"Fresh Watter" is a prequel of sorts to Cuddies Strip, my novel published by Ringwood Publishing. It tells of the childhood of Cuddies Strip's central character, Bob Kelty, living in rural Perthshire in the early 1930s.
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Last night I did a talk with Tom Wood, former Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders on crime in 1935.
Tom is the author of Ruxton: The First Modern Murder and that case came to trial the same week as the trial of John McGuigan for the Cuddies Strip crimes, which were the basis for my novel Cuddies Strip.
Some of the police officers involved in the Ruxton case also offered assistance to the Perthshire force and the two crimes were heavily reported side-by-side in the newspapers.
The criminal investigations are fascinating: in the Ruxton case, as Tom expertly explains, we saw the beginnings of a scientific, professional approach to policing. The Cuddies Strip investigation, by contrast, was undertaken by a police force that was under-resourced and not set up to manage a complex and detailed investigation.
You can view the talk here.
I finished the final draft of Barossa Street, the follow-up to Cuddies Strip tonight.
Bob Kelty, having recently resigned his commission with the Perth City Police force, immediately becomes embroiled in another murder investigation when he discovers the brutality murdered body of Hugh Smithson in a house in Barossa Street, Perth.
Once more, Bob finds himself operating alone, with the police seemingly content to pin the blame on Richard Hamill, an early suspect in the Cuddies Strip murders the previous years.
Set against the backdrop of the death of King George V and the ensuing abdication crisis, plus the looming threat of war and despotism in Europe, Barossa Street follows Bob's attempts to prove that Richard is innocent and to bring the culprit to justice.
Barossa Street will be published later this year.
