The Red Brick Mysteries follow Dorothea Roberts and her friends through their days at the Victoria University of Manchester in the 1930s. Whilst Dorothea is planning to simply focus on her studies, a number of murders pique her and her friends’ curiosity, so much so they end up as amateur sleuths.
Murder in Her First Degree is the first book in the Red Brick Mysteries series and will be published by Dark Edge Press in 2022.
While the Red Brick Mysteries series is a figment of my fevered imagination and no characters or plot points are real, the original inspiration for my heroine, Dorothea Roberts, is my great-aunt Annie Wood who went to the Victoria University of Manchester in the 1930s to study English. She was the first woman in our family to go to university. She taught English at Ashby-de-la-Zouch Girl’s Grammar School for many years and was still able to do the Times crossword as an elderly lady. After she died, when my family was clearing out the family farm, we found a photograph of an unknown gentleman, taken at a chain of photographer’s studio with a branch near to the university. He may be a relative or a friend or someone special from her university days. My great-aunt never married, but his photograph serves as the inspiration for the hero in my story, Dr Geraint Hadley-Brown. If anyone knows who this gentleman actually is I would be fascinated to know.