Please welcome, friend and author, Kay Patrick...

...to my blog this week.  Hello Kay and thanks for making time to be here today.  I understand you write historical crime and I'd love to know a little more about that...

It took me quite a while to recognise that I wanted to write.  When I was sixteen I won a scholarship to RADA and studied there for two years before acting in theatre and television – which included roles in the early black and white Doctor Who.  However, over the years I became more interested in writers and directing and left acting to script edit and then to direct in theatre, radio, and television (including 20 years directing Coronation Street).  During my time working in radio, I was able to direct many of the classics and work with new and emerging writers.  After many years of total satisfaction, the writing bug finally began to take hold of me and resulted in my debut crime/historical novel – The Trial of Marie Montrecourt.

In my early years as a script editor, I had been asked to research the possibility of basing a drama series on Victorian crimes committed by women.  I found some extremely interesting examples and the series went ahead (not written by me).  However, to my astonishment the most interesting case – in my eyes at least – wasn’t used.  It sat inside my head over the years and wouldn’t go away.  I made one or two attempts to write it – but I was never satisfied.

I realised I needed to create my own characters and my own world, just using the one or two actual facts and coincidences that had caught my imagination all those years ago.  I created two parallel lives.

First, there is Marie Montrecourt – a French orphan brought up in an English-speaking convent.  When 18 she is sent to England and placed in the care of a solicitor based in Harrogate – where her new life begins.  But what will it be?  No one will tell her about her parents or what the future holds.  She tries to take control of her choices but there are others – of whom she is ignorant – who are manipulating her future for their own ends. It is up to my second major character, Evelyn Harringdon, to reveal what those ends are.

He’s the son of an aristocratic family.  His father is a national hero and a leading politician in the government, a man who puts duty first.  Evelyn, unlike his father, does not.  He prefers a life of pleasure.  On one of his rare visits to the family estate, he discovers that his father is seriously ill.  The name Montrecourt is the last word he utters – a name that obviously greatly distresses him.  Despite himself, Evelyn is drawn into discovering why and finds himself involved in the world of lies, scandal and deceit that is Marie’s past.

Inevitably Evelyn and Marie’s paths cross.  She is still trying to create a life for herself in her new world – and Evelyn finds himself unwilling to reveal to her the seamy depths he has uncovered.  Until that is Marie finds herself a major player in a notorious murder trial.


You can follow Kay on her Website  on Twitter  and on Amazon