Elly Griffiths at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, and her new thriller set in West Sussex

31st October 2018

We recently had the real pleasure of seeing Elly Griffiths at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, October 2018. Her first point in her talk was to explain that her real name – which almost sounds like a pen name – is Domenica de Rosa, and under that name she writes literary and romance fiction set in Italy (well, you would do with a wonderful name like that!). Had she been born male, her name would have been Cesare!

Her editor aided her in finding her new name, based on her grandmother’s name of Ellen Griffiths…. Elly, felt her editor, was “tidier”. It is also beneficial to have a surname starting with either F, G or H because display on bookshops shelves tends to have authors, whose surname begins with those letters in a central position at eye level (it could of course be rather spurious but it seems to be true!).

Of course we had to ask her about setting and she is very clear that a sense of place starts her off and in fact is the most important element to her. She just loves the settings described in the books written by Ann Cleeves, particularly those set in Shetland.  Her first Ruth Galloway novel  The Crossing Places found inspiration during a family holiday on the Norfolk Broads. And in fact her latest Dr Ruth Galloway – The Dark Angel – finds her in Lazio (the good doctor needed a holiday, says Elly, although there is quite an earthquake to contend with!).

She is very clear that people often take crime novels, set in the places to which they are travelling, and that literary wanderlust is quite a phenomenon nowadays.

She tries to write 10,000 words per day (and as she is publishing 2 books per year she has to have a workable routine!). A typical crime novel requires around 90,000 words and she does like to get stuck into NaNoWriMo which is a website that encourages writers to produce a novel – or perhaps 50,000 words – in a month (you can follow the progress of many writers with #NaNoWriMo on Twitter).

Her advice to aspiring writers is…  just start… In the wise words of Picasso “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working”.

BOOK REVIEW:

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths, crime mystery set in West Sussex.

This is the first novel I have read by Elly Griffiths (this is remiss and I will address that as soon as possible!). She is a prolific and very popular writer and is to date best known for her Dr Ruth Galloway mysteries and the Stephens and Mephisto novels. The author herself describes this stand-alone novel as modern Gothic.

Talgarth High is partly housed in the building that once belonged to author R M Holland. There is a lot of mystery both in his book, The Stranger, an anthology of ghost stories, and also in his life as a whole. A woman is known to have fallen down the stairs, and she will occasionally appear to people when there are untoward happenings. The links between his storyline and events in the present cannot be overlooked and soon his original text is being studied with great diligence.

It’s October half term at the school. Halloween is approaching and one of the team in the English department is found dead. Murdered. Gratuitously stabbed, with potential stigmata on her hands. Ella Elphick was a much loved member of the team. There is a note by her body with a quote from The Tempest, …Hell is empty....(which continues with … and all the devils are here….). So, the murderer is certainly au fait with english literature! (The author explained that she has always loved the work of Wilkie Collins and the message at the heart of The Woman in White’s Greetings from a sincere admirer… certainly inspired the storyline!)

Claire, one of her closest friends and likewise a teacher in the English department, keeps a diary and as she looks back to refresh her memory of certain events, she discovers a note at the bottom of one entry: Hallo Claire, you don’t know me…  which leaves a frisson for her to digest. The mystery of this killing seems inextricably linked with her diary entries and when another murder occurs, the police  team headed by DS Harbinder Kaur has to ramp up its investigations as it seems the English Department at the school is being targeted.

Harbinder talks to camera, as it were, to the reader, as does Georgie, Claire’s daughter. The thought processes of both belie the outer personas presented to those around. Harbinder in particular is a sassy character, perhaps just a little stereotyped.

As the autumn winds and colours prevail, the spooky backdrop increases. Talk of the ghost of a white-clad female ghost and an English teacher who considers herself to be a white witch all add to the atmospheric aura. Rustling in the bushes,  flickering lights in the disused and derelict factory behind Claire’s house cause alarm to Claire and Georgie living so close by. What is real, what is imagined?

The author is wonderful at sharing her knowledge of writers and texts in her writing, making it feel like an erudite approach to crime writing. It starts so well and is indeed gripping. Very readable. Recommended.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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