Get Lost in a Victorian Mystery with C.A Asbrey's The Innocents series

Pinkerton Agent Abigail MacKay’s willful sister, Madeleine, is going to be the death of her yet. That is, if Madeleine doesn’t get herself killed first! After running off to marry a widower whose wives mysteriously die—leaving behind a great deal of money each time—spoiled, beautiful Madeleine is unaware of the danger she’s in. Though no doctor has been able to establish a cause of death for any of the women, Abigail is sure they were murdered—and that her younger sister is going to be next. The only person who can help her save Maddie is the charismatic criminal, Nat Quinn—and Abi left him cooling his heels in jail at their last meeting.

As Fate would have it, Nat and his partner, Jake Conroy, were the last to see Madeleine before she disappeared. She happened to be on a train The Innocents held up—but she was alive and well when they parted ways. And Madeleine is the least of Nat’s worries, now that he’s discovered that Abigail has lied to him about one very important thing—she’s married!

When Abi risks all to ride into the outlaws’ deadly hideout and ask for help, there’s no doubt she’ll get it—but nothing’s free in Ghost Canyon; here, everything has a price. With a new understanding in their relationship, Nat agrees to help her prove David Bartholemew is a cold-blooded killer before he can murder Maddie.

With Jake in charge of Madeleine’s welfare, all hell breaks loose when two competing reporters get involved in the case, along with an old nemesis of Nat’s coming into the mix. One thing is certain: David Bartholemew is a murderer. But how is he doing it? In a race against time, will Nat and Abi be able to figure it out before Jake runs out of ways to protect Maddie from her evil husband? Or will each of them become an INNOCENT BYSTANDER?

Excerpt

A vacant-looking man with prominent yellow teeth walked into her field of vision, striding beyond the blinding sun and dragged her roughly from the horse. She had expected to be searched and had ruthlessly bound her body with bandages to try to flatten and conceal her breasts, but the man merely patted down her sides before turning his attentions to her jacket. He pulled out the pistol which had been loosely placed in her pocket and slapped his way down her legs. She was instantly glad she had foregone the Derringer she usually wore at her ankle. A concealed weapon was too risky.

“He’s clean.”

“Well, boy. It seems like you’re gonna get your wish, but if you’ve been messin’ with us and you ain’t Quinn’s kin, you’re gonna regret it. He don’t like to be messed with.”

Abigail felt her arms grabbed as she was roughly turned around and her carefully dirtied hands were bound behind her back, the rope biting deeply into her skin as it was pulled tight. They must have seen her wince as it provoked a chorus of laughter which rang in her ears.

“Looks like this life’s a bit too rough for you, sonny.”

 A thick, smelly bag was thrust over her head, obliterating the world, before she was lifted back onto her little colt and she felt herself led off to face the rest of the gang.

Book 3 in the series. Pick up the first two books as well.

The Innocents - mybook.to/TheInnocents

Innocent as Sin - mybook.to/InnocentasSin

Innocent Bystander - mybook.to/Innocentbystander

Meet C.A. Asbrey

Chris Asbrey has lived and worked all over the world in the Police Service, Civil Service, and private industry, working for the safety and security of the public. A life-changing injury meant a change of course into contract law and consumer protection for a department attached to the Home Office.

In that role, she produced magazine and newspaper articles based on consumer law and wrote guides for the Consumer Direct Website. She was Media Trained, by The Rank Organization, and acted as a consultant to the BBC's One Show and Watchdog. She has also been interviewed on BBC radio answering questions on consumer law to the public.

She lives with her husband and two daft cats in Northamptonshire, England - for now. She’s moving to York.

Blog - C.A Asbrey - all things obscure and strange in the Victorian period  http://caasbrey.com/

The Innocents Mystery Series Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/937572179738970/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mysteryscrivener/

Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/author/caasbrey

 Twitter - https://twitter.com/CAASBREY

Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17899618.C_A_Asbrey

Q&A

How did you come up with the idea for your book?

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, and in a land far, far away, I joined the police. Our training sergeant was an engaging lady of great experience, full of tales, anecdotes, and quite an expert on the earliest women in our force. I loved her, and was quickly fascinated by all her funny tales and anecdotes. It got me wondering about the earliest women in law enforcement. I soon found myself reading more and more about these unsung pioneers. The USA and the UK both employed police women since the early twentieth century, but I wanted to go as far back as I could. I eventually found out that the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the USA was the first to employ women as fully-fledged professionals from 1856. The French did employ women in the Sûreté earlier than this, but they were mostly prostitutes used as honey traps, so I discounted those as professional detectives.

I was slightly shocked that I had never heard of these women, or the work they did, so I read everything I could about them. The first was Kate Warne, rumored to be a former actress and a widow. Like the rest of the women in her department she was an expert at assuming roles and working undercover. The women were held in the highest esteem by Alan Pinkerton due to their excellent results. They were very successful, and even acted as an armed guard for Abraham Lincoln. I’m Scottish. Alan Pinkerton was a Scottish immigrant, so I couldn’t see any reason why a female immigrant couldn’t work for him. They say you should write what you know, and I do know about being a Scot in a foreign country. The seeds for my heroine, Abigail MacKay, were sown. I also think it gave the mysteries a different backdrop, as they give a view of nineteenth century USA through the eyes of a female outsider. They start in the West, but actually go all over the USA, Canada, and even to Scotland, as the series progresses. As a Scot, I give my heroine genuine Scottish speech patterns, which means she’ll often use more passive tenses, verb nouns and, a syntax which leaks over from her Gaelic.

What could we find in your heroine's purse?

If she carries one it’d be anything to compliment whatever disguise she is in at the time. She wears a Derringer at her ankle and a tiny magnifying glass on a chain around her neck. When she travels she has an enormous trunk which not only contains her clothes, but a full kit of disguises, wigs, make up, a magnifying glass and chemicals she needs to process clues. She uses things like hydrogen peroxide and guaiac resin to detect blood stains, and uses early chemistry to process things. In the nineteenth century there was no sending stuff off to the lab. They had to either do it themselves, or find a friendly doctor or pharmacist to process it for them.

I did loads of research into the make up to get I right. In the only known picture of Kate Warne she’s dressed as a man. It made me wonder if all that long Victorian hair could go under a wing. Cosplay and LARP gave me real-life examples of women with hair down to their bottoms who managed to get it under a short wig. One woman even explains on YouTube how to pleat her long, thick hair and coil it flat under the cap before putting the short wig on. It absolutely IS possible.

The theatrical make up, used as disguises in the book, began to flourish right around the period the books are set in. Lighting had improved and people could see the flaws in the rudimentary makeup used previously on stages lit by candles.

Greasepaint was invented in the 1860s by Ludwig Leichner, building on the work of Karl Freidrich Baudius (1796–1860) in the 1850s. Lighting also improved costumes and acting techniques. It drove a desire for more natural representations in every area, simply because people could see the stage more clearly. Crepe hair went out and quality wigs came in. Colors were mixed to mimic skin tones and classes in their application were popular in the acting profession. Latex wasn’t invented until 1920, but prior to that rubber was molded applied to a light fabric backing for theatrical use, or on metal for medical prosthetics. When it was the right shape it was expertly painted to look exactly like a nose, dewlap, bald cap, or any other body part. This work influenced the work on prosthetics for the disfigured and disabled, and became more mainstream after the First World War. Before then it was only available to the very rich.

Which already filmed movie represents your writing style?

It’s been compared to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets Outlander in reviews. Also to The Murdoch Mysteries meets Doctor Quinn. The books are murder mysteries which have a tinge of humor, as well as romance, and look at the proper investigative protocols which were in their infancy in the 1860s. Each book can be read as a standalone murder mystery, but they are connected by the will-they-won’t-they romance between the two main protagonists, and the murderous vendetta of the hero’s arch-enemy. As far as I know I’m the first person to write a historical female detective who has actually worked in law enforcement.

What drew you to write in the genre(s) you do?   

I’ve long loved historical romances, but my favorite ones are those where true love definitely does not run smoothly.  Books like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, or anything by Georgette Heyer were always on my reading list. Stories which gave the heroine a touch of adventure also did it for me, so classics like Jamaica Inn, Out of Africa, and even Miss Marple were always on my to-read list.  It struck me that by placing my protagonists on different sides of the law gave them huge hurdles to overcome. It gave them even more if she was the one sent to bring him in. I tried to make them fascinated by one another’s minds as well as their bodies. They both love all the new sciences, but she uses them to solve crimes, where he uses them to commit them. As two sides of the same coin they are drawn to one another, but the attraction is very dangerous for both of them. The characters’ backstories drip out over the series, allowing the reader to find out how the characters ended up on different sides of the law, and what drives them. All the history is the book is minutely researched, and everything either happened, or is historically possible.        

I’ve always loved a good murder mystery too. I started reading Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers when I was about nine and consumed them voraciously. There is a structure to murder mysteries which almost makes them like a game the writer plays with the reader. You have to play by the rules and not have the detective stumble into clues they don’t share. The reader really has to be able to solve the murder too, but not too easily. One of the reasons I love them in books is that when dramatized, it’s too easy to spot the killer. It’s usually the well-known actor playing a relatively small part in the first half of the drama. I totally ruined whodunits on TV for my neighbor by sharing that formula with her. That never happens in a book.

Who’s your favorite villain?

I love a good baddie, and think that they should be as three dimensional as any hero. Their motivations, weaknesses, strengths, and humanity should be apparent. The best baddies aren’t obvious. They look just like anyone else, which is why they are so hard to find. Of course there are the obvious violent thugs, but they don’t make for wonderful villains. The best walk among us unnoticed and treat people like prey.

I think my favorite baddie of all time has to be Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. She’s a glorious mix of love and hate, loyalty and revenge, jealousy and pride. She really is quite delicious. Hannibal Lecter, from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon has to be up there too. He’s highly intelligent and a typical psychopath, and really keeps us on edge. Annie Wilkes in Misery is an archetypical fanatic with an empty heart and an empty life. She is cunning brutal and devious, but manages to hide her true self just enough to entrap her victims. All the best villains manage to fool the unwary. 

I love a clever antihero. The make for a good mystery as they keep the detective on their toes, and make it hard to keep up with them. Book three of my series, Innocent Bystander, has exactly such a villain. That book is a howdunit, in which the killer is identified early on, but you don’t know how he does it. His wives have just been found dead in their beds with no trace of injury or poison.  He’s a scientist and keeps Nat and Abi on their toes as they scramble to keep up with his expertise.       

Can you tell us about a real-life hero you’ve met?

I’ve met quite a few in my career. There have been accidental heroes, those who happen on an incident and act immediately. I think my favorite of those has to be a handbag-wielding granny who saw off a gang of robbers all on her own. It never crossed her mind to do anything other than fight back. There were men at that incident who hid, but not her. The truth is that people never know who they really are, or how they will react until they are in the midst of things.

I’ve also met counter intelligence operatives and trained with the SAS on counter terrorist and anti-hijack operations. The main thing which strikes me about the men, and women, who work in these fields, is their sense of humor. Far too often heroes are written as deadpan and laconic. While they can be, they will still be very funny people too. I try to capture that humor in my heroes. Speaking purely for myself, the ability to make me laugh is a huge turn-on.     

What’s your favorite kind of story to get lost in?

One that ticks lots of boxes at the same time. In my life, romance happened when I was busy doing other things, so that’s how I write it.  If it’s historical it has to be accurate, as anachronisms jolt me out of a story. I love wonderful mixture of adventure, history, storytelling, and romance.  I love stories with strong women in them, as those are the women I know, worked with, and who brought me up. I want a hero who is humane, funny and brave. I don’t want people to just jump into bed together. I hope the romance to build up in a complex web of wants and desires, but to give them obstacles and barriers which seem insurmountable, but which work out through their sheer determination to be together. Finally, I crave stories which take me somewhere different, and which give me a fresh perspective on things I thought I already knew.   

Goody alert! We'll have a drawing for two books, the first in the series, The Innocents, and the third book, Innocent Bystander. To enter the drawing leave a comment along with your email address.

What is your favorite era for mysteries, and why?

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