Sarah Ward at Lindum Books

The evening was advertised as; An evening with Sarah Ward and her detective DC Connie Childs, and her fabulous series set in Derbyshire.  There are four books in the series and the most recent is 'The Shrouded' which Lindum Books believes will appeal to Ann Cleeves and Elly Griffith fans.

This was certainly us, but we investigated Sarah before we made our final decision.  I borrowed her first novel - In Bitter Chill - from the library and loved it.  We found that Sarah has a blog - Crimepieces https://crimepieces.com/ - where she reviews crime fiction from around the world.  She stated (in her talk) that this is how she started out - as a reader, as opposed to a writer.  Her earliest memories are of The Secret 7, Nancy Drew, and then Agatha Christie, who she sees as the 'master of plotting'.

Sarah started her talk saying her books were based in Derbyshire and The Peak District, as were Stephen Booth's - Cue cheer from the back row!  She stated that she has tried to incorporate the Derbyshire countryside into her novels.  However, her third novel; 'A Patient Fury' has Horncastle (Lincolnshire) as one of its settings.

She told us how she was living in Athens with her husband; teaching, but with a lot of time to herself, when she told herself it was 'now or never'.   Her first novel - In Bitter Chill (as I said, very good) - was based on something that happened to her and her own memories of the 1970's.   

Sarah stated that she is interested in the impact of a crime on people, and has tried to write strong female characters.  She deliberately made her Detective (Connie) a lower rank so there was somewhere for her to go, and because the higher they get in the force, the less they actually get involved in.  'People like the underdog'. Connie has a terrible love life as she 'follows her heart'. 

Sarah mentioned Ruth Rendell;who highlights the weirdness of 'ordinary people'.  No one knows what goes on behind closed doors, or the secrets that exist within communities.  She is aware of her readers constantly looking for clues and then need to keep them guessing.  

Sarah's fourth novel -The Shrouded Path - is based on The Monsal Trail in Derbyshire, which in some places follows the tracks of the old railways and railway tunnels.  'A great place to find a body'.  Sarah asked about what people remembered from when it was a working railway in the 1950's.  The story is based on someone seeing 6 schoolgirls go into a tunnel, but only 5 come out....