It’s Time to Get Acquainted With Arsenic for Tea!
Salutations! I am now back from my holiday, and thinking seriously about beginning to write Wells & Wong Book 3. This is very odd, since in the actual real world Wells & Wong Book 2, which will be called Arsenic for Tea, isn’t out yet. This is the problem with being a writer of a series – your brain’s constantly a book ahead of itself. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to properly introduce you to the next book in the Wells & Wong series, Arsenic for Tea.
First of all, it has a beautiful cover (please see above). Second, it has an official synopsis:
Schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy’s home, Fallingford, for the holidays. Daisy’s glamorous mother is throwing a tea party for Daisy’s birthday, and the whole family is invited, from eccentric Aunt Saskia to dashing Uncle Felix. But it soon becomes clear that this party isn’t really about Daisy at all. Naturally, Daisy is furious.
Then one of their party falls seriously, mysteriously ill – and everything points to poison.
With wild storms preventing anyone from leaving, or the police from arriving, Fallingford suddenly feels like a very dangerous place to be. Not a single person present is what they seem – and everyone has a secret or two. And when someone very close to Daisy looks suspicious, the Detective Society must do everything they can to reveal the truth . . . no matter the consequences.
And third, it has a plot. Actually, it has an entire 60,000 word draft – but I’m not going to let you see that. I’m also not going to tell you whodunit. But I do have a few hints about some of the things you’ll find within its pages when you open it next year.
In Arsenic for Tea you will find…
Daisy’s house. Which is extremely posh, and full of exciting things like stuffed owls.
Daisy’s family – made up of her brother, her parents, her aunt and her uncle Felix. Yes, that’s the mysterious Uncle Felix readers of Murder Most Unladylike will already have heard of.
Two dogs.
A butler.
An annoying ukulele (played by an annoying brother).
A very silly nickname or two.
A tea-time spread, with chocolate cake, jam tarts, ham, cream buns … and poison.
Several bunbreaks.
Some daring midnight missions.
A maze.
A dreadful thunderstorm.
And one very, very nasty visitor…
Now, Arsenic for Tea won’t be out until January 2015. Which, I know, is a fairly long time. So if you need some reading material to keep you occupied, may I make some suggestions? The following is a list of the books that I had in mind when I was writing Arsenic for Tea. Country house murders, mad English families and Delicious Death…
A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
The Lampreys are crime fiction’s battiest, poshest, most delightful family. They’re desperate for money… and then their nasty uncle is murdered. They’re the only suspects – but did they do it? I love this book so much that I spent a large part of my teenage years half-pretending that I was the Robin Gray in this book.
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers
A brilliantly snooty and charming country house murder mystery that, again, is all about family. Mr Denis Cathcart is murdered at the Wimseys’ country residence. He was the fiance of detective Lord Peter Wimsey’s sister – and the prime suspect is Wimsey’s older brother. True story: I wrote my MA dissertation on this book, and it was the most fun anyone has ever had with academia.
Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie
Death at tea time – how could I not include this? When I first read this aged 12 I was beyond fascinated by the fish-paste sandwiches that the victim eats. I had never experienced such a flavour, and couldn’t believe that it was a real thing. The 1930s were truly a different world.
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The one that started it all – this is the original detective novel, and it still reads brilliantly 150 years later. It’s set in a country house so posh that no one can believe that any of its residents (apart from the servants) could have committed the crime. Spoiler: that isn’t true…
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
I love the Radletts utterly. Utterly. They’re the fictional family I most wish I was a part of – and there’s more than a little of Uncle Matthew in Daisy’s father Lord Hastings. Note that this isn’t a murder mystery, but it’s still an excellent book.
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
A beautiful and incredibly haunting murder mystery that, at first, doesn’t seem like a murder mystery at all – it’s the story of a man who uses his weird resemblance to a missing boy to defraud the boy’s family out of his inheritance. But Tey twists the concept wonderfully, turning the fraudster Brat into a lovely character and making you fall for the aristocratic Ashbys as hard as he does. But are the Ashbys as wonderful as they seem?
Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh
Another excellent posh-people-trapped-in-country-house murder mystery. Can posh copper Roderick Alleyn discover their secrets and work out the murderer? Of course, but it’s a more than usually enjoyable ride.
Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
One of the best poisoning mysteries out there – and featuring arsenic. Lovely Lord Peter finds himself falling for the suspect in the case, the girlfriend of the murdered man, and he rides to her aid heroically (but still logically, of course. He is a detective).
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
More a village detective novel than a country house detective novel, but this wonderful Christie features the most memorable cake (for me) in crime fiction – the massive chocolate Delicious Death. Daisy’s chocolate cake at her birthday tea is a very affectionate homage to it.
You can find this complete list in rather more graphically beautiful form at my Independent Bookshop page – and if this has made you interested in Arsenic for Tea, I’m delighted to say that you can now pre-order it at Amazon, Blackwell’s and Waterstones, and add it to your bookshelf at Goodreads. January 2015′s not so far away really…
And now, I really should get on and write Book 3.
