Preparing for Newark

At his years Newark Book Festival there are many names there that I’ve already become aware of thanks to my years of reviewing. However, it was nice to see a debut writer alongside somebody whom I value for his dark and insightful plots in the form of Luca Veste. People say that cosy’s are the soft side of crime, but Tom Mead’s debut novel, although it is set in what is considered the period for cosy novels, is anything but cosy.



As a great fan of John Dickson-Carr, just like Tom, when my assistant told me about the locked room principles behind the plot, I had to give this a go over all of the other options. Locked rooms are always intriguing to me, because of my enjoyment in trying to work out the solution before the end of the book. With a limited pool of suspects, how did Hanselm Rees die?



With no obvious access points at first apparent this is the architype locked room mystery. It has lots of elements and several different stories running at once and this was really well done during the relatively short 7 hour period of its length. As Tom reveals the possible solution to this by using the writing of Dickson-Carr and even getting his characters to talk about them during the book, you know how well prepared this debut novel is. I’m really looking forward to hearing the Cosy v Noir debate between two writers and seeing whether they seemingly overlap or differ.












https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Death-and-the-Conjuror-Audiobook/B0BTRDCMZH?ref=a_library_t_c5_libItem_B0BTRDCMZH_0&pf_rd_p=7e7340a8-8768-4798-a0ce-83f879c09110&pf_rd_r=YN4WB2Q25R7X7MM2M17J&pageLoadId=b5gK9D2ZRUWXH0zf&creativeId=14d6a1c2-a3f8-499b-900a-1ae788c317b1