How’s this for the first line of a mystery novel: “I had expected my hostess at the tea party to be boring. I hadn’t expected her to be dead.”
So begins the newly published book Hazards in Hampshire, by Emma Dakin, a pseudonym for prolific Gibsons author Marion Crook. With an opening like that, it’s virtually impossible not to read on and follow protagonist Claire Barclay as she quietly digs for clues about the poisoned tea party hostess, who, like many victims in this genre, had more than a few enemies.
Barclay, as we learn, has just returned to her native England from Seattle to open a business as a guide for U.S. tourists who are also British mystery-novel fans. As she and her clients delve into the puzzle of the tea hostess’s murder, Barclay also must deal with the handsome police detective who considers her a prime suspect.
Crook, who moved to Gibsons from the Lower Mainland in 2008, has written 30 fiction and non-fiction books, many oriented to young adults, and all under her own name. But with this book, she set off in a new direction and decided to use a nom de plume in the process. “Surprisingly enough, Crook is not a good name on a mystery book. It looks too false, and my false name looks more real,” Crook said in an interview, with a laugh.
More books under the pen name Emma Dakin are in the works and will again feature the 40-something Claire Barclay character. “The second book is called Crime in Cornwall,” said Crook. “It’s already been edited and it’s at the publisher’s. They’re going to put it out next year. And I’m just rewriting the third one, Perils in Yorkshire.”
Many corners of the U.K. are home to – and settings for – mystery novelists. Creating a heroine who is a tour guide for crime-book buffs is a clever device and helps Crook/Dakin avoid a fictional conundrum, found in the likes of Midsomer Murders, the Father Brown stories, and many others. “One of the problems writers have in the ‘cozy mystery’ genre is they put the [lead character] in the village and they never leave the village. The village gets full of dead bodies, and it gets to be improbable. So, Claire is moving around.”
Crook will launch Hazards in Hampshire, published by Camel Press, at an event at Gibsons Public Library on Saturday, Dec. 7, from 2 to 3 p.m. She promises to add a touch of English tea-time, complete with a newly polished silver tea service she’s bringing for the occasion. At this tea, the hostess will not be boring, and very much alive.
