VIVIAN CONROY
discovered Agatha Christie at thirteen and quickly devoured all the Poirot and Miss Marple stories. Over time Lord Peter Wimsey and Brother Cadfael joined her favourite sleuths. Even more fun than reading was thinking up her own missing heirs and priceless artefacts. Discover the glamour and secrets of the roaring Twenties in Vivian’s Lady Alkmene Callender Mysteries and open up shop, with murder in the mix, in the contemporary Country Gift Shop Mysteries. Also contemporary, but set at a location full of history and folklore, are the Cornish Castle Mysteries, in which a London costume designer and her perky dachshund take a summer job at a castle on a tidal island off the coast of Cornwall. For news on the latest releases, with a dash of dogs and chocolate, follow Vivian on Twitter via @VivWrites
Thanks to all editors, agents, and authors who share insights into the writing and publishing process.
Thanks to my wonderful editor Hannah Smith and the entire HQ team, especially cover design for giving Dolly a starring role in the gorgeous cover.
A special thanks to all my readers who’ve expressed their love of this new series:
May you enjoy your return to Cornisea Island and all its quirky human and canine inhabitants!
Although inspired by real-life tidal islands like St Michael’s Mount and its French counterpart, and by many fascinating sources of Cornish history, archaeology, folklore, flora and fauna, cuisine etc., Cornisea Island and its castle with ruling family is a fictional world. Its layout, businesses and societies, special constable and deadly legends of patron saints and precious artefacts are all the fruits of my imagination.
‘Did we already catalogue this stack or didn’t we?’ Guinevere Evans scrunched up her face, studying the faded titles on the leather bands. The pile of books was on the floor, leaning against the leg of an old oak table. She sat beside it on her haunches, trying to remember whether she had held these books in her hands before the weekend.
Her perky dachshund Dolly came to stand by her side and touched the books one by one with her long nose as if to help her decide.
Somewhere over their heads a baritone voice said, ‘We can always do them again. New week, new try.’
Guinevere shook her head to herself. She liked order and consistency; but her employer – Lord Bolingbrooke, master of Cornisea Castle and owner of far too many books that needed cataloguing – liked to tackle the task in his very own way. He took a book down from a shelf, started to leaf through it, found some interesting passage, sank in a chair reading, or unearthed a scruffy notebook and took notes in his illegible spidery handwriting.
What the notes were for Guinevere didn’t know, except that Bolingbrooke planned to write a magnum opus about the castle’s history and he was collecting titbits to work into it.
Had been for many years.
‘Why don’t you put all of those books on the table here and we’ll have a look at them?’ Bolingbrooke suggested cheerfully. His unruly grey hair stood up from raking his fingers through it, and he had rolled up the sleeves of his crumpled blue shirt. He rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t wait to dig in.
Guinevere shook her head. ‘We’ve already catalogued all the books on the table and I don’t want them to get confused with books that haven’t been done yet.’
Bolingbrooke cleared his throat.
Guinevere rose to her feet. She eyed the elderly gentleman with a suspicious look. He tried to avoid her gaze.
Dolly squeaked as if she wanted to say ‘oh, no!’
Guinevere looked at the table. Were there actually other books there that she didn’t remember? With a frown she picked up a volume with a bright blue cloth cover. ‘Sea monsters off the Cornish coast,’ she read aloud. ‘I haven’t seen this before the weekend.’
‘That might be because I took down some new books this morning.’ Bolingbrooke’s voice was soft as always when he was making an unwelcome statement. He took his time removing an imaginary speck of dust off his light grey trousers. ‘I was up early and saw some very interesting volumes on the top shelf. I put them over there.’ Bolingbrooke broadly indicated half the table’s length.
Guinevere exhaled slowly. ‘So we can start over?’
‘Well, I don’t want to say “start over”. That would be so negative. We did do a lot already.’
Guinevere shook her head while her eyes travelled across all the books. This way they’d be working until Christmas and still wouldn’t have covered even a fraction of what Bolingbrooke owned. Not just here in his library but also in other rooms of the castle where books sat on shelves, in trunks, or on the floor.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ Guinevere reached for a small volume with faded lettering on the leather binding. ‘A Cornish Treasure Island?’
Dolly yapped excitedly as she stood on her hind legs with her front legs against a chair to see better.
Guinevere opened the book and studied the map in the front, which depicted Cornisea marked up with various signs. Off the shore there was supposed to be a sunken pirate ship. On the island itself there was a note marking the whereabouts of a crown worn by one of the unhappy wives of Henry VIII and another note indicating the location of a chest full of gold coins taken from a rich merchant in a highway attack. She whistled. ‘If this is correct, it would be worthwhile to go around with a metal detector.’
‘Lots before you tried.’ Bolingbrooke shrugged. ‘Cornisea’s colourful history has always inspired people to make it the site of some adventure tale or rare object. If you study that book better, you’d learn that the sources for those markings are obscure historians or alleged world travellers like Marco Polo. Whether they ever really set foot here, or wrote up their tales from their comfortable beds at home, is completely unclear. But as long as it involves treasure, people believe it. I thought that if Oliver and you are serious about promoting the castle, you should have a look at it. Even if the actual objects aren’t here, the connections with Henry VIII or other royals might prove to be an attraction.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Guinevere kept her eyes on the volume in her hands, not quite sure what to think of Bolingbrooke’s sudden proposition. Was he being ironic, because he didn’t really believe in the castle’s potential as a tourist attraction?
Or was he rather afraid that their scheme would prove to be so successful that his peace and quiet would be gone for ever?
A bell resounded from downstairs.
Bolingbrooke’s dogs Rufus and Nero sat up in front of the fireplace where they had been snoozing and started to bark. Their deep voices formed a threatening welcoming chorus for the unexpected visitor. People were usually a little taken aback when they realized a mastiff and a Great Dane guarded this ancient keep.