The Pumpernickel Mysteries
New year, new adventure: I’m going to self-publish my series of crime novels, as at my age I can’t hang around.
I wanted to label them ‘romanticrime’, as I hate the phrase ‘cozy crime’, and each of my stories has a romance at its core that is affected by the crime under investigation. But Amazon’s algorithms don’t recognize these subtle distinctions, so we’re going for cozy, with Animals included, as the eponymous Pumpernickel is a dog who gets to feature on the covers.
The books feature a solicitor in his 70s called Leo who runs a solo practice in London’s Soho with his black poodle Pumpernickel; his partner Marion, a therapist who is a couple of inches taller and a couple of years older than Leo; and his oldest friend Dennis, a veteran journalist whose byline is ‘the world’s most fearless crime reporter’. Naturally I think they’re the best thing I’ve written: you will be able to judge in the spring when the first ‘Pumpernickel Mystery’ will be published.
It’s called ‘Dead Early’ and begins cheerfully with a double funeral of a couple who killed themselves, though murder is suspected. I was going to start with ‘Dead Religious’, which features messianic Jews and Palestinian rights, but a celebrity to whom I sent it for a puff said it was something it would not be good for him to promote or recommend: ‘Down the road there would be trouble, I know it…’
Self-censorship is the most dangerous kind. I’m writing for an audience that cares about, and is perturbed by, today’s headlines, but also wants to be entertained. Assisted dying, accountability, people who think that those who don’t share their beliefs are enemies to be removed by any means possible: if you can’t write about the things you care about, why bother? Let alone go to trouble and expense of self-publishing, which I’m doing under my imprint Word of Mouth Books.
I’ve engaged a professional reader and copy-editor, a cover designer, and a marketing consultant. It’s fun being in charge after the frustrations of waiting for others to make the final decisions, and though of course if it all goes pear-shaped I shall have no one to blame but myself, I’ve still got years of experience it would be a pity to waste.
Writing about what’s happening today is so fantastical, fiction can hardly do it justice. Wrapping words around it helps to process it, but doesn’t make it more believable or bearable. But the thing about crime fiction is that you can make things happen, including handing victory to the good guys. What’s not to like?
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