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Sam Smith Mystery Series Sam's Sunday Supplement

Sam’s Sunday Supplement #14

Welcome to Sam’s Sunday Supplement #14, a weekly digest of news from Sam’s World.

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Sam was in Margam this week in Digging in the Dirt. Margam contains many famous landmarks and attractive features including the Orangery at Margam Park, the longest Orangery in Europe, pictured here in 1850. Also pictured, the actor Anthony Hopkins, born at 77 Wern Road, Margam, and Peg Entwistle, a Broadway actress who sadly jumped to her death from the Hollywood sign in 1932. Peg was born in Margam in 1908.
Ann Morgan’s wedding dress, from Ann’s War, made from parachute silk. Strictly speaking, during the war it was illegal to make clothing from scraps of parachute silk. Nevertheless, women did make their own wedding dresses and underwear.

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Porthcawl, a seaside town 25 miles west of Cardiff, has featured in my books Ripper, Family Honour and Sins of the Father. This poster, issued by a railway company to entice people from the valleys to travel to the seaside, c1930, shows the promenade at Porthcawl. This view will feature in Ann’s War.

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The Sam Smith Mystery Series is based in Cardiff Bay. For much of the Victorian era and twentieth century Cardiff Bay was known as Tiger Bay, and in the 1950s Tiger Bay was the setting for a classic film. You can read my article on the film here and watch the full movie on the link below.
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Categories
Sam Smith Mystery Series Sam's Sunday Supplement

Sam’s Sunday Supplement #13

Welcome to Sam’s Sunday Supplement #13, a weekly digest of news from Sam’s World.

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Mind Games is published today, as a paperback and eBook. This story centres on Sasha Pryce, a young chess player. Chess is featured in the book, but the story is about family relationships and the many aspects of love. Amazon Link

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Digging in the Dirt starts with Sam and Faye sitting outside their office houseboat on a hot August day. They are looking towards Cardiff Bay, known in the Victorian era and throughout the twentieth century as Tiger Bay. Much of the land around Tiger Bay was owned by John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute (pictured). In the late Victorian era John Crichton-Stuart was regarded as the richest man in the world. That wealth came from exploiting the great mineral wealth of the South Wales Valleys and exporting it via Cardiff Docks. Through their business acumen and philanthropy the Butes are rightly regarded as the founding fathers of modern Cardiff.

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Ann’s War is a mystery series set against the social history backdrop of the Second World War. Ann Morgan, the reluctant detective in the series, is fictitious. However, she is loosely based on real women of the period. For example, in the 1940s Melodie Walsh established herself as a private detective. Melodie Walsh’s father was a close friend of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Initially, Melodie worked as an actress – along with modelling, a middle-class career path for young women in the 1930s – before establishing her agency. Her bread and butter tasks included divorces and writ-serving, although glamorous assignments also presented themselves – on one occasion, Melodie went undercover as a model to foil a series of fur thefts. With her father’s social connections, Melodie was in demand, hired by people who wished to gain information while avoiding a scandal. In the 1940s, private detective work was still predominantly a male profession. However, through the likes of Melodie Walsh women were beginning to assert themselves.

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Betrayal, the first story in Ann’s War, starts on Friday, 24th March 1944. On that night this remarkable event occurred. Twenty-one-year-old Flight Sergeant Nicholas Stephen Alkemade survived – without a parachute – a fall of 18,000 feet when his Avro Lancaster aircraft was shot down over Schmallenberg (pictured). Alkemade’s fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow. Despite the fall of 18,000 feet he only suffered a sprained leg.
The Gestapo captured Alkemade and interviewed him. Initially, they refused to believe his story. However, after examining the remains of the Lancaster they realized that he was telling the truth.
Alkemade spent the rest of the war as a celebrated prisoner of war. He was repatriated in May 1945.

 

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Hannah Interviews

Hannah Interviews Paulette Mahurin

Welcome to Hannah Interviews the third in an occasional series where I interview authors I admire. The questions in each interview are based on the Proust Questionnaire and I hope they will offer an insight into each author and their books. For this interview I am delighted to welcome Paulette Mahurin. Paulette is an Amazon #1 author who donates her royalties to rescue dogs. Over to Paulette and I hope you enjoy the interview.

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What are your favourite qualities in a man?
Honesty, sense of humor, good health habits, good communicator and listener.
What are your favourite qualities in a woman?
Same as in a man.
What do you appreciate the most in your friends?
Balance in give and take. Ability to communicate constructively, effectively, and honestly.

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What is your main fault?
I take things too personally. Oversensitive.
What is your favourite pastime?
Being with family and my dogs, quality time with friends, reading, writing, doing my professional job as a Nurse Practitioner, and volunteer work.
What is your idea of happiness?
Being okay with whatever is happening. Accepting the hand I’m dealt. I may not be able to change it but can I change my attitude about it and find something to be grateful about.

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If not yourself, who would you be?
I’m okay with who I am and don’t dwell on being someone else. Like Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
What is your favourite colour and flower?
Green and I love most flowers, especially natural and wild in nature.
Who are your favourite painters and musicians?
Too many to pick favorites. So many different categories, time periods in history, and ways of expressing. I appreciate talent in any field. And there has never been a lack of talent.

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Who are your favourite prose authors and poets?
Again, too many to enumerate on one, two, or a few. There is a lot of great talent out there from the well-known to the independents struggling to be read.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
The ones that are real, and balanced, and don’t necessarily overcome all the great odds but certainly give it their best. One I can relate to, one that I can read and feel he is organic and authentic.
Who are your favourite heroines in fiction?
Again same as in heroes. And I might add for both not a stereotypical cast character, one that has flaws and emulates the human condition realistically.

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Thank you, Paulette. You can learn more about Paulette’s award-winning books and charity work by visiting her Amazon page.

 

 

Categories
Sam Smith Mystery Series Sam's Sunday Supplement

Sam’s Sunday Supplement #12

Welcome to Sam’s Sunday Supplement #12, a weekly digest of news from Sam’s world.

Mind Games has been uploaded to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo and Smashwords. Book eleven in the Sam Smith Mystery Series, Mind Games is available as an eBook for $0.99/£0.99/€0.99 and for £2.99 in print. Many thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered a copy; your support is greatly appreciated Amazon Link

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In Digging in the Dirt, a story about archaeologists, Sam ventures into a cave. One of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in Wales was unearthed in a cave, Goat’s Hole Cave, on the Gower Peninsula. In January 1823 the Rev. William Buckland found The Red Lady of Paviland (pictured). Buckland identified the remains as female. However, later analysis established that the bones belonged to a man who lived in Britain 33,000 years ago. The skeleton, dyed in red ochre, represents the oldest known ceremonial burial in Western Europe.

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Great news…Suzan Lynn Lorraine, narrator of my Sam Smith Mystery Series, is very keen to narrate Ann’s War as well. So we are aiming to publish the Ann’s War stories in print, as eBooks and audio books 😃

World War Two. England. 1938. The family at home, tuning in to hear the news on the radio news. They have gas masks at the ready.

The Third Man is arguably the finest British film ever made. Orson Welles dominates the film even though he only appears in ten percent of the running time. You can read more about that in my article on this cinema classic The Third Man

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From the Illustrated Police News, 8 February 1896, Saucy Burglar Robs Amorous Honeymoon Couple! Read all about it!

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Categories
Hannah Interviews

Hannah Interviews Denise McCabe

Welcome to Hannah Interviews the second in an occasional series where I interview authors I admire. The questions in each interview are based on the Proust Questionnaire and I hope they will offer an insight into each author and their books. For this interview I am delighted to welcome Denise McCabe, an author of children’s fiction, a thoughtful blogger and a wonderful person. Over to Denise and I hope you will enjoy the interview.

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What are your favourite qualities in a man?
The most attractive thing I find in a man is someone who can make me laugh. Also confident in themselves and treat you as an equal.
What are your favourite qualities in a woman?
Strong, independent. Ones who support and don’t feel the need to compete against each other and who is up for a bit of fun.
What do you appreciate the most in your friends?
Loyalty and knowing they will be there for me no matter what. One who I can be comfortable with and tell absolutely anything to and I know they’ll keep it with them and they won’t judge me.
What is your main fault?
How long have you got! I suppose I am quite impatient. I tend to start things and if I don’t get hang of straight away I walk on to the next. There are times I can jump into things too quick, and while sometimes it can work out, others it’s “Oh dear, maybe, just maybe should have given that one a few more moments of thinking!”
What is your favourite pastime?
Reading, listening to music and of course writing. One of my goals is to get into song writing, I love Irish ballads so currently I’m trying my hand at that.
What is your idea of happiness?
Having a good balance of life and not getting bogged down by things that are out of your control. Enjoying the now and accepting what you have. While I have my hopes and dreams, sometimes it can be just the simple things in life like chilling out in the park joining in playing with the kids, listening to a favourite song and having good positive people around me who I can just have a good chat and a laugh with.
If not yourself, who would you be?
Hard one to answer as so many people admire through the ages for various reasons, so if I was to be someone for a while maybe, as I’ve always been fascinated with the thoughts of other life existing out there so would love to be an astronaut for a bit to see if I could discover other planets, other life.
What is your favourite colour and flower?
Baby blue and sunflowers.
Who are your favourite painters and musicians?
I listen to all genres of music from classical to modern heavy metal, depends on the mood I’m in but one of my favourite singers would be Stevie Nicks.
Who are your favourite prose authors and poets?
I like some of James Joyce’s works. I’m not really a fan of poetry to be honest but I do like some from Maya Angelou as I admire her as a person the way she overcame a great deal of adversity and inspired so many people.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
I suppose one I would have just finished recently would be Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway as it was a story about courage and determination and despite his age he embraced his inner struggles to prove a point to himself, he never gave up wanting to catch that fish!

Who are your favourite heroines in fiction?

Top of my head would be Listbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson Girl with Dragon Tattoo books, young complex girl with her dark troubled past and prodigious skill for hacking, she turns lethal vigilante PI and uses her skills to expose corruption and to pay back those who wronged her.
Thank you, Denise. To learn more about Denise and her books please visit her website and Amazon page.