Helen Barrell's Blog, page 4

Endeavour and the crime scene photos that never were

A still from “Endeavour” – “Nocturne”.

Warning: for spoilers and dead people.

Television series Endeavour tells the adventures of young Inspector Morse, when he was mere Detective Constable Morse. I was late coming to this programme, but I have become completely addicted to it. Perhaps it’s the slightly grubby vision of the 1960s that fascinates. Perhaps it’s the puzzling plots. Perhaps it’s the portrayal of young Morse by Shaun Evans, who manages to include John Thaw mannerisms in his charac...

Ask Augustus

It’s not long now until my second book is published. Fatal Evidence is the first book-length biography of 19th-century forensic scientist Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor, MD, FRS. Readers of my first book, Poison Panic, may recognise his name, as will anyone who knows anything about Victorian crime.

Augustus, the professor’s assistant (well, ok, me in Victorian drag) will be filming a questions and answers session. It will go on YouTube, and any questions I don’t have time to answer in the vi...

A writer wrote a thing

A still from the video of “Slash Fic” by The Ritas.

It’s hard to know sometimes (often, perhaps) if online articles are sincere or if they’ve been skewed for clickbait.

That’s what I thought when I saw Stephen Hunter’s article for the Daily Beast, “If You Want to Write a Book, Write Every Day or Quit Now”1)Please google it, I don’t wish to link to it. (which I read in my mind to the tune of Manic Street Preachers’ “If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next”). He’s a Pulitzer-prize winning writer, ffs! (Not that I’ve ever heard of him, but that’s by the by2)He sure as hell won’t have heard of me.). He’s a WRITER. He’s an AUTHOR! He sits atop a column, and when he wants to feel superior (which going from his article, appears to be fairly...

CWA conference – Edinburgh, April 2017

This was where I stayed. Shame I didn’t have either of my 19th C costumes with me, quite frankly.

I need very little excuse to go to Edinburgh. I love it. I love it because it’s got loads of old stuff, it reminds me a bit of Granada (the old town with a castle on the hill, the new bits cascading away beside), and it is stuffed full of history, much of it involving coffins. And it’s quite a cheerful place, too.

My hotel was almost opposite Old Calton cemetery.

I had never been to a Crime Write...

Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2017

I’ve been rather busy over the last couple of months, zipping off to the Essex Book Festival for the Criminally Good Afternoon Tea, zooming off to the NEC for Who Do You Think You Are? Live, and then getting drunk in Edinburgh at the Crime Writers’ Association conference.

I was at Who Do You Think You Are? Live on two days. The first, I was dressed as Helen Barrell, the librarian who writes books about Victorian crime. I signed copies of Poison Panic at Pen & Sword’s stall, bought some acid-...

Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2017

It’s a week until Britain’s biggest family history fair, Who Do You Think You Are? Live, kicks off at Birmingham’s NEC.

There’s a wealth of family history societies, genealogy companies, and DNA-testing businesses hoping to catch your eye, and there lots of talks and workshops and goodness knows what else for you to sample.

If you’re planning to seek out some help with the trickier corners of your family tree, make sure you bring print-outs or even original documents.

I’ll be there on two da...

Essex Book Festival’s Criminally Good Afternoon Tea at the Golden Age of Crime Weekend

In the 1950s, my grandad was a Special Constable, working the streets of Southend-on-Sea. He told me that he’d often be approached (perhaps “set upon” is more accurate) by gangs of drunken women, and when he came home from his shift, my grandma would be furious at the lipstick he was covered in. Drunks are one thing, of course – poisoners quite something else, and that was my subject for the Essex Book Festival’s Criminally Good Afternoon Tea at Southend’s Park Inn Palace Hotel.

The tea was...

Thoughts: To Walk Invisible

****ing h***!

I’d seen the trailers – this Brontë biopic promised an accurately short Charlotte, and an Emily who doled out physical violence when enraged that her poems were read without her permission. This is the version of the Brontës that seems most plausible to me, and when the warning came up on iPlayer – Guidance: Contains some strong language and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting – recommending it for viewers of 16 and over, I was hopping up and down on my sofa with g...

And that’s the first draft

The River Colne at Wivenhoe. 19th century.

You will go to the devil, die when you will, you will go to a rare place when you die.1)Purloined from a real trialthat you’ll find out about in Fatal Evidence, put into the mouth of a character in my novel. Because if you’re going to threaten someone, *that’s* the way to do it. Especially if you’re a Victorian.

I’ve always written fiction, so being commissioned to write non-fiction has been quite… surprising. But in a good way.

The trouble is that a...

Events

Saturday 3rd December 2016, 10am-2pm
What: Book-signing at St Mary’sChristmas St Nicholas Fayre
Where: St Mary’s Church, Bearwood, B66 4BX
Entry fee: None! Just turn up. You can buy a copy of Poison Panic from me on the day for 12. And I’ll sign it for you.

Sunday 12th March 2017, 3pm-4.30pm
What: Essex Book Festival 2017. Criminally Good Afternoon Tea. In the county where the poison panic took hold, we’ll eat scones and I’ll tell you about the lives of Sarah Chesham, Mary May, and Hannah Sou...