There is something slightly irrational about the appeal of the amateur sleuth, and I think most readers who love the genre know it, in the same way you know that a biscuit at eleven o'clock is not strictly necessary and have one anyway. Logically, if a murder needs solving, you want a trained investigator. Someone with access to forensic databases and the legal authority to compel answers and a warrant to search the premises without having to invent an excuse about returning a borrowed casserole dish. The professional detective has all of this. And yet, time after time, the reader chooses the retired schoolteacher. The curious neighbour. The village librarian with a tendency to ask one too many questions at the wrong moment.
There is a particular kind of reader who will tell you, with some satisfaction, that they knew something was wrong from the very first page. Not who did it, not what exactly happened, but that the world of the novel was tilted, that something beneath the surface was waiting to surface. They cannot always point to what gave it away. That is the point.
There is a question I get asked, now that The Forgotten Corpse is out in the world alongside the Paula Langford books: how do you write both?
I've always had a soft spot for the cosy mystery. There's something deeply satisfying about a story where the world is contained, the puzzle is elegant, and justice is served neatly by the final chapter. Having written a few cosies myself, the Paula Langford series included, I know that world well. I know how to pace it, how to plant a clue without telegraphing it, how to make a village feel like a living community rather than a painted backdrop. It's a craft I've come to love, and I don't intend to leave it behind.
Writing a second type of book is a humbling experience. I say this as someone who has written cosy mysteries, such as the Paula Langford mysteries, and has some idea of how they work, how to pace them, how to plant clues, how to balance the warmth and the wickedness, and how to end a chapter in a way that makes putting the book down feel mildly irresponsible.
When it came to designing the cover for The Forgotten Corpse, I had two seemingly contradictory things I needed to achieve at the same time.