I have teamed up with Author Reach 😃 What does this mean for you, dear reader? For a start it means a FREE book. Simply follow the link and you will receive a copy of Sam’s Stories, which includes the stories Over the Edge, A Bad Break and Of Cats and Men, chronicling Sam’s early days as an enquiry agent. You should receive a confirmation email followed by the book instantly, but please check your junk folder because sometimes emails wander into there. https://hannah-howe.authorreach.com
The Hermit of Hisarya is set in Bulgaria, and the dramatic finale takes place on the streets of Plovdiv Old Town, pictured.
You can read an extract from the book here
One of the characters in Secrets and Lies is loosely based on Dorothy Parker. Here are five of my favourite Dorothy Parker quotes:
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
“I hate writing, I love having written.”
“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”
“I’m not a writer with a drinking problem, I’m a drinker with a writing problem.”
Newton Beach. Sam’s husband, Dr Alan Storey, and a troubled Vittoria Vanzetti walk along this beach in Family Honour.
In the 1920s and 1930s a local physician, Dr Hartland, created an open-air spar on the beach and dispensed spring water. His spar was very popular, and people flocked from miles around.
Sins of the Father features Sam’s dad and his nefarious past. The story includes a brutal murder, which reminds Sam of Bugsy Siegel’s murder, witnessed through archive photographs. Bugsy Siegel, pictured in a 1928 mugshot, was a mobster, one of the most infamous and feared gangsters of his day. He was a celebrity, a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip and a founder of Murder, Inc. A bootlegger during Prohibition, Siegel turned to gambling. Noted for his prowess with guns and violence, in 1939 he was tried for the murder of fellow mobster Harry Greenberg, but in 1942 was acquitted. Either due to mobster infighting, or an illicit affair, Siegel was shot dead on 20th June 1947 by an unknown gunman.
Although not as dark as reality or the mobster films of the 1940s through to the 1970s, Sins of the Father is my homage to that strand of the private detective genre.
The music track is Danny Bailey from Elton John’s classic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. Danny Bailey is lyricist Bernie Taupin’s composite gangster from the Prohibition era.
Looking ahead to 2018 when Sam will be travelling to Boston, I have been researching the past and present of the city and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Puritan settlers from Boston, Lincolnshire gave Boston its name, on 7th September 1630. The Puritan focus on education led to the founding of America’s first public school, in Boston, in 1635. Throughout the seventeen century Boston continued to develop into the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-eighteenth century. My Sam Smith mystery story, called Boston, will be set at Christmas, amongst the snow.
The picture shows a south-east view of Boston, c1730.
Sam visits Tintern, in A Parcel of Rogues. The monastery at Tintern was the first Cistercian abbey founded in Wales, on 9th May 1131. In later centuries, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many poets and painters visited the abbey, including William Wordsworth and, in 1794, J.M.W. Turner, who painted the chancel.
Page One containing the historical background to my Ann’s War Mystery Series is now complete. This page tells the story of the 28th Infantry Division and their training in South Wales before embarking on the beaches of Normandy in July 1944. Some of the incidents mentioned on this page will appear in the series. Ann’s War: The Army Camp
Sam is in the Wye Valley in A Parcel of Rogues. In the eighteenth century, the Wye Valley witnessed the birth of British tourism when the words and pictures of poets and painters enticed those with spare time and money to visit. This railway poster, c1938, was aimed at ‘everyman’ as people from all classes of society flocked to enjoy the valley’s natural beauty.
Last week, I enjoyed coverage of the St Louis Rapid and Blitz chess tournament in which former world champion Garry Kasparov made a ‘comeback’. The event was won by one of my favourite players, Levon Aronian. You can catch up with all the dramatic action on YouTube
This is John Street, Porthcawl, Wales in 1938. My heroine, Ann Morgan, walks down this street in 1944, just before she discovers a murder. A billboard on the right hand side of the picture advertises a crime movie, Penitentiary, starring Jean Parker, also pictured. Included is a poster promoting that movie.
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Sam is stargazing in A Parcel of Rogues, looking at Pegasus in the October sky. The picture shows Pegasus with the foal Equuleus, from a set of constellation cards published, c.1825. The horses appear upside-down in relation to the constellations around them.
Some beautiful views and background on Sam’s homeland, Wales.
It was Mark Knopfler’s birthday this week. So…
It’s a mystery to me
The game commences
For the usual fee
Plus expenses
Confidential information
It’s in a diary
This is my investigation
It’s not a public inquiry
I go checking out the reports
Digging up the dirt
You get to meet all sorts
In this line of work
Treachery and treason
There’s always an excuse for it
And when I find the reason
I still can’t get used to it
And what have you got at the end of the day?
What have you got to take away?
A bottle of whisky and a new set of lies
Blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes
Scarred for life
No compensation
Private investigations
Betrayal is book one in the forthcoming Ann’s War Mystery Series. The series, set in 1944-5, will comprise five novellas, each containing an individual mystery. Betrayal will be published before Christmas, hopefully free. Amazon control the prices on their websites so I require their approval to make the book free. More news about this and background on the series in the near future.
While researching the Ann’s War Mystery Series, I discovered these fascinating stories. In 1944 this Centaur tank was deployed on Morfa Beach, a location in the Ann’s War Mystery series, in preparation for D-Day because the sand and clay of Morfa Beach was similar to the beaches at Normandy. As you can see from the second picture, the tank sank into the sand.
Furthermore, in 1943, the propaganda film, Nine Men, was made on location at Morfa Beach by Ealing Studios. On this occasion, Morfa Beach represented the Libyan desert. Men from the South Wales Borderers and London Irish Rifles were employed as extras to play soldiers on both sides. In the closing scene, a company of these men relieved the nine men of the title who had been under attack from the ‘Italians’. You can see a short extract from the film, including a glimpse of the beach, below.
Hannah Howe 