In this issue: A new Victorian mystery, advertising my way, a podcast, and more.
Greetings to all old and new subscribers!
Murder at the Gasworks
March 6 is launch day, and the new Tommy Jones mystery has already garnered some good reviews over at GoodReads from readers who signed up for Advance Reader Copies. My heartfelt thanks to those who signed up in response to my plea for ARC readers!
There have been the usual snafus getting this one out. IngramSpark, who publishes the print copies that go to bookstores, has had many delays, some caused by the recent stormy weather across the country. I’m in So Cal and their print shop is in Tennessee (they closed the one in Fresno). But I have suspicions that other factors are also at play. Or I could just be cynical after reading Cory Doctorow’s book.
The story of Gasworks is about Tommy Jones before the events of Murder at Old St. Thomas’s, the first Victorian mystery I published. Does that make it a prequel? Perhaps, but it certainly makes it a good book to start with if you haven’t read the others, and a good book to read if you have. Kinda clever, huh?
The plot
So what happens? Well, it’s 1860, so Tommy is only ten years old, but when he discovers the body of his friend, gasworker Joe Carter, he becomes the main suspect. Cuthbert Slaughter, then a desk sergeant in the City of London police, accidentally leads the case to find the murderer. When he discovers there was a similar killing of a gasworker across the river, in Met Police territory, he must work secretly with an officer from that rival force.*
Slaughter’s shyness, his social anxiety talking to folks, is a serious handicap with this kind of work — he is much more comfortable solving police puzzles in the back room. But as he and his wife Ellie get to know young Tommy, he must overcome his retinence to save the boy.
This novel makes the Tommy Jones Mysteries a tetralogy. Or a quadrilogy — that word dates from 1856, and was related to Wagner’s operas. Anyway, the books are now a set of four stand-alone mysteries with overlapping characters.
Are these ads?
I’ve been excited about getting Murder at the Gasworks out there. It has themes about the environment and pollution, and creating your “found family”, and helping the less fortunate. How do I get the word out on my teeny tiny advertising budget?
If you’ve been following my work for awhile, you know that although I’m not as shy as Cuthbert Slaughter, I’m no extrovert. You don’t see me jumping up and down on social media, or anywhere, for that matter. But I do post on Instagram and Facebook, and I have Canva to play with, so I’ve started making posts to get readers interested in my books.
Here’s a few I’ve really enjoyed creating. Some are images:
But I’ve done some “reels”, too. They even have music, which I bought (or tried to buy— some of their pay links were broken) from some creative people who sell their compositions online at Pixabay.
This is my favorite so far, a video where I cheated with a bit of Canva AI:
And here’s teaser at 10 seconds – not sure why YouTube considered the above to be a “short” and not this, but whatever. The format may look familiar if you subscribe to a certain streaming service.
It’s kind of fun making this stuff.
I’m on a podcast
In case you missed it (ICYMI, they say in social media), I had a great time doing a podcast with Verena Rose, who hosts Sunday Tea with V. She asks cool questions of authors who write historical mysteries.
Sunday Tea with V, hosted by Verena Rose. (This is Spotify, but it’s also on Audible and wherever you listen to podcasts.)
I got to talk about Murder at Old St. Thomas’s, as well as the upcoming book. Plus we chatted about doing historical research, children and workhouses in Victorian London, an imaginary dinner, The Annotated Alice, and much more. Hope you enjoy it.
Till next time, keep grousing!
*I was inspired to write about the rivalry between the Met and the City Police by my visit to the latter’s museum (which no longer exists) in 2017.
