Written by MJ Porter
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The blurb:
The Secret SauceBirmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
Q1. What inspired you to write the Erdington Mysteries series?
The first book in the series (The Custard Corpses) began as a Lockdown Project, inspired by some period-specific advertising I found in the Picture Post magazine for Bird’s Custard Powder. This resolved itself into a mystery (I do love historical mysteries) and I’ve then gone on to write three more as well. The setting was determined by where my lovely great granny lived as I was able to make use of my childhood memories and those of my father’s to recreate the setting. It is quite an odd reason to have decided to write a book!
Q2. Who is your favourite character in The Secret Sauce and why?
I love both of my police characters, Chief Inspector Mason, who tells the story, and Sergeant O’Rourke, his perky subordinate. They both bring something different to the story and I enjoy watching them interact.
Q3. What was the first story you had published?
My first indie pubbed story was a work of historical fantasy. My first traditionally published story was the first book in the Eagle of Mercia Chronicles, Son of Mercia, set in the 820s in Saxon England.
Q4. Who is your favourite author?
I have a few – Anne McAffrey’s PERN novels and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series are the ones I’ve read/listened to on multiple occasions.
Q5. Which writers have influenced you?
I think I blame Katharine Kerr and her Deverry series for making me want to write fantasy. For mysteries, I suppose it has to be Agatha Christie’s Poirot TV Series. I adored the David Suchet series.
Q6. Are you a member of a creative writing group and does working with other writers give you inspiration?
I’m not an official member of a creative writing group, but I have two groups of author friends, and we chat via Zoom once a month, and they are very supportive.
Q7. What do you like to do when you're not planning or writing your next novel?
Read☺ And visit historical places, usually so I can write about them.
Q8. What do you like most about being an author?
I get to spend all of my time with ‘people/characters’ I quite like, and if they do annoy me, then in one of my mysteries, or one of my Saxon-era historical fiction stories, I can ensure they suffer a sticky ending.
Q9. Do you have a specific routine for writing? Is there a special place or particular tool you use?
I’ve had a number of routines throughout the years. My current one is to write at least 2000 a words every day after I’ve woken up and done some exercise. I work from home and have my work station set up the way I like it. I also often write with music in the background – it never fits the stories I’m writing – Spotify tells me it’s mostly ‘ambient’ and ‘chill’ which makes me think of a refrigerated lorry transport. I dedicate the afternoons to editing a different novel, or to researching for a new one.
Q10. What advice would you give other independently published authors?
To any writer, I would advise them to always be writing something. Don’t get hung up on one project. That way lies madness. For the indie authors out there, I’d tell them to write what makes them happy as opposed to trying to follow the market.
Q11. Do you have other novels planned or in progress?
Yes. I’m currently finishing the fourth novel in The Erdington Mysteries, and I’m also working on a new Saxon-era historical fiction series. I tend to be working/researching a number of novels at the same time.
Q12. Do you write novels in other genres?
I also write Saxon-era historical fiction stories – the joy of writing 1940s mysteries is that I don’t have to include a horse (unless I want to) and of course, telephones had been invented by then. Under a pen name, I also write fantasy novels.
Q13. When did you know you wanted to write historical novels?
It was never my plan to write historical novels. I wanted to write fantasy. However, I discovered a historical individual while working on my MA and decided his story needed telling, and so I started writing it.
Q14. What advice do you have for other historical novelists?
As enthralling as you might find the research for a novel, remember there has to be a story there as well. It’s important to ensure a novel has a story arc, even when following a character’s life. Sometimes, you do have to make some changes to ensure the reader gets what they’re expecting from a novel.
Q15. What is the best advice you can give to any aspiring novelist?
Always be writing something. To become a writer, you first must write.
Q16. Do your books always go the way you plan them?
No. My current mystery project is proving very difficult for me to solve!
Q17. Five things the readers don’t know about you …
- I once had thirty-seven rabbits and forty-three gerbils. (I now have no pets at all. Not even a fish). My daughters do have five dogs between the two of them, however.
- I dislike my middle name, even though two of my friends use it as their first name. I was given it in case I didn’t like my first name, but I do. Also, my Mum got in a lot of trouble for not naming me after members of the family.
- When I was a teenager, I worked in a local music shop, and as a result, I have a unique and detailed knowledge of the music scene during the early 1990s, as revealed to me when I recently watched an episode of Top of the Pops 2 for 1990. I knew the words to almost every song. (The music shop was called Tudor Tunes. Even when I was a teenager, I couldn’t get away from history.) I’ve just googled the shop, and discovered it shut a long time ago. Ah, I’m traumatised.
- When I was much younger, I had my picture taken for the local paper wearing a NASA astronaut’s helmet. They had to put a bit of paper in the catch so it didn’t seal me in.
- I almost didn’t study history at GCSE, A Level or as a degree. I changed my mind every time, causing many people a lot of problems. I’m not sure I’d get away with it any more. I decided to study history at GCSE rather than Drama after visiting my great-grandfather’s grave, who fought in the First World War. While one of the lucky ones who came home to his family, he died in 1924 from injuries sustained during the war. It made me really angry to think my lovely Grandad grew up without his Dad (he would have been 4 when his Dad died) because of the war, and I wanted to find out why! Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of 20th-century history, because it’s so complicated. There are too many names to keep track of.
| Author Bio – MJ Porter |
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 I’m an author of historical fiction and non-fiction (Early English (Saxon), Vikings and the British Isles as a whole before the Norman Conquest, as well as five twentieth-century mysteries), born in the old Mercian kingdom at some point since the end of 1066. Historical mysteries allow me to use such modern inventions as the telephone and the car, which is very exciting when I spend so much of my time worrying about feeding the horses my warriors usually ride. I was raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a very young age it housed the bones of long-dead kings of Mercia, it’s little wonder my curiosity in the early English ran riot. I can only blame my parents! I like to write. You’ve been warned! |
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