the same family, all in the same farmhouse and all called either ‘John’ or ‘Ann’ would have confused the hell out of my readers. 
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Then there was the problem of the sheer number of people our research had uncovered. They had big families back in the nineteenth century and ours was no exception.   A cast of thousands may have worked well in the bible but it rarely works in modern fiction. 

Fortunately, novelists can use artistic license.  In Catching the Eagle, I changed names, liberally handed out nicknames and killed off one character a couple of decades early. However, this process can still be dangerous in a novel based on a true story because someone somewhere is going to be unhappy that you have altered history.  I think I may have inadvertently offended a distant cousin in Australia when I changed the name of his 4 x great-grandmother from ‘Ann’ to ‘Mary.’
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From the naming point of view, it was quite refreshing to sit down and write my second novel, The Missing Heiress.  Apart from Detective Stephen Lavender and a brief appearance by Magistrate Clennell, the rest of the characters were fictitious and I could call them what I wanted. I took a pragmatic approach.  I picked a different letter from the alphabet for each character, chose names indigenous to Northumberland, appropriate for the Regency era and tried to make sure that there was no repetition.  I often find it confusing if characters in novels have similar sounding names or if they begin with the same letter.   

However, when I called the younger brother of the missing heiress, ‘Matthew’, I never imagined the embarrassment this would later cause me.  Matthew was a very popular name in late 18th century England.  It is also the name of my own younger brother. (Yes, I think you can see where this is going.)  When I plotted the book I instinctively named Matthew Carnaby after my own brother and thought nothing more about it. In my head, this was a convenient – possibly temporary - arrangement which would help me remember who he was while I sorted out the rest of the details about him and the other characters.  

At the start of a novel, everything is fluid and full of potential. Minor characters like Matthew Carnaby are particularly sketchy; his personality and circumstances were vague.  He eventually became a sad and tragic figure, the victim of horrific abuse in his infancy which had left him mute and physically scarred.  He developed into one of my favourite characters and will probably appear in a later novel in the series, but somehow while I was writing the novel I completely forgot about the significance of his name.

Post-publication, my slip up came back to haunt me.  Mum was the first to contact me with feedback after Heiress was released.  Of course she loved the book (bless her) and was full of praise.  But at the end of the conversation she quietly asked me: 
'Why did you name the ‘idiot’ younger brother after our Matthew?' 
Ooops.  I didn’t see this one coming.  Cue a blustering and red-faced author.  I can honestly say that until that moment, I hadn’t realised the implications when I gave the Bellingham village idiot the same name as my sibling.

‘Our Matthew’ also read The Missing Heiress and he sent me a text:
Reading Heiress and loving it.  Just got to the bit were the idiot younger brother has the shit kicked out of him…
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Ouch.  He noticed.  In fact, he’s mentioned it several times recently.  Matthew has made it clear that I’m not going to get away with this one lightly - innocent mistake or not.  I sense a lifetime of ribbing ahead. 

It is amazing what else those close to you read into your work.  In the same conversation, Mum also wanted to know why I had called the unsavoury Baxter Carnaby after my gentle, God-fearing uncle:  Howard Baxter.  I hadn’t.  In my mind, Baxter was just a strong, memorable name.  Memorable is vitally important in fiction.
PictureHappier times: My siblings and I
I will be more cautious in future when naming my characters but I’m not sure that it will help.  In my experience, authors face an uphill struggle against the boundless imaginations of their close family and friends.  Our nearest and dearest fly off on a tangent when they read our books.  They hear our voices as they read and automatically look out for connections – obscure or real - to the life we lead and the people we know.  Their spiralling tangents have no limits.

The last I heard, I am still in my parent’s Last Will and Testament (just) but I may have to avoid being alone with my brother in the same room for a while.  In the meantime, for penance, I am doing a little research about Kentish smugglers and sketching out the character of one Master Barnabus Gouldsmith...

Q: What’s in a name?  
A: Everything!
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Article: Bow Street Runners and Early British Detectives

6/4/2013

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Bow Street Runners and Early British Detectives

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Kirkley Hall, Ponteland
In 2005, we made two surprising discoveries while researching my husband’s ancestors.  We first learnt that he had a convicted felon, a Regency jail-bird, roosting in the branches of his family tree, called Jamie Charlton.  Then we found out that a Bow Street detective, Stephen Lavender, had been involved in the investigation which sent our Jamie to trial.

Naturally, our first priority was to find out more about our skeleton in the closet but we were also intrigued by Detective Lavender.  He was referred to as ‘a principal officer’ with the Bow Street magistrates’ court in London.  I had heard the phrase ‘Bow Street runner’ many times before but I had no idea that there were British detectives as early as 1809.  I had always assumed that detectives were created along with the rest of the police force by Sir Robert Peel in 1829.

Years of research at The National Archives in London and the Northumberland Records Office gradually disclosed that our Jamie had been convicted of stealing the rent money from the Northumbrian manor house, Kirkley Hall.  It was an audacious crime; over £1,157 had been taken from the estate office at the hall.  Our research also revealed that Nathanial Ogle, the wealthy owner of Kirkley Hall, had paid for Detective Lavender to come up from London to solve the case. 

To Ogle’s delight, Lavender recovered the bulk of the missing money.  It had been thrown back over the wall of the kitchen garden in a sack, and lay half-hidden by a currant bush for several days until the detective instigated a thorough search of the grounds.  Only £162 of coins remained outstanding.  This is not as surprising as it may seem. Most of the recovered money was paper banknotes which had only been in circulation for a few years; in 1809 most British commoners did not understand or trust paper money.
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Lavender also discovered that Jamie Charlton, a disgruntled ex-employee of Kirkley Hall, had been on a generous spending spree in the weeks after the robbery and his investigation focussed on him.  In May 1809, he had Jamie arrested and sent for trial at the August Assizes in Newcastle.  However, they released him after an initial hearing because there was no evidence to actually connect him to the crime.  At this point, Stephen Lavender went back to London, famous for retrieving most of the stolen rent money but unable to secure the conviction of his main suspect.

Jamie Charlton also went home but he was rearrested a year later.  This time the evidence came from Jamie’s former cell mate, William Taylerson, and the local magistrate instigated the arrest.  Taylerson claimed that when they shared a cell together in prison, Jamie Charlton had confessed to him that he had, indeed, committed the crime.  Taylerson was a horse thief, already sentenced to death. After a trial which lasted fourteen hours, a jury of local landowners and nobility found Jamie guilty in just five minutes.  They sentenced him to transportation, and granted Taylerson a full pardon. The whole thing smacked of a miscarriage of justice - even by the dodgy legal standards of the Regency.

The ideal plot for a historical novel had just landed in my lap and Catching the Eagle was born. It took two years to write this book, which was eventually published by Knox Robinson Publishers of Historical Fiction in December 2011.
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Bow Street Magistrate's Court, London
According to my research, when the principal officers like Lavender went out to work on cases in other counties of Britain, they usually worked alone.  As a novelist, this presented me with an interesting dilemma.  Literary convention in any crime fiction usually requires that the detective has an assistant.  In the end, I decided to veer away from historical fact with Catching the Eagle and bow down to the literary convention; I gave Lavender an assistant, Constable Edward Woods.  Although they were only minor characters in this first novel, I thoroughly enjoyed creating Woods and Lavender and developing the rapport and humorous dialogue which erupted spontaneously between them. I felt that I had created a winning duo of crime fighters and I didn’t want to let them go.

Natural curiosity drew me towards their world.  I began to invest time, money and effort on investigating those early British detectives.  ‘A Certain Share of Low Cunning:  A history of the Bow Street Runners 1792 – 1839’ written by David J. Cox became the main source of my research. I discovered that back in 1809, Bow Street Magistrates’ court, was the thriving centre of policing in the crime-ridden capital of England.  Bow Street and the Old Bailey Criminal Court were the vibrant partners in London’s justice system.  

http://www. oldbaileyonline.org/ is ripe source of information and inspiration for any author interested in crime, criminals and early British detectives. This website documents the proceedings of the Old Bailey, between the years of 1674-1913 and contains details of 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.  Stephen Lavender frequently appears on the stand as a police witness in these documents.

Number 4 Bow Street was where Sir Henry Fielding, novelist and magistrate, first persuaded the British government to establish a police force in 1747. This was in response to the growing call to find an effective means to tackle the increasing crime and disorder in the capital, where every fourth shop was a ‘gin house,’  a vast sex trade sprawled across hundreds of brothels and gangs of highwaymen and cut-throats terrorized the roads on the outskirts of London.  Fielding brought together eight reliable constables, who soon gained a reputation for honesty and efficiency in their pursuit of criminals and later came to be known as ‘the Bow Street Runners.’  But Fielding faced an uphill struggle against both organised crime in the capital, and the mistrust of the politicians who paid for his policemen.
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George IV, The Prince Regent
In the late eighteenth century, the wealthy elite of Britain preferred to spend their money on personal security, rather than funding a communal police force. If you needed to track down a criminal there were plenty of ‘thief takers’ – an early form of bounty hunter – whom the rich could employ to drag a suspect into the dock.  There was huge resistance to the notion of a centralised police force because of the brutal excesses of the French police system across the Channel, under the revolutionary fanatic, Joseph Fouché.   Nevertheless, the crime fighting force started by Sir Henry Fielding expanded and gained national recognition.  

By 1809, the year of my novels, the number of police personnel had dramatically increased and a horse patrol had been established to bring some law and order to the crime-infested outlying areas. Principal officers were restyled ‘detectives’ and had various roles.  Apart from supporting their colleagues in the capital, they were often sent out to help magistrates in the provinces with difficult cases.  They took part in undercover work in periods of insurrection, for example, during the Luddite riots in the Midlands.  

The principal officers were a policing elite, famous throughout London, and the aristocracy loved them.  They did security work for the Bank of England and acted as bodyguards for Royalty, especially the Prince Regent.  They were the only policemen allowed into Buckingham House, the forerunner of the palace.  On occasions they were even sent abroad to help with crimes and criminals who had spilled out over our borders onto the continent.  

According to the records I have unearthed, Stephen Lavender spent a lot of his time working on difficult cases out in the provinces. Wealthy landowning citizens, like Nathanial Ogle of Kirkley Hall, could request the help of a principal officer.  Bow Street would charge them a hefty fee and the detectives could claim lucrative expenses on top of their salary. Many principal officers became very rich.
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The arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst
However, the Bow Street officers were still regarded with mistrust by the general population and there were many allegations of police corruption – some of them genuine. In 1829, the government charged Sir Robert Peel with the task of creating a new national police force; a force which was properly funded and more accountable. Following this transition, Stephen Lavender became the highly-respected Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester. 

Bow Street itself remained a magistrates’ court until 2004.  During its two hundred and fifty year reign as Britain’s most famous police station, it has had both the famous, and the infamous, pass across its threshold.  From the legendary lover, Giacomo Casanova, to the murderer, Dr. Crippen, and the notorious East End gangsters, the Kray twins; from the famous mother and daughter suffragettes, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst to the brilliant, homosexual playwright, Oscar Wilde and more recently, the Chilean dictator , General Pinochet.

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In that tense and frustrating period between the completion of my debut novel, Catching the Eagle, and securing a publisher for the book, the first seeds of a Regency whodunit began to germinate in my head. As far as I was concerned, there were only two policemen in England who could crack this mysterious case. I sat down at the computer and The Missing Heiress was born, with Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods as the main characters.  Ultimately, Stephen Lavender was the man who charged our ancestor with stealing the Kirkley Hall rent money and placed him in the dock but I’ve never held that against him. He was the natural choice for the detective in my new novel. In my mind, he had grown from an interesting minor character to a fully-fledged and fascinating protagonist. The Missing Heiress flew off my keyboard like silk and I completed it in ten months.

In this first novel in a new series, the two policemen are called back to Northumberland, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a beautiful young heiress from a locked bedchamber.  Convinced that this is a simple case of a young woman who has eloped with her lover, Lavender and Woods are later alarmed to discover a sinister world of madness, violence and secrets lurking behind the heavy oak door of the ancient pele tower at Linn Hagh.

The Missing Heiress was published by Knox Robinson Publishing on 6th December 2012.

(Article first published on Shots: Crime and Thriller eZine, December 2012) 

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    The Piccadilly Pickpocket
    The Sans Pareil Mystery
    The Sculthorpe Murder
    The Willow Marsh Murder
    The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries
    Writing In General

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