Elizabeth J. Duncan's Blog: Elizabeth J. Duncan's Blog

Two more Pennys!

Thrilled to tell you that St. Martin’s Press has given the green light to two more books in the Penny Brannigan series, so you can look forward to new adventures into the spring of 2018. Lots of plot details still to work out, but one story will take place during the annual end-of-summer agricultural fair and the other will be set against the backdrop of the restoration of a nineteenth century castle.

Thoughts on the Great Train Robbery

Ronnie Biggs, perhaps the best known of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery of 1963, has died in the UK, aged 84. Although Biggs was romanticized in the media, he was disliked by many, including his fellow robbers.

Ronnie Biggs

 

Buster Edwards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met one of the train robbers in the early 1980s when I worked for the CBC in London. One of the radio programs  decided to do a where-are-they-now type feature to mark the twentieth anniversary of the heist and rumour was that one of the robbers, Buster Edwards, was living in London. We tracked him down to his new  job – selling flowers from a stall at Waterloo Railway Station so the CBC reporter and I went round for a little interview. He was friendly, Buster was, but not very forthcoming. He did mention, though, that Ronnie Biggs had been “useless”. Biggs’s minor role was to recruit someone who could drive the train a few hundred yards but the guy Biggs found wasn’t up to speed and their best laid plan went off the rails. We finished the interview and as we were leaving, Buster gave me a few daffodils, which was really rather sweet of him.

 

From a crime solving point of view, the robbery investigation contains an amusing little twist. Although the robbers did pass GO and did collect (millions more) than $100, they were done in by a Monopoly game.They had holed up for a few days at Leatherslade Farm where they passed the time playing Monopoly, using the real money stolen in the robbery. When they learned that the police were searching every recently rented property within 25 miles of the robbery scene, they knew it was time to move on. So they washed and bleached every surface in the place to remove all traces of their presence. But they forgot one thing. Yep. The Monopoly set, including the cards and playing pieces, was covered in their fingerprints.  As they were all petty criminals known to police, their fingerprints were on file and the  police knew exactly who they were looking for.  They were caught and arrested soon after.

 

Caught by a Monopoly set

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a literary and cinematic point of view, many books have been written and several movies made about the Great Train Robbery, including Buster, starring Phil Collins as Buster Edwards. But it you want to go back further in time to a brilliant heist, find a copy of The First Great Train Robbery, starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. It’s directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his novel The Great Train Robbery.

The adventure of the Christmas pudding – Part 2 – Steaming

Sunday was the day to steam the puddings.

The recipe (given yesterday) makes one large, one medium and three small puddings. The small ones make great tasters or gifts (if they last that long).

Here’s how to steam a pudding.

You’ll need parchment paper, aluminum foil, string and big pots with lids or a steamer.

Grease the pudding bowls (called basins) and fill with the pudding batter. Cut out a circle of parchment paper and place on top of the pudding. Cover each basin with parchment paper and foil, tied securely under the lip of the bowl and pleated to allow for expansion. This is difficult to do by yourself, so you’ll likely need someone to help you. (My friend Pat, who helped me with this stage, works at Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto. She told me that the Victorians would have lined the pudding bowl with unbleached muslin cloth and just tied off the top. That seems a whole lot easier than the modern method.)

Steam for about six to seven hours, topping up with boiling water as necessary.

If you don’t have a steamer, use a regular pot with tight fighting lid. Place the pudding on an inverted saucer or trivet so it doesn’t sit directly on  the bottom of the pot.

When the puddings are cooked and cooled, re-cover with fresh foil and refrigerate.

When you are ready to serve, steam for two hours or so to heat. And we’ll do that on Christmas Day!

Serve with pouring sauce, brandy butter or crème Anglaise.

The bowls are filled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parchment paper covers the pudding.

The puddings steamed all day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the finished pudding. It will be the traditional finish to our Christmas dinner.

The adventure of the Christmas pudding – Part 1. Preparation

We celebrate Christmas with our Bothwell cousins and we’re traditionalists. Especially cousin Bob who believes an old-fashioned steamed pudding is the only way to end a proper Christmas dinner. So it’s been my pleasure for the past six years to bring the pudding. Over the years I’ve found the recipe and method that works best for me.

A Christmas pudding isn’t difficult to make, but it does include rather a lot of ingredients and requires some special equipment.

Most of the ingredients are in. Now comes the fun part. Stirring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Britain, the last Sunday of November is called Stir Up Sunday as that’s the day the pudding is traditionally made. I set aside the last weekend in November for the project. Saturday is for making the batter and Sunday is for steaming. The pudding can and should be made well in advance of the big day.

 

I start gathering the ingredients a week or so before. Some of them I get at the Bulk Barn and I’ve devised a clever way to do that. I bring a two-cup measuring jug, line it with a plastic bag for each ingredient I wish to purchase, and then measure the exact amount. When it comes time to assemble the ingredients, I have exactly the amount I need, already measured, with no waste or leftovers.

 

The recipe I use is from English Traditional Recipes: A Heritage of Food and Cooking by Annette Yates.

 

Christmas Pudding

5 cups fresh breadcrumbs

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup currants

2 cups raisins

1 1/3 cups golden raisins

1/3 cup candied peel, chopped

½ cup glace cherries

8 oz. suet

½ tsp salt

2-4 tsp mixed spice (2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, ½ tsp allspice, dash ground cloves)

1 carrot, peeled and grated

1 apple, finely chopped

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

2 large eggs, lightly whisked

2 cups stout

 

Method

 

Put breadcrumbs, sugar, dried fruit and peel in large mixing bowl. Add suet, salt, mixed spice, carrot, apple and orange rind. Mix well.

 

Stir the orange juice, eggs and stout into breadcrumb mixture. Leave overnight, stirring if possible.

 

Note: The recipe calls for suet, which can be difficult to find. In Britain, you can get a vegetarian equivalent but I have not seen that here. However, you must use suet as it highs a high melting temperature. Don’t be tempted to substitute something else, like shortening, or you’ll end up with a gloppy, greasy mess.

And don’t make the mistake I did one year and use dried bread crumbs. They’ll soak up too much of the liquid.

 

This year, I substituted dry cranberries for the golden yellow raisins. We’ll see how that works out!

 

Tip: Photocopy recipe and cross off the ingredients as you add them to make sure you don’t leave anything out!

 

The batter will rest overnight, ready for steaming in the morning.

 

In part 2 we’ll look at the steaming process.

 

 

Never Laugh as a launch party goes by

It’s been three years since I held a launch party for a new book (A Brush with Death, 2010) So the publication of the fifth title in the Penny Brannigan series, Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By, seemed like a good time to hold another party. I hope you can make it! Please find the details to the launch party that was sent out in our email newsletter below.

To celebrate the publication of Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By the fifth book in the Penny Brannigan series, we’re throwing a launch party.

Join us! on Friday, Nov. 1, 2013 4 to 6 p.m. at Bloor-Gladstone Library 1101 Bloor St. West, Toronto, ON. We’re also very pleased to announce that special guest is renowned Canadian artist Doug Martin will be there. You may recognize his work from all five of the delightful Penny Brannigan book covers. We’ll also have door prizes and some special Welsh treats and surprises.

We will have a number of books available for cash purchase, but if you just can’t wait until the party to pick one up, you can pre-order on Kobo or other online retailers. A number of brick and mortar outlets will be carrying it as well. If you want to get caught up in the series, we recommend starting at the beginning with The Cold Light of Mourning.

See you there!

A day out at Penrhyn Castle

Approaching Penrhyn Castle

There’s no better place for a murder than a castle and Wales can boast more than 600 of them. That’s more castles per square mile than any other country in the world.

Some, like Conwy Castle, built for Edward 1 in the 12th century, are massively splendid examples of what a medieval fortification should be.You may recall it was here that poor old Harry Saunders took a very bad fall in my third novel, A Killer’s Christmas in Wales.Others, like the neo-Norman fantasy Penrhyn Castle, are more modern and built on a more modest scale. With its high-Victorian style, you might think Penrhyn Castle closer to country house than castle, but however you want to describe it, it’s well worth a visit.

Located near Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, Penrhyn Castle was built in the 19th century by the Douglas-Pennant family with money earned from the family interests in Jamaican sugar and Welsh slate.

The castle is filled with interesting and unusual items, including an elaborately carved slate bed, made for a visit by Queen Victoria. It also features one of the best private collections of paintings in all of Wales.The grounds include parkland and a Victorian walled garden.The castle, with stunning views across to Snowdonia and the Menai Strait, is now the property of the National Trust.

The upstairs rooms are grand and beautifully appointed. But the below stairs rooms offer a tantalizing glimpse into a bygone era. I’ve included a few images from my day out below. Tell me in the comments which one is your favourite.

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By on the Goodreads 2013 most anticipated mysteries 

There’s more to reading than meets the eye

Today I had the opportunity to present an audiobook version of A Small Hill to Die On to Euclid Herie, former president of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

People who are blind or visually impaired enjoy reading as much as sighted people do — they just do it differently. Euclid, for example, is a skilled braille reader but he also enjoys an audio book from time to time.

The book is narrated by Ann Flosnik, an accomplished British actress. Euclid was delighted that the book is unabridged. I hope he enjoys it.

And The Winner Is… Everyone!

When the name of the Bony Blithe winner was announced on the evening of Wednesday, May 29, the person whose name is on the stunning shadow box trophy wasn’t the only winner. Everybody who loves the traditional mystery genre – publishers, authors, nominees, book sellers and readers –  will all benefit in some way from this new award program.

By shining a national spotlight on a sometimes overlooked, underestimated and underrated genre, the Bony Blithe awards remind publishers that there is a growing market for this kind of gentle crime novel and hopefully, publishers will be encouraged to publish even more of them, giving new, emerging authors the opportunity to see their  years of dreams and hard work turned into books.

The award gives all authors who write in this genre something to aspire to. Mainstream mystery awards tend to recognize the darker, deeper thriller or suspense types of books, leaving writers of traditional mysteries out in the cold. (Or mist, rain and fog, depending on where their book is set.) The United States has the Agatha Award and the Bony Blithe is its worthy Canadian cousin. Now, we have a wonderful award all our own, and we’re ready to share it with the world.

For the Bony Blithe nominees, that old cliché of “it’s an honour just to have been nominated,” really is true. I was surprised and absolutely thrilled to learn A Small Hill to Die On had made the Bony Blithe short list. I’m in very good company! My book, the fourth in the Penny Brannigan mystery series set in North Wales, was published in October, 2012, so the nomination announcement in March breathed new life into promotional opportunities for the book and me. Being nominated for an award is great PR. It enhances your reputation as an author and adds credibility to your backlist. Not to mention how much your editor and publisher like having a national award nominee on their list of authors.

Beyond the obvious benefits to being nominated, there are more subtle ones. Being nominated for a major writing award, as chosen by a panel of peers, sends an author a very positive reinforcing message. It tells him or her that a group of accomplished, discerning people who are may also be authors but are definitely readers, like the work. They see something of value in it – whether it’s skilful story telling, strong, evocative writing or maybe it’s simply that the author has come up with an entertaining, enjoyable read. The judges are sending a powerful message. “We like what you’re doing. You’re on the right track. You are doing what you are meant to do. We want more. Keep going.”

An award like the Bony Blithe, presented at a special occasion gala, gives the friends and families of the nominated authors a chance to support their favourite writer as they celebrate his or her special achievement. Families and friends, after all, are the ones who put up with the moaning and whining about deadlines and dilemmas, sometimes surprise us with a much appreciated cup of coffee or glass of wine when we need it most and least expect it, and who share our joy when the writing life is going well and support us when it isn’t. They step back and leave us alone to give us the time we need to write and are often our first readers, offering suggestions and feedback on how we can improve our work in progress. So a nomination for an award like the Bony Blithe is really cause for celebration for the whole circle that surrounds the writer.

Photo from @novelspotbooks who were kind enough to bring the nominees books to the 2013 Bony Blithe Gala

Book sellers love awards programs because the publicity helps them sell more books.

And finally, readers benefit from awards programs because they bring at least one or two new authors to the front of the room that some may not have heard of.

And even if you come in second in a contest or competition, you can still do all right out of it. Best selling Canadian authors Louise Penny and Alan Bradley didn’t win the Debut Dagger Award, but second place worked for them.

So from all of us nominees, a huge thank you to Caro Soles and her team for creating, organizing and promoting the Bony Blithe Award.

And a huge thank you to the judges Caro Soles, Elaine Freedman and Madeleine Harris-Callway for choosing me as the winner of the 2013 Bloody Words Light Mystery Award.

 

The Library that Loves Being a Library

A Library that Loves being a Library

This picture was sent to me this morning and I wanted to share it with you. Any avid library goer may not like the incorrect punctuation, but I thought it was cute.

Maybe I’ll start signing my name as “Elizabeth!”

Thrilled to win 2013 Bloody Words Light Mystery award in Toronto, May 29. Thank you to all the judges.