Authorpreneur Dashboard – William Savage
An Unlamented Death: A Mystery set in Georgian England
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
A gripping historical murder mystery involving Dr Adam Bascom, a young physician who, one morning in 1791, trips over a body in a local churchyard. Adam’s curiosity and sense of justice cannot accept the apparent willingness of the authorities to cover up the killing as a botched robbery. Thus begins a story of the murky world of espionage and extremism, which ends in a midnight chase to catch the last words of a dying man. “An Unlamented Death” is the first book in a series following the career of Dr. Adam Bascom in the often surprising world of late-Georgian England. As the country slides into war with Revolutionary France and the future looks ever darker, Adam must find his way into a new life and a most unexpected set of talents.
Book Bubbles from An Unlamented Death: A Mystery set in Georgian England
Finding a Protagonist
In the 1790s there were no police, no detectives or machinery of investigation outside London; nor were there any private detectives. Writing a mystery set in this period sets the author an unusual challenge. It was usually up to the family of the person who had been killed or wronged to bring the supposed malefactor before the magistrate to be committed for trial. How do you get a protagonist of a series of books involved in murder cases? How can he —a woman would never have been acceptable to anyone in that period—find the means to ask questions of those involved? My solution is to use a doctor—someone who might well be called in by the family to treat those affected by the crime and go on to convince them he might be of assistance in bringing the perpetrator to justice.
Finding a setting
The part of England where I live is more remote than many in this overcrowded island and possesses an amazing variety of landscapes, from sea cliffs and marshes to broad, wide-open spaces under huge skies. It's also marked by an enormous number of ancient churches with their adjacent churchyards. Our Norfolk farmland is still dotted with many grand Georgian houses, home to a good few of the ‘movers and shakers’ of the Georgian world from the first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, to Admiral Lord Nelson and noted agricultural reformers. It's an ideal place for a young doctor to settle—and become unwittingly involved in the problems of the society of his time.
The Fabric of Murder
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Norwich in the 1760s is one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the realm. Its wealth comes from a booming trade in the famous “Norwich Stuffs”—fine worsted cloth, often richly dyed and embroidered. So when a leading cloth-manufacturer in the city is murdered and his business seems on the brink of collapse, there is a real fear that a forced sale of his huge stocks of cloth will ruin the trade for everyone else. With no kind of organised police force beyond a handful of rough, uneducated constables and night-watchmen, the mayor and aldermen are forced to turn to Mr. Ashmole Foxe to unravel the crime, bring the killer to justice and save the city’s most important and profitable trade from imminent collapse. Follow the wily Foxe through Norwich’s teeming 18th-century streets and find the answer.
Book Bubbles from The Fabric of Murder
Norwich ‘Stuffs’
This book began with a visit to Norwich’s Bridewell Museum and the realisation of how important the cloth trade was to the city in the 18th century. Disrupt that and you would throw thousands out of work and stand a real chance of provoking major riots and disturbances. What if someone vital to that trade was found dead in mysterious circumstances? What if rumours flew that his business had been close to collapse? Without any kind of police force, you would need someone to investigate and try to sort out the mess. Someone clever but unobtrusive. Someone like Mr Ashmole Foxe.
The Catt Sisters
Catt is a genuine old Norfolk surname, belonging to a family well-respected amongst the merchants in the city. It amused me to give Ashmole Foxe not one lover but two; sisters who would compare notes and each demand as much from him as he gave the other. The younger, Kitty, is an actress and leading member of one of Norwich's thriving groups of players. Actresses of the time were widely assumed to be free with their favours, but a leading lady, like Kitty, could be extremely choosy about the men she allowed near her. Gracie, the elder of the two, has flown in the face of convention and respectability to manage a bagnio—a select brothel for the wealthy. In this story, both help Foxe in their unique ways.
Norwich and the Cloth Trade
This book began with a visit to Norwich’s Bridewell Museum and the realisation of how important the cloth trade was to the city in the 18th century. Disrupt that and you would throw thousands out of work and stand a real chance of provoking major riots and disturbances. What if someone vitalt to that trade was found dead in mysterious circumstances? What if rumours flew that his business had been close to collapse? Without any kind of police force, you would need someone to investigate and try to sort out the mess. Someone clever but unobtrusive. Someone like Mr Ashmole Foxe.
The Code for Killing
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Murder and mystery return to the life of 18th-century doctor and gentleman, Adam Bascom, thanks to the enigmatic Mr Wicken and his world of espionage and revolutionary war. Adam is called to Norwich urgently to treat a young man in Wicken’s employment who has been assaulted and left with total memory loss. Other mysteries follow thick and fast. What caused the murdered man to walk alone, at night, along a deserted river bank? Who murdered the King's Messenger and dumped his body in the river? How did a file of secret government papers go missing? How could a local miller have been killed twice in quick succession? Helped by his friend Peter Lassimer, his mother’s companion Sophia LaSalle and a cast of other characters, old and new, Adam must disentangle a mass of lies, intrigue and deception to discover the meaning of “the code for killing”.
Book Bubbles from The Code for Killing
The Doctor as Detective
In this book, I have tried hard to maintain the fact that Adam Bascom is first and foremost a doctor. His involvement in the case begins with a request to see what he can do for a young man in a coma, and he never loses sight of this need. Indeed, almost everything else that happens stems more from his wish to understand the cause of his patient's condition than an abstract wish to see justice enforced. There are many books in which people act as the detective although their true profession is something else entirely. Too often they become detectives first and foremost — a situation that leaves them no different to the police and P.I.s who inhabit mysteries set in more modern times.
Caught up again
Adam Bascom helped the mysterious Mr Percival Wicken of the Alien Office during the first mystery in this series. It was therefore not surprising that when another problem arises for Wicken in Norfolk, this time in the city of Norwich itself, he asks Adam to get involved. Besides, this mystery seems to be entirely medical—a young man attacked and left for dead, then surviving only to suffer a near total lack of any memory or voluntary movement. I had been reading about people in vegetative states and wondered how someone in Georgian times might have tried to deal with the same syndrome. That started me on this story.
Dark Threads of Vengeance: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
In this second book in the series, Mr Ashmole Foxe, Georgian dandy, bookseller and confidential investigator, finds himself alone and way out of his depth. The mayor is demanding he find the murderer of a prominent merchant and banker before the city is crippled by financial panic; Alderman Halloran is hounding him over the theft of some of his favourite books; and his much-loved companions, the Catt sisters, have left Norwich, unlikely to return. Poor Foxe has no clues, few ideas and very little hope. Can Ashmole Foxe expose his killer before panic ensues and hundreds of people lose their livelihoods? As he negotiates the treacherous pathways of Norwich’s prosperous, middle-class merchants, can Foxe discover whatever dark secrets lie behind the serene façades of all those fine houses in Colegate Street and the surrounding area? Unless he can produce a miracle, and soon, Mr Foxe’s own future in the city looks bleak …
Book Bubbles from Dark Threads of Vengeance: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery
Norwich’s Dissidents
In the eighteenth century, Norwich had a well-deserved reputation for being a city of stark contrasts. On the one hand, there was a large population of more or less puritanical dissidents—the descendants and spiritual heirs of the large groups of Huguenots who had settled in the city and done much to rejuvenate its cloth trade. On the other, like all towns and cities of the time, there were many who lived lives of considerable abandon. Hundreds of prostitutes, male as well as female, many clubs and drinking societies, a significant number of well-to-do people who believed enjoying themselves was their right; and how they did it nobody's business but their own. Ashmole Foxe sits in the middle of this rich brew, moving easily amongst the demi-monde of the city, whilst retaining the esteem of many of its leading citizens. That makes him the ideal investigator.
Links to the Sea
Norwich’s River Wensum had long provided the city’s essential link to the sea via the port of Great Yarmouth. In the 18th century, wherries (sailing river barges) docked close to the centre of the city. Some brought agricultural goods from inland, mostly grain, to be exported to London and the continent. Others took goods from the coast far inland. The docks are still there in places, though much gentrified now. That’s where this murder mystery begins—in the dock area where no gentleman would be likely to venture after dark, let alone a prominent merchant and tireless evangelical preacher. But one did and it cost him his life.
A Shortcut to Murder
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Dr Adam Bascom is faced with his toughest case so far—the murder of Sir Jackman Wennard by means of a faked riding accident. He encounters an impossible crime and a mass of conflicting evidence, not helped by the hostility of the dead man’s son, who refuses even to discuss his father’s death. All this along with growing emotional conflicts as well as factual ones. Then drama turns into crisis. Everything known about Sir Jackman Wennard and his family is thrown into confusion by an event from the man’s past. The Wennard family fragments, his son is reported kidnapped and the whole neighbourhood is plagued by a rash of daring highway robberies. As events plunge out-of-control towards the inevitable confrontation between past and present, can Adam pull his ideas together and move fast enough to prevent more lives being put at risk?
Book Bubbles from A Shortcut to Murder
Doctor or Detective?
In the eighteenth century, especially outside London, there were no police, no detectives, no prosecution service even. The investigation of a crime was either left to the aggrieved party (or their family) or open to bounty-hunters seeking the rewards that were usually offered for bringing a successful case. The magistrate’s formal role began only when an accused person was brought before him. He must then decide whether he could deal with it himself, or must send the case for trial at the next Quarter Sessions or Assizes. Nonetheless, some of the more active and committed magistrates might well undertake some sort of investigation on their own initiative. That's what Giles Bascom does in this book; only he has an inquisitive brother to do the work for him.
Finding a Murderer
Outside London, the eighteenth century had no police force, no detectives, nor any other procedure for investigating crimes beyond the interest shown by a local magistrate. A reward would probably be offered for information that lead to a conviction. Another member of a gang might turn King's Evidence. The local parish constable might pick up a whisper and use it to seize a suspect. That's all, unless the local magistrate tried to look into the matter himself. None of it was very systematic or effective, which leaves the mystery writer with a problem — how do you get your entirely amateur detective involved in the first place? Fortunately, Dr Adam Bascom's elder brother is a conscientious magistrate and the victim in the case sufficiently important locally to demand some action should be taken. This extract is from the point where the investigation begins.
Hunting a Killer
Fox hunting was a popular sport amongst Georgian landowners. It combined the thrill of the chase with opportunities to display horsemanship and courage in surmounting natural obstacles, like fences and hedges. It could also be dangerous. A bad fall at the gallop might produce severe injuries—or even death. But what if someone used these dangers as a way to hide a cunning murder? That’s where this story began—with the foxes and rabbits of the vast heathlands which once ran along the north Norfolk coast and a riding accident which soon proved to be nothing of the sort.
This Parody of Death: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
A delightful historical mystery, backed-up with first-rate research. Eighteenth-century Norwich bookseller and dandy, Ashmole Foxe, is asked by the local bellringers to look into the death of their Tower Captain, who has been found in the ringing chamber with his throat cut. Since the victim had a foul temper, as well as being a notorious miser, killjoy and recluse, there’s no shortage of suspects. Yet with everyone lying about themselves and their relationships with the dead man, Foxe knows it will take even more cunning than usual to dig out the truth. When, on top of all that, he discovers nothing about the victim is what it seems, he realises he must dig into the man’s past as well as his present. Can he ever separate truth from pretence and the genuine from the fake? On the track of the killer, Foxe encounters many of his city’s 18th-century inhabitants along the way, including a sharp young whore, several frightened tradesmen, a reclusive miser, an unlucky attorney, a desperate Ship’s Mate and a woman who gets the better of him nearly every time they meet. Bit by bit, Mr Foxe reveals a tale of greed, bitter family strife and unexpected love. A tale that ended in the church tower in an explosion of anger and death.
Book Bubbles from This Parody of Death: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery
Another murder for Mr Foxe
Word is getting around the city of Norwich that Mr Ashmole Foxe is a good man to turn to in times of trouble — especially when that means murder. Norwich was one of the leading cities in the country for the new art of change ringing on church bells, so it’s not surprising that the city’s teams of ringers are amongst the best in the land. The church of St. Peter Mancroft, in the heart of the city, has an especially keen team of ringers. Now their leader — the Tower Captain — appears to have been murdered, right in the ringing chamber in the tower. The ‘why’ and the ‘who’ of that crime are going to cause Mr Foxe a number of sleepless nights before the case is solved.
