Today my guest is Lesley Lodge, prize-winning short story writer and author of Lights, Camera, Gallop which combines her love of film and horses. Her first crime book, Wayland’s Revenge, is a historical novel set during the Siege of Colchester.
Lesley, welcome to my virtual cocktail lounge. What can I get you at the bar?
L: Let me think… I’ll have a Dark and Stormy please. Cheers!
So where did we first meet in real life?
L: In real life we met in the 1990s in East Dulwich, South London – so in both the time and the place of your Hannah Weybridge novels. I hope I haven’t inspired you in any criminal way…
That would be telling. What were your first impressions?
L: I thought what a welcoming person! I watched you take command of a meeting and realised you were someone who could judge characters well. I was soon to catch on to your creative side too.
We’ve known each other a long time so we must have quite a lot in common?
L: We had kids of the same age and journalism. I’d been a journalist for a Middle Eastern business magazine and at that time was cracking out articles on, well, housing regeneration. Actually, there is a very real connection between poor housing, Peckham and gangs. You were freelancing for all kinds of magazines and publications. We both had ambitions to write THE great novel, if only the kids would settle quietly…
What are you most looking forward to when lockdown is finally lifted?
L: Well what I’ve missed most so far, in the writing world, is the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. Hopefully it will be revived in 2021.
I think you’ve been to Harrogate every year. I’ve never got there but we did both make it to CrimesFest which was fun. What would be your dream panel (at any event) – subject, fellow panelists or a Q&A with someone you have met or would love to meet?
L: I’d love to get Don Winslow, Stephen King and Val McDermid together on a panel. They’re all fabulously enthralling writers – and they’ve all been clear [if I may be just a tiny bit political here] about the leaders who’ve not led us well on Coronavirus on either side of the Atlantic.
Oh be as political as you like and have another drink as you tell us about your latest book.
L: So Wayland’s Revenge is set in 1648, a time of bitter civil wars in England. Wayland, the village blacksmith, returns from army service to find his wife, Rebecca, murdered and his son traumatised. Wayland’s overpowering desire for revenge is thwarted by the collapse of laws and a dearth of clues to her sadistic killer. Wayland sets out on a perilous journey to find the killer, taking with him his son Jonathan and Alun, a canny Welsh baker. But just as they find their first suspect, they are trapped in the brutal Siege of Colchester, facing ever more dangerous challenges. Wayland, Alun and Jonathan must draw on all their strengths, devise new strategies and make agonising decisions, if they are to stay alive and find the real killer before he strikes again. It’s out in paperback, kindle and audiobook.
I don’t read many historicals but I must say I was totally gripped by Wayland’s Revenge. What are you working on now?
L: My longer-term project is to write a sequel for Wayland’s Revenge. I think this one will be set in the dark, dank Fens in the seventeenth century. Wayland might just get caught up as slave labour for Cromwell’s project to drain the fen. But in the meantime, I’m working on a memoir about my misadventures in the 1970s. I have a 320 page first draft of that so far.
Well editing that will keep you busy during lockdown! Is there anything this time of pandemic has made you think about or want to do?
L: Run outside waving my arms manically… And head for a train to London.
And I’ll be there to meet you for a real drink. Lesley, thank you for joining me today and please get on with the sequel to Wayland’s Revenge.
You can find out more about Lesley Lodge and her work hereand follow her on Twitter @LesleyLodge