The Fourth Black Beacon Book of Mystery will be released on the 23rd of November, but the Kindle version is available for pre-order today at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and the Goodreads listing is up. To get you in the mood for mystery, we’ve interviewed our contributing authors. Are you keen to peer into their minds—a complex world of clues, red herrings, and puzzling plots? This volume of mysteries will be as challenging as ever, but our cast of amateur sleuths, private investigators, and police inspectors will leave no stone unturned!
Hi Mike,
What is it about the genre of mystery that gets the cogs turning in your head?
Years ago I considered mystery too strictly forumulated—and too complex—for me, but I found my way into the field via the occult and fantastic (my first mysteries were Inspector Trevelyan stories, and it was via a crossover that I entered the world of Sherlock Holmes). Having discovered how to spin a mystery in the supernatural context, I found it followed naturally to drop out the supernatural material and pursue entrely mundane themes. The drama remained, and the pleasure in putting the details together was just as great, so I found myself a mysyery writer almost accidentally!
What ingredients are needed for a great fair-play mystery in which the reader can try to solve the puzzle before all is revealed?
I guess the trick in playing by the rules—providing all the information to the audience so they can work it out themselves, as opposed to springing some new bit of information on them close to the end that allows the detective to solve it in the last act (which can be an irritating device!)—is to underplay the clues at a narrative level. Not ‘hang a lamp on it’ as they say in Hollywood, but provide the information in a subtle way: let the clues blur into the background somewhat, so only the sharp-eyed and keen-minded will register them and slot them into place. After all, the reader matches wits with the detective—you can’t make it too easy or the thrill is lost, but you also can’t make it impossibly hard or the reader stands no chance. To this day, I confess I can hardly follow the workings of the mind of August Dupin, for instance.
What are your protagonist’s strengths and weaknesses, trademark quirks, and bad habits?
These qualities are self-evident in Sherlock Holmes—the whole world knows him and them! But Inspector Trevelyan is another matter. There are the immediate ‘character identifiers’ such as the fact it was his right knee that was injured in the Whitechapel Riots, and that it’ll never heal fully, thus the walking stick—but it must be in his right hand, so in many a tight spot he uses a revolver left-handed. There’s his ability to accept the supernatural, while retaining a rational objectivity that allows him to debunk a fraud on sight. Weaknesses? I don’t believe I’ve explored that dimension to his character yet—I must do so! Bad habits: he smokes, as everyone did in those days, and enjoys a drink, but also controls his old wound without recourse to drugs, so that would count as a strength of character.
A great mystery needs a killer plot and likeable—or despicable—characters, but setting and atmosphere are also key. What are your favourite settings for a really mysterious atmosphere?
I’m always drawn to the Autumn of the year! My stories are usually set in England, and I visited on five occasions for university conferences which took place in November—so I’m most familiar with England at that time of year, Halloween and after. The falling leaves, the chill, the shortening days—they go so well with a grim or unsettling mood, as surely for mystery as for horror. Old ruins, castles and priories, time-worn country mansions, or seaports with centuries of history, are all wonderful settings for cases.
What’s the most mysterious place you’ve ever been?
Dracula’s old haunt of Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast, for one. Stonehenge and Avebury, for their ancient and cosmological connections.
What was the last mystery you read?
Ongoing Sherlock Holmes tales in the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.
What’s one type of mystery you’ve been meaning to write but haven’t got around to yet—locked room, closed circle, police procedural, cold case, historical mystery, art theft?
I guess art theft would be the one—I seem to have touched down on the other formulas at some time. And I have a particular real-life case in mind! That’s one for Holmes, I think...
What are you working on now?
At time of writing, I’ve completed my third Sherlock Holmes novel for Belanger Books. Next up are short stories for open venues, including both Holmes and Trevelyan, and I'll soon write the first stand-alone story for my Venetian contessa detective character. On next year’s agenda will be my first Inspector Trevelyan novel!
Where can we find you online?
Thanks for playing along!
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