Stephen Cox's Blog

And to come, companion works I enjoyed reading as I edited mine.

The Holmes short stories… (and I suppose the novels)

‘The game’s afoot, Watson!’ My gateway drug to mysteries was Sherlock Holmes. At ten I was mesmerised by the rattling cab on cobbles, gaslight struggling to be seen through fog, and dastardly deeds to be foiled. Conan Doyle was sloppy and inconsistent with his money-making nemesis. He quietly admitted that Holmes pronounced things as certainties which could only be probabilities. I grew tired of the idea of pure masculine intellect as humanity’s greatest achievement, shunning romantic attachment, and punishing the body.

Mrs Ashton is warm, emotional, longwinded, dishonest, and in a long term sapphic relationship. She is an anti-Holmes. Mrs Ashton has an astute eye for the guilty look or the stained sleeve, but she can also find a clue through her ‘gift’.

Her genesis was the idea of a detective who sometimes, actually could pluck a solution as if from the air.

The Moonstone.

Wilkie Collins did not invent the detective story but The Moonstone runs through the genre’s DNA. Told as a series of personal accounts by well-crafted characters, it is misdirection all the way. A cursed, looted diamond is sought by three Brahmins who wish to return it to its rightful place on a holy statue. A young lady inherits it on her 21st birthday, there’s a shocking theft, and suspicion falls on everyone. Very much a novel about character, as well as a darn good read, I’ve twice given it away and then bought a new copy within a year. It’s not just about the puzzle.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters.

Her brilliantly told debut shows three phases in the life of her Victorian heroine – becoming a male impersonator in the theatre, then a kept woman, and a Dickensian fall into poverty and redemption through social action. This is a vividly imagined, exuberant, sapphic Victorian world and in part showing what suffering and wickedness Victorian greatness concealed. Waters is not pious or prudish, she is absolutely unashamed by carnality, and she has no fear to invent where history is silent. An immersive joy in a believable world, as I want all my books to be.

Love the cover!

Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel.

This is a funny and horrible book, both assured and deeply disturbing. It took twenty years before I could dare read it again. In the present era, it tells of a sad, suburban medium, Alison, who tours the towns of the southeast with others of her kind. We think she and her companions are frauds, but Alison is in fact genuine, and her constant communion with the dead is an unspeakable burden. Plagued by her personal ghosts, the story slowly brings her horrific childhood to light. Her true gift is a curse. Yet the ending offers hope. I wanted to write a book which took suffering seriously but let the light in too. And which never made the mistake of mocking the grieving.

The Flashman Papers.

You can admit an influence while admitting its flaws. These are fantastic gung-ho books which show precise research without dullness. Flashman, the bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, grows up to be a great military hero and each book is part of his cynical, unexpurgated memoirs. Actually, he’s a coward, a cad, a womaniser, and a cheat. George MacDonald Fraser fills the books with sparkling historical detail, placing Flashman in an improbable number of perilous situations where he suffers the agonies of cowardice. Flashman treats women extremely badly, there’s a sexual assault in the first book and in another, he sells a woman he’s tired of into slavery. Although his wife has the money and cuckolds him too. Through these flawed eyes we see the great and the good of Victorian society. My desire to write a complicated crook like Mrs Ashton nods to the glorious and far more despicable Flashman.

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

I’ve read every Christie, Sayers and Tey (detective-wise). My favourite single “Golden Age” story is our introduction to Harriet Vane. There’s a stunning opening – a woman is on trial, accused of poisoning her rakish lover, the world thinks she did it, but a single juror refuses to convict. That gives Lord Peter Whimsy a chance to save the novelist Vane and he cracks on to do so. Although I like Lord Peter less as I reread him, and I sometimes contemplate a book where a woman poisons the man who got her off a murder charge and then stalks her. Who wouldn’t be Lord Peter at all. Lord Peter has an agency of women of a certain age who can be usefully deployed to snoop – his Baker Street Irregulars. And now I recall, in this novel, one such ally of Wimsey uses spiritualist fraud to solve a murder… Sayers – gifted translator and scholar – defended the detective story from accusations of triviality, and so do I.

And Christie? Poirot just irritates. I most like Miss Marple in the Thirteen Problems, who solves twelve crimes in an armchair without dropping a stich in her knitting. The smart folk underestimate her, but she understands them.

A diversion across the Atlantic.

I’m intrigued to notice that if you ask me about SF, fantasy, horror, legal-courtroom thrillers, historical, satire, or contemporary fiction, American writers will be among those that leap to mind. When it comes to sleuth stories, they don’t. I’ve read the noirs and Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, etc, and for some reason they don’t impress me.

A note on the covers. I tend where possible to use the cover of the book as I first read it, for absolutely no rational reason at all.

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Murders! Mrs Ashton is asked to investigate, in spiritual terms, whether Lady Violet’s mother committed suicide. Mrs Ashton – who fakes speaking to the dead – soon realises there are other untoward deaths to explain.

“This is true historical fiction, where the Victorian setting is more than just set-dressing; it permeates the very fabric of the story and the wry, understated character voice.” Eris Young.

A spooky tale where little is as it seems. Forgery, false accusations, secret identities. Are old crimes coming home to roost? To solve a baffling murder, Mrs Ashton must look both sides of the grave.

Lady Violet’s husband, Sir Charles – an MP – friend of the Home Secretary, a rising star. Vigorous, progressive, a handsome, wealthy brute, with a vicious temper. Lady Violet is terrified, though he has never yet struck her. He loathes mediums.

The notorious Mrs Ashton – grandstanding medium, a fraud, a thief and a loss to the stage. Hated by the press, extravagant and flamboyant, preachy and selfish, a social climber. She gives to the poor but won’t pay her bills.

Mrs Ashton is entranced by grieving Lady Violet’s plight, her beauty, and to be honest, her independent income. Thwarting Sir Charles becomes an obsession.

An older, sapphic couple making their way in a man’s world. Mrs Ashton’s true love is Braddie, a blunt Northerner posing as her servant – sceptical, aging, and keen they retire to the country. “You’re dragging us all into danger, mark my words!”

Older detectives need a young runner. Slum-lass Maisie, not yet fourteen; a quarter Indian, a drunken docker father, and two younger siblings to feed. She writes her own future, a lady detective like the great Kate Warne in America.

And tough, incorruptible Chief Inspector Bullfinch, a trusted senior detective called in on a sensitive mission. Bullfinch holds a massive grudge. Mrs Ashton once humiliated him over some stolen emeralds…

Like my previous novels, The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder is enchanting readers. “…a high-spirited and thoroughly enjoyable novel that effortlessly draws one into its charmingly crooked world.” Oliver Dowson.

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Tech is great but historical fiction focuses on enjoyable basics

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder: info and buying links

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It is great fun writing a late Victorian sleuth, who has only few technological tricks up their sleeve. Sherlock Holmes had the forensic mindset – and he probably encouraged its development – but he didn’t have the toolkit.

“Victorians” spanned over six decades of rapid technical and social change. They largely invented a scientific view of crime and started the thorough scientific analysis of the dead body. However, clearly they were in the dark compared with the modern detective. Holmes used fingerprints in a 1890 story, well before Scotland Yard, which used the inferior Bertillon system of body measurements.

I’m all for the amazing technology that lets you solve a crime, even years after the event. But as a writer, a lower tech era throws you back on the basics – means, motive, opportunity and observation.

In the The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder, my lead investigator, spiritualist fraud Mrs Ashton, clashes with Chief Inspector Bullfinch, an energetic, thorough and incorruptible detective who hates her. (He knows she stole the Westmacott emeralds three years ago but to his humiliation, he cannot prove it.)

Brief translation, “The Paris Police Laboratory”, Ferdinand Gueldry, via artvee. (1887) Cropped to remove the empty third of the room.

Science at the scene of death

Imagine that you are an 1880s detective at the murder scene.

You have no CCTV cameras to check in the middle of the night. Hansom cabs had number-plates but no other vehicles did. No computers to hunt through camera evidence to find a specific vehicle’s movements. You are thrown back on the happenstance presence of human witnesses, who are remarkably fallible.

However, you and your men (and they would be men *) would look for footprints, cart tracks, pieces torn from clothes, and the like. Taking Plaster of Paris impressions of marks on the ground started in the 1880s. The Moonstone has a vital clue in a small smudge of paint.

You find a blood-stained weapon. The boffins might distinguish between human and animal blood, but that’s it. In 1880, you can only look for a stain on a suspect’s hands or clothes, or signs of guilty washing. No DNA testing.

Hunting down a suspect

Since I was a teen, we have entered an extraordinary high-tech surveillance state.

If a 2025 suspect flees, today’s police can track their phone, get into their call history and probably search that vast mass of personal and business correspondence – emails. Today the state can ask to see most financial transactions.

I carry seven or eight pieces of ID, one of which has a photo, and it would be two if I had a driving licence. One reason bigamy flourished in Victorian times was that you could just move away from anyone who might know you.

Yet things were better for 1880s police than fifty years before. The telegraph meant a description could be widely circulated, and a telegram could get ahead of a fleeing suspect. A self-styled Quaker poisoner was so caught in 1845. The Victorian newspapers loved crime, and helping the police, which was good for sales. At this stage, it was more likely they would carry a sketch of suspects rather than a photo. The press could also be a stern rod for the police’s back if a crime seemed to be taking too long to solve.

Don’t lick the wallpaper

I guess most people know that the Victorians were surrounded by poison. Arsenic was used in medicines, wallpaper, and book covers. You could buy any quantity of opium the pharmacist would sell you. The three common and easily obtained poisons – arsenic, cyanides, and strychnine – weren’t hard to detect. Arsenic was easily found by a chemical test. Both cyanide and strychnine had distinctive and rapid symptoms.

Bodies could be exhumed. Early Victorians tasted and smelt stomach contents or fed them to animals to test for poison, or sedatives. Ewww.

Victorians got particularly worked up about women using poison to settle scores.

I enjoy these constraints

Mrs Ashton, Braddie and Maisie are thrown back on the basics of detective work. Keen observation, an understanding of human nature, asking the right questions, and a mental reconstruction of the crime. If you don’t have an expertise, calling on someone who does. For me, and I hope for the reader, this leads to great stories.

Mrs Ashton has her extraordinary gift, when it works. Opening minds can reveal deeply hidden truths, although it can also fail, or blind her with migraines. She needs to keep it secret – only Braddie knows. Mrs Ashton’s gift presents her with that most awful dilemma.

You know someone committed a deadly crime but you have literally no proof. You know they may kill again. Yet to reveal you can sometimes read minds would make you a plaything of powerful men.

Lt-Colonel Henderson, the Commissioner of Police for London, and Bullfinch’s boss. (artvee)

Re the lab picture: Undoubtedly some of these tests will be the Marsh test for arsenic poisoning.

*Women were private detectives, store detectives, and Pinkertons in the US had a Female Division under pioneer Kate Warne, who helped prevent an early attempt to murder President Lincoln. As Kate Warne said to Pinkerton “I can go where a man can not.” We suspect that female ‘searchers’ in British police stations, informants etc did more police work than was credited.

The Crooked Medium… need you. With millions of titles circulating, most authors depend on other people’s help to let people know about the book. As a self published author, many review places and most bookshops are shut to me. That’s how it is.

But you can help! And most of this is free and not much effort

I don’t mind people passing books around!

Ed Robertson, Unsplash

Ordinary word of mouth is really important. My aunt just sold six copies to her book group.

Social media, when real, can be truly helpful.

Reviews help. They don’t have to be works of art, a few honest lines will help people see that real people have read it. Useful places include Goodreads, your own socials, endless book sites on Facebook, etc.

Whatever you think of Amazon, early reviews here help make a title more visible to the Algorithm – tech speak for more likely to be shown to customers. Amazon is a vast player in the book market and I’m keen to get as many reviews here as I can. That’s true for the smaller eBook providers as well.

Book Groups

With complex female characters, nasty but human villains, big life and death questions, I’m told an utterly immersive Victorian setting, and a good few jokes, The Crooked Medium is bound to start arguments a great choice for a book group. Maybe I can supply a central point to supply (or the eBook is very cheap in launch month.)

Events.

I love speaking to things, but obviously many offers aren’t worth my while. Within the free public transport zone of London is appealing and some areas of the country I can do other things when there.

Bookshops

I can send someone a courtesy copy of the book but I am not in Gardners the main supplier to all UK Bookshops. That closes the discussion straight away for 90-95% of shops. I’d love to hear from anyone willing to be supplied direct

Get in touch, and let’s talk

Stephen

Saturday 6 SeptemberBOOKLAUNCH: The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox7pm Doors.

 Come meet critically acclaimed author of ‘Our Child of the Stars,’  Stephen Cox, at the book launch of his new novel, ‘ The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder.’

About the book:

Extravagant medium Mrs Ashton and her lover, blunt working-class Mrs Bradshaw, run a spiritualist scam. Mrs Ashton secretly reads minds.

Believing that Mrs Ashton is genuine, grieving Lady Violet craves the truth behind her mother’s untimely death. But Lady Violet’s powerful husband Sir Charles hates spiritualists. Has he killed before?

Uncovering this MP’s wicked crimes will put all three women in terrible danger… 

“With the perfect mix of meticulous research, emotional depth and a rollicking good story besides, Stephen Cox delivers surprises to the very end” 

Eris Young, fiction editor Shoreline of Infinity

Get Book From The All Good Bookshop

The All Good Bookshop, 35 Turnpike Lane, is a cooperative, run largely by volunteers, and is happy to order any book not in stock. It also has an art space, rents rooms to community groups, and runs events from comedy to the writing group Stephen attends.

How can you get it?

Pre-order here. Kindle eBook will drop 1st Sept.

Print will be dispatched in time for 1st Sept. I’m using Bookvault to supply these. Amazon Print worldwide will be ready on 1st Sept.

I am doing signed and dedicated through my local independent, the All Good Bookshop.

Further eBook and print options to come

Kindle ebook worldwide 99pPRINT £10.99 (UK FREE POST)PLACEHOLDERSigned and dedicated ALL GOOD BOOKSHOP

The point of a cover is to attract you to read the book. More specifically, to stop you long enough to stop scrolling, or to pick a copy up. Typically, you decide in a few seconds. Then, you glance at the extra material/read the back of the book, etc. Or read the first few paragraphs.

It’s important the cover is clear about the genre, the vibe, and maybe the setting. I trust something labelled as lasagne is not apple crumble.

We’ll find out how good my cover really is. Because, in shocking news, the author needs to be careful about their opinion. It’s what their readers need that matters.

People assume the need is to be extraordinarily different. But, if lots of people read ‘this sort of thing’, your cover should resonant with the current covers ‘this sort of thing’ usually has. My partner said my preferred design looks like a lot of existing books, and my honest response by then was ‘Good’.

Choosing a designer

I chose Matt Bright at Inkspiral Design because I liked some of his stuff online, his price and process seemed reasonable, and he’s an approachable guy. He doesn’t do illustration, ie drawing people. The designer my publisher used for my other two novels is great but even his mates-rates were beyond me.

Matt was insightful, unflappable, responsive and a joy to work with. No notes.

The market

I researched Victorian set mystery book covers which fall into distinct approaches. (Note also that tastes and popularity change.)

I am using these as commercially successful designs. I acknowledge these images are copyright, I believe this is fair use, and I respect the moral rights of the designers.

These are

Mysterious lady with back to you – either drawn or sometimes using photos/other imagesOne grim or intriguing objectMostly typographicalIllustrated, which signals light-hearted to menot shown, a spooky scene without people like a grim foggy alley

(BTW, a joy of writing Victorian is most of the art is public domain. Great free visuals.)

The Brief

A big call out to a friend who commissions cover designers. It’s not often the phrase “Use PowerPoint” sparks my joy but he explained the obvious. Designers think more in pictures than words and writers tend to think in words first. And I’ve worked with designers in other fields.

So a Powerpoint set out a brief, a mood board, some possible elements, and some market research.

Matt also did research and we thrashed out approaches

Mysterious Lady, since the protagonist is oneAn intriguing object (since we independently decided which one)Typographical

Matt came back with three design concepts

We quickly eliminated Mysterious Lady since I’d be endlessly fussy; period images that were not young and pretty or old would be hard to find; and the good scenes to use would be spoiler-y.

We then had two options

Golden BeeTypography

I asked Matt to work those up and I did some market research among friends online, my face to face writing group, those who’d read the book, etc.

Here is where I almost went badly wrong. I liked Golden Bee a lot because it is both unusual, and meaningful as you read the book. But the point of the cover is to sell the book I wrote, not be clever. (The same with titles – they are to get you to pick up the book – not produce a smile when 200 pages in you get it!) This coincided with my further thinking about subgenre.

So I did more research in a Facebook Group that’s full of opinionated authors, writing in every variety of mystery, and including many historical fiction and women’s fiction writers too. I think the group is about 85% women. The verdict was the bee was less clear on era, less clear on genre, and it did call to mind some of the modern serial killer novels like Hannibal. They didn’t hate it, but they really liked the typographical one. They made points others had made but with vigour and evidence.

Ultimately it was my choice and I am comfortable with it.

Refinement

Then it was down to Matt doing his dark arts, the sort of subtle change a designer does which sounds like a 5% tweak and makes the thing 25% better. I had to see the final design to understand points Matt and Dan were making.

None of the approaches could convey the spookier side of the book, but as the subtitle is really clear it is “spooky”, I could live with this.

By the way, each of the three “elements” of cameo are on the cover for at least two distinct reasons each.

Getting the actual cover printed correctly

KDP Amazon is the cheaper printer option, but is notorious for printing covers darker and duller than wanted. Matt had already allowed for this but the test print copies were, not dreadful, but a bit underwhelming. A second tweak produced a perfectly acceptable cover.

Cover release, and eBook and print book preorder links out this week. Earlier than planned but why wait? Order now, you may well get the print book before 1 Sept.

The cover looks BRILLIANT. For reasons, I use two printers and I have to tweak it on one of them, but it really does the story justice.

Please share the cover and order links wherever you can. I need help getting the book out – simple and free actions – as much or little as you like.

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Loving early reviews.

“…a high-spirited and thoroughly enjoyable novel that effortlessly draws one into its charmingly crooked world.

This novel is a magnificent blend of historical mystery, thrilling adventure, captivating fantasy, and heartwarming romance all rolled into one. Regardless of your usual literary preferences, I thoroughly recommend ‘The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder.’ It’s a truly engaging read that promises to charm and excite.”

Oliver Dowson, author of the Repurposed Spy series.

Or, from my favourite Texan reviewer, Suanne Schafer of the Midwest Book Review (forthcoming)

The setting and time are well-researched, and the voice is wholly Victorian and delightfully understated and wry. The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder is a great ghost story with multiple twists and turns along the way, the investigation of multiple murders old and new. A fun read.

Or, I recently got a rejection from an agent, who’d sat on it for four months. But personal feedback is extremely rare, half of the agents and publishers don’t even send a form response.

I think your premise is a highly inventive, intriguing one. The characterisation of Mrs Ashton in particular is brilliant, and the pace of the action great. Your experience as a writer and commitment to your craft shows on every page.

THIS OFFER HAS NO CATCH.

Free eBook available to subscribers of the newsletter (I need your email if you are not a subscriber!) I’d love you to review it but that’s up to you and I won’t chase.

Contact me i read this daily

Printers Costume, Nicolas de Larmessin (1680) via artvee. Nothing new about self-publishing…

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With the Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder almost ready for preorder, and coming 1st September, I’m looking for friends to help out.

If you blog, vlog, tiktok or review – and would rather DIE than ask me to pay you – then I’m interested. The contact form is read daily.

The Secret Murder Club is people who want to read a free eBook. The only condition is that I have your email, either by subscribing to my newsletter or otherwise. And you don’t mind me asking if you’d help promote it. You don’t have to do anything, you just need to be OK with being asked.

Preorder 18th August Published 1st October

A spooky; sapphic Victorian mystery

London 1881. Two older women, lovers living off their spiritualist scam; a beautiful young Lady lost in grief; and a powerful man concealing a hideous crime. Can this outsider couple stop a murder?

Bookmark this page: all preorder and buying links will be listed here as they are confirmed.

Seances! Murders! Fraud! ….!

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder has it all. This is true historical fiction, where the Victorian setting is more than just set-dressing; it permeates the very fabric of the story and the wry, understated character voice. With the perfect mix of meticulous research, emotional depth and a rollicking good story besides, Stephen Cox delivers surprises to the very end. If you, like me, love a crook with a heart of gold, then these queer old birds are sure to capture your heart.

A genuine pleasure from start to finish

Eris Young, fiction editor Shores of Infinity

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder will be available through Amazon eBook worldwide. (More TBC)In print, it will be available from this website – sent direct from the printer – and some other retailers in UK, US and other countries.Signed and dedicated, it will be on sale from the All Good Bookshop including by post.

Review copies

I rely very heavily on other people to get the book known. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch re review copies, if you are a bookseller, or want to help promote it. Contact me if you want to join my “Secret Murder Club”. (Street Team) – we chat about simple fun ways to push it. (The contact form emails are read!)

I am NOT looking for promotional services NOR paid ‘reviews’. Period. For Booksellers, I currently can’t use Gardners, sorry.

I can’t afford audio since I won’t use AI.