The Melissa Craig Mysteries
"People often ask me if Melissa is my alter ego and I have to admit that we have quite a lot in common. Like me, when she was in her forties she moved from London into the country. Her Gloucestershire village is similar to the one I lived in for over thirty years and like me she soon became actively involved in village life.
"Also, she is a crime writer, although why this should be so I shall never be able to explain. My agent suggested that I try my hand at a whodunnit; when I sat down to write Murder at Hawthorn Cottage, Melissa just seemed to walk into my head, complete with her past history, her problems, her strengths and weaknesses, her son Simon, her eccentric neighbour Iris Ash and agent Joe Martin. DCI Ken Harris, who features in many of the titles in the series, appeared on the scene a little later.
"Like Kipling's elephant's child, we both have an insatiable curiosity, although I'm thankful that I've never been in the kind of scary situations in which Melissa finds herself. Her nerves are much stronger than mine; just writing the description of that hair-raising crawl along a narrow ledge overlooking a deep gorge in Murder on the Clifftops gave me goose bumps!"
Praise for Melissa Craig
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"Full of sharp insights with an unexpected twist in the tail"
(Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News) -
"The Melissa Craig books… prove that the British genre of crime writing is still the finest in the world. The gently old-fashioned style of unravelling the mystery is as riveting as any violent fast-paced novel… All the best ingredients of English crime… A novel of sharp insights"
(Cotswold Life) -
I'm convinced this is an author who could turn a story about a weekly supermarket shop into a best seller… She has the rare skill that grabs the reader's complete attention at page one and holds it to the end"
(Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard) -
"Hooked from the first pages… Wonderful… Fascinating, full of twists and turns… Kept me guessing till the end."
(Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars) -
"Brilliant… I read this book in one sitting and could not put it down. I would highly recommend this book to anyone."
(NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars)