K is also for Kick Start

 

What do you do when you've written and published your novel? Simple. You start the next one.

Well that's the position I'm in right now because yesterday, I signed the contract for The I-Spy Murders, the next Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, and I'm kick-starting it right here and now.

One of the things I love about e- and POD publishing is the speed of turnaround. If I'd signed the contract with one of the biggies, I could look forward to publication sometime in the summer of 2013. Modern, small, independent houses, like Crooked Cat work much faster and The I-Spy Murders will be with you on June 28th this year.

That date is significant for me. June 28th is my daughter's birthday, and Mrs Angela Brown will be … cough cough … years old. It was also my late stepfather's birthday, and if he were still with us he would have been (I think) 83 years of age.

So now I've given you the background, what is The I-Spy Murders all about?

I-Spy is a reality TV programme, not unlike Big Brother, except that it runs for only one week and there are no evictions. Brenda, of Lazy Luncheonette fame, is one of the Housies. The show runs its course with the usual ups and downs, and The Sanford 3rd Age Club have arranged for a weekend in Chester to greet Brenda as she comes out of the I-Spy House.

Before that can happen, however, one of the Housies is found hanging in the only room of the house where there are no cameras. Since the Housies are under the watchful eye of the cameras 24/7 and no one from the outside can get at them, it's obviously suicide.

Not so, declares Joe. He knows it is murder. But he has many peculiarities to explain before he can convince DCI Frank Hoad.  None of the remaining seven Housies left their beds. No one was seen entering the Private Room after the victim. No one from the outside could get there without being seen, and no one from the outside world could even get into the grounds, never mind the hall without being detected by the cameras.

If it is murder, then it's an impossible murder.

Can Joe, Sheila and Brenda explain the impossible?

***

The I-Spy Murders, the follow up to The Filey Connection, is published by Crooked Cat on June 28th 2012.