The Art of Taking Over…

... I have the great pleasure of a visit from fellow PYA writer and friend, Carmen Radtke today.  Hi Carmen, thanks for making time to be here and tell me all about your books...

It’s all about character.  They determine the setting, the plot, their voice, and they can be hard work.

When I read an article about the Great Depression in Australia, including food dole or “susso”, soaring unemployment rates and an alcohol ban that started at six pm unless you were a bona fide traveller (don’t ask why it’s okay to drink when you’re on the road but not if it’s your home town!), I was hooked.  Because I love traditional or cosy mysteries, where a lot is left to the reader’s imagination, I had my new project.  The heroine was easy, a telephone exchange operator who’d become the only breadwinner and therefore could not ever do anything to jeopardise her job.  Whatever Frances Palmer overheard, mum would be the word.  Her future partner-in-crime, Jack Sullivan, had to be the opposite.  The rest would be secondary characters, colourful but not as important.  At least that’s what I thought.

I hadn’t reckoned with Uncle Sal, who sprang to life fully formed, as if he’d been lying in wait for this story to come along and step right in.

I didn’t know about his existence until I typed his name for the first time in A Matter of Love and Death, but there he was.  Already larger than life, winking at me with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes.  He took off his hat with an elegance and flourish I’d last seen executed like this in an old Fred Astaire film, made a bow and beckoned me to follow him into his world.  Impossible to resist for someone like me, who adores the Roaring Twenties and the Thirties, Hollywood’s golden years, and the stage in equal parts.

Salvatore the Magnificent.  He must have won the Palmer’s hearts in a similar fashion, because a close friendship with a Vaudeville artist was definitely not the norm in a traditional Adelaide household, even if they had met as young immigrants.

But he slotted in so easily, so beguilingly, and with him I had another link to the Top Note, a place where Champagne flowed, police and small-time crooks danced, and Dolores Bardon dazzled customers with her voice and her beauty. It’s a world far removed from Frances’s penny-pinching world of working at the switchboard and then coming home to stew, apple pie and evenings spent listening to the radio.  Except – it’s Uncle Sal’s natural habitat, and as his god-daughter she knows more about it and is attracted more deeply to it than her mother would appreciate.

But Uncle Sal is much more than a guide into his other world.  He’s world-savvy, and aware of the sort of dangers and temptations that most people would strenuously deny.  Most of all he knows about honour and decency, even if they don’t always fit in with the current law.  He’s Frances’ rock, fiercely protective of her and yet encouraging her to fall in with the Top Note crowd.

Uncle Sal’s made it a lot easier to write A Matter of Love and Death and Murder at the Races, where he plays an even bigger part.  He’s made himself so much at home in my writing that he is unwilling to take a last bow.  There he is again, winking at me with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes, taking off his hat, ready to take his rightful place on the stage of the next Jack and Frances mystery which is currently in the works.

about the book... 1931. Frances Palmer is overjoyed when her brother Rob returns to Adelaide as a racecourse veterinarian.  But all is not well on the turf, and when a man is murdered, there is only one suspect – Rob.

Frances and her boyfriend, charming night club owner Jack Sullivan, along with ex-vaudevillian Uncle Sal and their friends have only one chance to unmask the real murderer, by infiltrating the racecourse.  The odds are against them, but luckily putting on a dazzling show where everything depends on sleight of hand is what they do best.  But nothing is a dead-cert against a cold blooded killer.  And with time running out for Rob, the race is on.

You can get the books on Amazon

You can follow Carmen on Facebook  Twitter  Goodreads 

Look out for more Yorkshire authors in the coming weeks...

And if you are an author, with a connection to Yorkshire and wish to know more about us or to join us then check out our Website