On 21st September, 2009, a prestigious panel of authors came together to discuss historical crime fiction. Moderator Michelle Spring briefly introduced the panel and then asked each of the authors to talk about their reasons for writing in the genre.
Laurie King talked about her interest in the period of her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, which starts in 1915, and moves forward into the 1920s. She said it was such a powerful period with the women’s movement, the marvellous 1920s
fashion and the experiments with drugs. Asked about the accuracy of fact and fiction, she laughingly said, ‘I lie for a living’.
Barbara Cleverly talked about her character Joe Sandilands whose books are set in India, and about her new character Laticia Talbot. Asked about the names of her characters, she said that she often fond them on tombstones. I suppose that’s one way to spend your free time. Regarding the question of fact and fiction, Barbara said that she is fanatical about getting the historical
details correct, then has to blend in the fiction. But plot comes first.
Ruth Downie, whose books are set in Roman Britain, said that she likes to keep a sense of comedy alongside a sinister story. So far there are three books in the series. As for the factual content she has somehow managed to get a team of friends who do the checking for historical accuracy. She also said that she liked to give life to unknown people – better fictional history than no
history.
Manda Scott, whose latest book is The Crystal Skull, stated that but for The Da Vinci Code, she might not have got The Crystal Skull published. I am glad that she did as it is an exceptional book – see page 28 for a review. She does extensive research, but the Boudica books are pre-Roman Britain, so she can just make some of it up, but she gave detailed description of the work she put into discovering just how the invasion of Britain was orchestrated – it was fascinating. There is of course the dilemma of ‘if you know something is correct but doesn’t feel right for the book, do you use it?’ Her next book, The Emperor’s Spy, will be
published in January 2010.
All authors agreed that it would be useful to have a method of checking language against dates, ie being able to enter a date in the computer and then run your novel through it to check that there are no words being used that were not in existence at the time.
My thanks to all the authors taking part and of course to Richard Reynolds of Heffers and his staff.