Victoria Dowd tells us how her new crime mystery, Death in the Aviary, was inspired by the Golden Age of Detective fiction.
Charlotte Blood is the lead character in Death in the Aviary, the first book in my new series, The Blood Chronicles. When we first meet her in 1929, she is a backroom gossip columnist writing under the pseudonym Nosferatu. However, she has ambitions of being taken more seriously. An unsolved murder in a country house offers her a chance. The heir to a great family has been shot and killed a year ago in a ‘locked lift mystery.’ Nine members of the family and staff were in a large, Victorian lift when the power failed. The lift stopped. The lights went out and in the darkness there was a single gunshot. When the power was restored they saw Charles Ravenswick was dead. He’d been shot and the gun was on the floor. There is seemingly no way of discovering who the killer is. Only one thing is certain, whoever it is they are still living in that house.
I have always been passionate about the Golden Age of Detective fiction, or GAD as it has become known, and for this book I drew on all those tropes of the genre. It wasn’t just the glorious country houses, steam trains and isolated islands that originally appealed to me. The fiendish plots fascinated me from the moment I started to read books such as And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. I love the concept of a closed circle of suspects and the intensity that brings to a story. I wanted to really focus the lens on each character individually and see how that claustrophobia of being constantly under the microscope affects their actions.
I also read a lot of John Dickson Carr novels and I was really inspired by them to write something where the murder occurs in a very confined space. I love the challenge of presenting a crime that seems impossible to either commit or to solve. The ancient vast lift seemed like the perfect place, not just because of the small environment but also the fear that would inspire. I wanted the reader to imagine how it would feel to be trapped in this cage-like structure, in the pitch black with a murderer and their victim.
The lift also very neatly dovetailed into the fact that the Ravenswicks keep ravens in a large aviary which mirrors the lift itself. All those present on the night of the murder are trapped there at the house by virtue of remaining suspects. All carry the equal burden of suspicion. They have all in some way had their wings clipped.
The Golden Era
I was also inspired to write something that was not only influenced by classic murder mysteries but was set in that golden era. My intention was not merely to evoke a bygone age, but to make it live again. How would it feel to walk a day in the shoes of one of the heroines of the genre?
I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie and in particular her female characters such as Bundle Brent and Frankie Derwent. (Bundle features in The Secret of Chimneys, 1925 and The Seven Dials Mystery, 1929. Frankie in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? 1934) They are both fun, resourceful and sparky women. But whilst being highly intelligent, neither of them really have jobs. They go to house parties, meet men and inevitably get married. That was the expectation. But I wanted to write a character who challenged that idea and to look at the frustrations and barriers she would have faced.
Charlotte Blood
Charlotte is a woman of contradictions, with a life that pulls her in many different directions. I began by giving her some of the outlines expected of this kind of character. She was born into relative privilege. She was not fortunate enough to have a university education like her brothers, instead spending her time at tea dances and parties. But then I started to fill in the vague shape of the frivolous flapper girl with a lot more and look at the world she really inhabits.
Journalism affords her the opportunity for some sleuthing. But it is not the only way in which Charlotte challenges the norm. Like many young women at the time, she is also a widow. There is not just the immediate effect of the grief at losing her husband, but there are the practical implications of being widowed. The obvious answer to her predicament is one that Charlotte’s own family insist upon – that she remarry. But she’s intent on preserving her independence. She knows remarriage would lead to a life where her freedoms would be curtailed, including her ambitions as a journalist. Her refusal to abide by their wishes leads to another lifeline of financial assistance disappearing. I’d given her not just the ambition but the need to be successful at this job.
With Charlotte Blood, I was very much inspired by the women of the Golden Age of Detection, their plucky, sharp wit. It was my intention to look at why they had to rely upon these attributes. When we meet Harriet Vane in Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (1930) she is charged with murder and, however clever she is, she must rely upon a man to help her. Without Lord Peter she stands no chance. I’m exploring the idea of what would happen if her Lord was no longer by her side. What if she had to rely upon herself? How far could she get in those days? I’m excited to see those possibilities and challenges unfold with my new heroine. This is the first of the Blood Chronicles that will chart Charlotte’s triumphs and her failures as she faces the very real trials of a woman in the early twentieth century with all the ambitions of a modern mind.
(c) Victoria Dowd
About Death in the Aviary:
A ‘locked lift’ mystery for Golden Age crime fans, from award-winning author Victoria Dowd.
New Year’s Eve 1928 – In the grand residence of Ravenswick Abbey, isolated in the wilds of Dartmoor, nine members of the household step into an ornate lift. The power fails. The lift stops. In the darkness, a single shot is fired.
When the light returns, Charles Ravenswick — the heir to the Ravenswick fortune — is dead on the floor. No one could have got in or out. All have motives, and none have alibis.
A year later under the pretence of reporting on the family’s infamous ravens, sparky Charlotte Blood investigates. She finds a house haunted by suspicion and secrets. She must unravel the mystery and with it the terrible truth behind the entire Ravenswick family. Her search will not only lead her down a dangerous path, it will reveal dark secrets that lurk in her own life…
Death in the Aviary, the first of the Blood Chronicles, is out now.
Order your copy of Death in the Aviary online here.
And read more from Victoria Dowd on Writing.ie here.
