Image Credits:-
Many thanks to Wendy H Jones and Lynsey Adams (Reading Between the Lines Book Vlog) for images for this interview. Many thanks to the other authors in the anthology for their author head shots. Other images created in Book Brush using their images or Pixabay ones.
It is with great pleasure I welcome back Wendy H Jones to Chandler’s Ford Today. As part of a book tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines Book Vlog, I quiz Wendy about the latest book to come from Wendy’s publishing company, Scott and Lawson – A Right Cozy Historical Crime. This volume is part of a series of Right Cozy crime books (the others so far are A Right Cozy Christmas Crime and A Right Cozy Culinary Crime).
A Right Cozy Historical Crime
This is an anthology compiled by Wendy H Jones including cozy mysteries written by the contributing authors listed below.
Marti M. McNair
Olga Wojtas
Sheena Macleod
Loretta Mullholland
Lexie Conyngham
Barbara Stevenson
Meg Woodward
Dianna Sinovic
Gareth Williams
Lisa Harkrader
Sheila Dené Lawrence
Penny Hutson
Lisabeth Early
A Right Cozy Historical Crime – Blurb
Step into the comforting fog of time with A Right Cozy Historical Crime, a deliciously diverse anthology of cozy mysteries that span centuries and continents. From ancient alleys to a Victorian medical school, American towns to Scottish glens, these tales take you on a gentle stroll through history – where murder hides behind lace curtains and secrets linger in candlelit corridors. Perfect for fans of clever sleuths, rich historical detail, and mysteries solved with more brains than knowledge.
Wendy H Jones – Author Biography
Wendy H. Jones is a multi-award-winning, best-selling Scottish author of crime thrillers, cozy mysteries, children’s picture books and non-fiction books for authors. She is the winner of the Books Go Social Book of the Year at Dublin Writers Conference and the prestigious Scottish Association of Writers Janetta Bowie Chalice for best non-fiction book. She is also an acclaimed international public speaker, teaching writing craft and marketing, worldwide.
In addition, she is the Editor in Chief of Writers’ Narrative eMagazine, a partner in Auscot Publishing and Retreats and owner of Scott and Lawson Publishing.
She is also proud to serve as the Co-Chair of the Membership Committee on the board of the Sisters in Crime Committee, an organisation which supports writers worldwide.
Cozy Crime and Historical Fiction
What is cozy crime? It often features amateur detectives, any violence is “off stage” (same goes for sex) and the story is effectively a puzzle for readers to solve. Many of Dame Agatha Christie’s works could be considered as puzzles. So why combine this with historical fiction?
A quick look at the history books will soon reveal many crimes. For example, The Princes in the Tower – is that a cold murder case or a cold missing persons case? History is full of gripping stories so to combine them with another genre, crime, which is also fascinating makes sense. It also gives writers an opportunity to share possible “solutions” as Josephine Tey does wonderfully in her novel, The Daughter of Time.
The challenge facing Wendy and the other contributing authors to A Right Cozy Historical Crime is to have the best of both fictional worlds in a short story.
Now over to Wendy.
What fascinates you about historical fiction?
I love history. I’m Scottish, let’s face it. I’m always going to be interested in history because we have a lot of history in Scotland. But wherever I go in the world, I always look for historical sites and I want to learn. When it comes to historical fiction, it’s a way of learning in an easy manner, because I’d say 99.999 percent of historical fiction writers have done their research and know what they’re talking about.
So you can go back to that period and immerse yourself in it in the form of story. We’re all natural storytellers and we’re used to listening to stories or reading them. I think that’s a brilliant way of doing it.
Allison: It’s also an easier way of taking things in because you’re not being lectured. One of the best examples of this is by Scottish author Josephine Tey, author of The Daughter of Time.
Wendy: Oh, yes, absolutely. There is so much in that book and you’re taking it in. You’re not even realising you’re doing it. It’s such a slim volume, which goes to prove it doesn’t have to be an entire 600 page book to get the flavour of it.
Allison: No, indeed, it was enough.
So what was the appeal of combining crime stories with historical ones?
In the past, there’s always been a lot of crime, just taking Josephine Tey as an example. But I love crime fiction and I love historical fiction. So joining them together just seemed obvious.
I love reading historical crime fiction, people like Edward Marston and his railway series of books. I know he’s written a lot of different books, but if you read them, it’s just a brilliant way of combining both.
Why pick the short story format? Because the short story format is difficult enough to write as it is, let alone combining two different genres for it.
Short stories are becoming increasingly popular because people want short reads. Attention spans are getting smaller, the time people have available for reading gets smaller. And what you’ll get is I’ll be doing book signings and people say, oh, by the time I finished a novel, I’ve forgotten what’s happening. So they want the short story format because they can read the short story, put it down and then pick it up again later.
And again, going back to the Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time example, it doesn’t need to be a huge tome to get the point across. I think it combines the best of three worlds – history, crime and the short format. And it works perfectly.
Allison: You don’t have to look far into the history books to come across plenty of crime so crime and historical fiction are a natural match.
Now, as editor and compiler, how difficult was it for you to pick stories for A Right Cozy Historical Crime? How much of a challenge was that for you?
I was very fortunate in that most of the submissions were very good. A lot of them came from History Writers, which is a group I run, which you’re a member of, and they’re established writers. So we had very good submissions.
Obviously, I chose the best. Some people were turned down, but that’s the nature of the beast. You can’t have everybody in it and you need to make a decision.
Now, if you get fifty submissions and all fifty are good, then it gets more difficult, but there are always some that are weaker than others. So that’s a natural, you know, natural selection anyway. And then the ones that go to the top are obviously going to get in and then you just decide from the rest what you’re going to admit.
But it’s also about what fits in with the overall theme, because if I’ve got three all set in Edinburgh and all set around Surgeon’s Hall, I’m just taking the example of the story I wrote, then only one is going to get in.
Allison: At the moment, I’ve also got my story judging hat on. There are some stories that always make it to the top and you know they will be in your top three picks. Others are weaker. This is a natural thing. I’m always looking for impact or story. It’s got to hit me in the gut.
How easy or otherwise did you find as a contributing author yourself to get the balance right between telling a crime story and a historical one?
I found it just lent itself to it because once you get the setting right, it’s pretty much historical. One was set in Surgeon’s Hall. So I know a lot about Surgeon’s Hall in the 19th century. So that’s when I set it. And I know a lot about Edinburgh in the 19th century for something else I’m doing.
So that was why I set it there, because I already had the knowledge and, due to that, the story just settled itself into that setting with those characters.
I think once you’ve got a time period and you know what it was like during that time period, it becomes like writing any other crime fiction book, except you’ve got to remember you don’t have mobile phones, and the police were fairly new. There are lots of things like that you have to remember.
You do have to do research because you can’t say the police would do X, Y and Z if the police can’t do X, Y and Z because they weren’t doing it in that day and age. But on the whole, the story tends to settle itself into the time and historical period.
The one thing you do have to watch out for is you don’t give everybody too much detail. Just because you know it all doesn’t mean the reader needs to.
Did you have to watch out for the type of language people would have used at the time? Did you have to fight the temptation to use modern English? Did you bring in any old English?
You do have to temper it, because you want to give a flavour of the time, that’s important. But you want it to be readable, because what you don’t want is for everybody to be speaking the way they would then, because it wouldn’t be accessible.
So it’s got to be balanced. It’s the same if you’re writing a contemporary book and you move your characters abroad for any reason, you can’t just use colloquial language from abroad, because nobody will understand. So you give a small flavour of what it’s like, without it being overpowering.
Allison: Yes, that’s important for accents, slang and things like that. I judged a story competition once for the Scottish Association of Writers, and a lot of old Scots words were used in it. This Sassenach picked up every single one because I could pick it up from context, so the writers got it right.
Wendy: Absolutely.
Talking of research, how difficult or otherwise was it to avoid going down the proverbial rabbit holes? Because research can be fascinating.
I went down a lot of rabbit holes with my story, because it’s about 19th century Edinburgh and 19th century medicine. I knew a lot about it anyway, as I’d already been researching that for at least a couple of years.
But the thing is if you want to go and look up, you know, 19th century policing in Edinburgh, before you know where you are, four hours have gone. And you’re like, I don’t need to know this much. I only wanted to know whether they would actually go into Surgeon’s Hall and what they would do.
My story is about a body going missing. And would they care if a body went missing from Surgeon’s Hall? They were too busy worrying about bodies being stolen to go to Surgeon’s Hall. But yes, it is very difficult when you’re doing research to avoid going down the research rabbit hole and waste too much time.
And remember, it’s a short story. You don’t need to know the ins and outs of everything to write a 5,500 word story. You just need enough to give a flavour.
Allison: This is where I like the disciplines of short stories and flash fiction, because it kind of forces a limit on you. You know you’ve got to focus on what you need to know, what your reader needs to know, and only that. I find it helps a lot.
Can you share some tips for writing cosy historical crime?
The first thing is you need to know your time period.
And I know I said they don’t use archaic words, but remember about the way they spoke then. They didn’t speak the way we do now. So, for example, during my time period, they would have been calling each other, Sir or Mr. They wouldn’t be using first names unless they were very close friends. Even then, they sometimes just use surnames. They didn’t use Christian names.
Know the way they were dressed, because you need to give a flavour of that, even if it’s only down to they lifted the top hat.
It will be these details you can drop in that will set the time period. You can also do that by talking about buildings that are new. Now, those buildings might be 200 years old now for us, but you can say the new library. I don’t know if there was a new library then. I’m just taking that as an example. You can say the new library was on X Street.
Now, that library might still be going, and it’s 200 years old, but you’re setting it in a time period just by dropping in something like that. With my Surgeon’s Hall example, I dropped in about Burke and Hare, people stealing bodies to sell to the Surgeon’s Hall so they could do lectures on them. Again, that sets the time period.
So, it’s dripping small bits in like that which will work. It’s much easier for the reader to absorb, too.
Now, one thing that did occur to me when I was preparing this interview, crime and history have one major thing in common. They expose the worst of humanity. But on the plus side, there are always those who want to fight for the truth to come out, which is why, of course, blending these particular genres works so well, I think. What do you like to see in characters who are determined to get to the truth no matter what?
I do like my characters to be getting to the truth. Now, in my case, they had to get to the truth because they were all going to be chucked out of medical school if they didn’t, because they had no body to work on. And if they didn’t have a body to work on, it was only one body, one lecturer working on it.
So, they had a real reason, the three students, a real reason for getting this body back. And they were not going to give up. And it needs a purpose.
If the person that’s doing the detecting does not have a purpose for doing that detecting, they’re going to give up.
Allison: And the story will fall flat.
Wendy: They need a strong reason for investigating it in the first place. You don’t have time to waffle over that if you’ve only got 5,500 words to work on or even 2,000 or 2,500 if you’re doing it for a competition. You have to get to the point. Give them a strong reason right from the get-go.
So, you need them to have something to investigate right at the beginning. Get your dead body there in the first couple of sentences and then give them a strong reason for them to investigate that crime.
Allison: That reminds me of the famous Raymond Chandler quote about bringing on a gun and making sure your characters use it.
Wendy: Yes, very much that.
Are there real-life historical cases you would like to write about yourself at some point?
I think most of them have been written about. But one case I would like to write about, Grissell Jaffrey, is because it’s a murder and it’s not a murder. Grissell Jaffrey was a witch in Dundee. She was Dundee’s only witch.
Now, she wasn’t a witch. She was a lady who was a Quaker. And the establishment, otherwise known as the Church of Scotland, were not happy with the Quakers because they quaked. They said that was the devil, you know. They took her and her husband to the gallows. They were also well-to-do and she had a place in society.
And, of course, she got above herself. I would like to do more investigating into her and see if there’s anything fresh which has come up about her.
Allison: It’s right that the other side of the story is told, which I think is also another function of historical fiction. The advantage, I think, historical fiction has is you don’t have to prove anything, but you can present a likely outcome based on reasonable supposition, which is where your research comes in.
Wendy: Yes, you’ve got to have the foundation there.
Now, another important aspect to your kind of anthology is it must be entertaining. It’s got to grip your readers. So what do you think makes a short story of any genre entertaining?
Well, you get to the point quickly and you still have your arcs the way you do with anything else. And you need heightened tension and you need times of relaxation just like any other story. If you can do that in less words, then you are doing brilliantly. And you need to be absorbed in it right from the first sentence.
So it needs a strong opening hook. And that’s crucial in everything, but it’s even more crucial in a short story. You haven’t got pages to work your way through it. Now some novels don’t get going until about, you know, ten chapters in and eventually they’re brilliant. You don’t have that luxury in a short story. Every word needs to count. Every single word needs to pull the reader in and keep them reading.
Allison: This is where I think we have an advantage in our modern era because we live in the TV and cinema age, so there are certain things we do not have to describe. That saves a hell of a lot on word count. I know that from my flash work. But people like Dickens, for example, had to describe every single thing because most of his readers would never go to London. So he had to set the scene that way. He’d never get away with writing like that now. He’d be told to cut it.
Wendy: Absolutely told to cut it. I mean, when you read the classics now, I mean, I like the classics, don’t get me wrong, but you’re like, oh, get to the point, you know.
History is a huge canvas to write stories against. It covers all countries, all time periods. You’ve obviously got to narrow down to one era to focus. But how did you choose the era for your story? I mean, Victorian-ish, that’s a huge era in itself. What appealed to you to that particular era you’ve chosen?
I’m writing a series of historical books based on a 19th century naval surgeon who went to Surgeon’s Hall. So because of that, I am focused down to that area because I already had all the research about the time he was there. Plus, the other thing that draws me to that, again, is the Burke and Hare scandal.
For anybody that doesn’t know, Burke and Hare were a couple of Irish labourers who opened up a B&B, really. It was a doss house for other labourers. And then one of their residents died. So they legally sold his body to Surgeon’s Hall for medical purposes, because that happened then.
But they then discovered that this was a good wheeze because they could charge them for their B&B and then kill them and flog their bodies, which is what they started doing. So, obviously, that was a scandal. But there’s a lot known about that period because of that.
Surgeon’s Hall is famous for that. It’s a bit infamous, really. Surgeon’s Hall itself set itself to that sort of thing because there was death, there was young students, there were people that were, you know, trying to make a name for themselves.
Allison: You can do all sorts of things with that as a motivation.
Wendy: Absolutely. So if you know something about it in the first place, it does make it a lot easier. I would never set anything in the Georgian era because it does nothing for me. It’s not a period I’m interested in, you know. But if you’re interested in that period, your passion will come across on the page.
Allison: It’ll be a joy to do the research for it too.
Did you want the other authors then to specifically cover different eras and backgrounds because you’d chosen Victorian-ish as a time period? Did you want the others to go somewhere else?
Some of the other stories are Victorian as well. One of them is Victorian in Ballater, which is fine. And one is set in the Neolithic period. Some stories were only sixty years ago, which is absolutely fine.
Obviously, if I had too many in the one time period, then I would rethink it. But what I do is I ask people to pitch in advance. So if I get ten people all wanting to write about the Victorian era, I might say, have you got another time period you would like to write about? So I knew vaguely what time periods we were going to have.
And luckily, it varied itself. And the two that were in the Victorian era were totally different stories. It didn’t matter.
How important do you think it is for readers to be able to identify with characters who lived so long ago when times were very different, when attitudes were very different? What do you think historical fiction can achieve in terms of promoting understanding?
Characterisation is key because your characters are pretty much carrying the story. And you have to, whatever time period it is, you can draw characters, you can write characters that appeal.
Because let’s face it, we all have the same motivations throughout history. We all want the same things. We want to breathe clean air. We want to earn a trade. We want to be able to eat. We want friendship. We want relationships. We’ve all got the same motivations.
So your characters are pretty much the same as characters are now. They’re just living in a different period. And I think if you write your characters well, then people will be able to identify with them and will draw them to their heart.
If you’ve got somebody that’s a stiff, upper-lipped person, which they might have been then, you have to give them some endearing characteristics. Unless they’re the villain, in which case, you know, have at it. But, you know, you have to give them some endearing characteristics. That’s the same for contemporary characters as well.
Allison: In the character versus plot debate I’m firmly on the side of character because for a good character, the plot will come naturally from them. I’ve read stories where the plot was great, but the character did nothing for me. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park springs to mind. It’s the worst of her novels, in my opinion. A weak character doesn’t do anything for me. Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, totally different. But yes, I’d agree with that on characters being important.
Now, last but not least, Wendy, would you like to share any other writing news that you’ve got coming up?
Well, I’m writing like mad. When I say that, I’m attempting to write like mad, give or take operations on my shoulder. But I should have another anthology out soon. I’m hoping that will be out by April or May at the latest.
And I’m hoping the next Detective Inspector Shona Mackenzie mystery, Killer’s Cairn, will be out by April or May. I’m also working on another anthology called A Right Cozy Library Crime in this series.
So that will be out later than it should have been. It should have been out, but I was taken into hospital to have an operation, a shoulder replacement. And that’s delayed everything, I’m afraid, because I’m focusing on recovery and mobilisation.
So where can we get A Right Cosy Historical Crime?
You can pretty much get it wherever books are sold. If you go into any bookshop, you’ll be able to order it, even if they don’t have it on the shelf. You can get it from Amazon, you can get it from any other e-book retailer, you know, Kobo, Nook, etc.
Allison: That’s excellent, Wendy. For links to A Right Cozy Historical Crime, do see the links at the end of this interview. Many congratulations to all of the authors with stories in this great anthology.
Conclusion
Many thanks, Wendy, for a fabulous interview.
I love crime stories. I love historical fiction stories. Genres are being blended more, which I think gives even more reading choice, and where there are elements which cross genres, those blends work well.
Crime exposes truth, even if it takes a while. History can do the same but takes longer, by centuries in some cases. Both are great stories in their own right.
When blended together, there are wonderful stories to be told, read and enjoyed and that is what A Right Cozy Historical Crime sets out to do.
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A brilliant interview. I loved reading what Wendy has to say about historical crime fiction. I worked at the Royal College of Surgeons of England years ago so really I should be considering historical crime too!
Many thanks, Sheila.
Allison