Why write crime fiction?
The honest answer, in my case, is because it is in my head and needs to get out. When ‘The Words’ hit you, then there is no alternative, and I am happiest when writing. As to why anyone should write historical crime fiction, I can only say it has the same validity as any other genre, and it gives the author and reader the chance to inhabit another world in which take place the sort of violent events that are part of the human condition in all eras. Crime is not new, and although methods change with the centuries and technical advances, motivation remains essentially the same, whether in the 12thC or the 21stC.
Where did the inspiration for The Lord Bishop’s Clerk come from?
The original murder idea, though not the Sheriff’s men, came from writing my own ‘murder mystery evening’ for a dinner party way back in the 1990s. I had looked at several commercial ones available and been horrified at the lack of historical accuracy and even attempts at alibis. So I wrote my own, with the one death and the ‘suspects’ each asking three questions. Only the murderer could lie. After that it lay dormant until I had the idea that the basic storyline was a viable plot for a book, and then I developed Bradecote & Catchpoll and how they discovered truth.
How important is location (i.e. Worcestershire) in your book?
I have to say it is pretty integral, although one could have used another shire in the west where loyalties between Stephen and Maud were divided. I was not living in the county when I wrote the first few, and have made slight alterations and additions to some since coming to live in Worcestershire, now I can travel over the topography. Being able to see exactly where the body was found certainly helped in the sixth one, which I have written since arriving here.
What is your favourite book/What do you enjoy reading?
I have always loved historical books, even if, like Austen, they were contemporary when written. I certainly have books I read again and again, perhaps in part as comfort reading. When I moved from little girl’s pony stories to grown up fiction, my father set me off with Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood and Scaramouche. I also read a lot of Heyer, C S Forester, and Kipling, and then spread into a range of authors and genres, though I never read horror, and I cannot read historical novels where the history is ‘optional’. My favourite crime writers are Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. I like historical crime but dare not read it these days in case of inadvertently picking up another person’s ideas.
Do you have a favourite author? Do you have a favourite fictional character?
I have favourites, but not one single favourite author or character. My favourite living author is Terry Pratchett because he writes not so much fantasy as reality with a twist as good as the double helix of DNA. If it were plain fantasy it would not be as vibrant, vital or funny. He is pure genius, and wears a good hat.
How easy/difficult is it to write historical crime fiction?
Am I the one to ask? As an historian I suppose I find it easier than other genres. I am at a loss as to how to write contemporary novels, or science fiction. I have no idea where to find the ‘voice’ or a plot. They say write what you know, and that is what I do, except of course that I am not a criminal.
Do you agree with David Baldacci that it is your responsibility as the author to write inaccuracies into your fiction, so that potential criminals do not replicate crimes?
I think that is more true in contemporary crime, since most of my deaths involve good old blunt instruments, arrows, swords and assorted sharp weaponry. In the case of poisonous concoctions I would not describe any distillation, and they would be already well known as poisonous plants.
How do you avoid your characters becoming clichéd (e.g. the femme fatale, the jaded detective)?
I am not sure one can entirely prevent that, but the aim must be to make the character ‘real’. If a man is a bully, he acts like a bully, if a woman uses her looks, she uses her looks. Perhaps ‘clichés’ are inevitable to a degree, since there are a limited number of ways human beings react, just as, in essence, there are very few book plots. The art, rather than the ‘devil’, is in the detail.
Do you ever suffer from writers’ block? If so, how do you cope with it?
If ‘The Words’ are not there, I do not write. I wait. The only scary time was immediately after my father died. It was pretty traumatic and for four months there was nothing in my head at all, as though my mind were a whitewashed cell. I could not continue the Bradecote & Catchpoll I was writing for over a year, although I was able to write in another genre. There is a lot of my father in Catchpoll’s pragmatism, and having a soft element well hidden behind the facade the job is expected to have, and I could not face it.
Have you ever based characters on people you know (e.g. an old enemy as the villain)?
As I have said, there is a lot of my father in Catchpoll, although he was a senior NCO in the Royal Marines, not a policeman. In many ways Catchpoll is the sergeant major who has seen it all before. I think authors beg, borrow and steal from those they see, be it an image, an action, an expression. You will not, however, find me jotting details on my smartphone as I people watch when out shopping or in a restaurant. There are aspects of two particular men in Bradecote’s mannerisms and persona, and Catchpoll owes his looks to one single photograph I saw in early 2003 in a newspaper interview. When I write scenes I see them in my head as if watching them on a screen, but the faces are not always visible, though nuances of movement and expression may be, and certainly how they sound to me influences the way their speech appears on the page.
How has social media helped you to market your book/you as an author?
I am such a technophobe I have found having to use social media more of a bane than a boon, although I do see it spreads information. In the old days one wrote the book, launched it, signed a few copies and that was it. Now it is all websites, tweets, Facebook and blogs. I think I am on a steep learning curve, and am way behind the average adolescent.
Finally, what next for Bradecote and Catchpoll?
Bradecote and Catchpoll are still going strong. I have finished the sixth novel and have an idea for the premise of the seventh, but I need to pick the brains of a good toxicologist. The second in the series, Ordeal By Fire, will see them in Worcester itself, which is Catchpoll’s ‘home patch’, and that brings new aspects to the investigation.
Sarah's first book 'The Lord Bishop's Clerk: A Bradecote and Catchpoll Investigation' a mediaeval mystery is set in June 1143.The Lord Bishop of Winchester’s Clerk is bludgeoned to death in Pershore Abbey, and laid before the altar in the attitude of a penitent. Everyone who had contact with him had reason to dislike him, but who had reason to kill him? The Sheriff of Worcestershire’s thief taker, the wily Serjeant Catchpoll, and his new and unwanted superior, Acting Under Sheriff Hugh Bradecote, have to find the answer when nobody wants the murderer apprehended - until the next death.