Murder Mystery…
While author Nigel Hanson describes the style of his first novel as ‘cosy crime’, it has all the elements of a classic murder mystery
With a diverse career background, Nigel Hanson has worked as a civil engineer in the UK, as a project manager for British Leyland, he has also worked for BAe in Saudi Arabia and as a general manager of a desalination plant company, and finally, as Blackpool’s first town centre manager.
Educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Blackburn, he recalls: “While I was quite creative at school and always loved writing from an early age, I went down the science route for my career.”
After retiring 13 years ago, he decided it was time to indulge his love of writing and developed a totally new career, that of novelist, and he has recently had his first book published, Murder Mapped Out, the first in a series of novels called The Wisstingham Mysteries.
“When I was working, I never had the time to write so on retirement, I embarked on a Writers Bureau course in creative writing and that got me started. I wrote numerous short stories and then started to develop an idea for a book,” explains Nigel, who now lives in Lytham.
“To be honest it started out as a totally different story to what it is now. As I developed it, the storyline and characters turned more serious and it became a murder mystery based on the fictional village of Wisstingham with its hall and estate.”
Over a decade, Nigel built up a cast of interesting characters, making copious notes to make the cast and plot consistent: “I just picked out of life people with particular character traits so as a writer I could really get myself into what they would do in a situation and how they would react,” adds Nigel, who says his novel best fits the description of ‘cosy crime’.
Some of the main characters include Sebastian Monahgan, village librarian Amanda Shepherd, the ‘love interest’ in the plot, and Commander Selwyn Fitzgerald, the owner of the estate.
But all is not quite as it seems – Selwyn’s hopes that he will finally discover his family’s long-lost treasure are plunged into disarray with the discovery of an old map and deed. Little does he realise that this find will expose him and others to villainy, betrayal and murder.
“There are certainly villains in the piece,” says Nigel. “There are sinister characters, murders and illegal happenings – and the ending is such that things hang in the balance, leading on to the second book!”
Nigel, who has just returned from the Languedoc region of France, where he and his wife have a small town house set within the historic, cobbled streets, has based the second novel partly in France.
“It takes some of the cast and the reader to France,” explains Nigel, who admits to having thoroughly enjoyed penning the novels.
“It’s been a big challenge, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and have really endeavoured to make the plot as watertight as possible so readers hopefully can’t pick holes in it.
“It’s been very therapeutic as I can be thinking about the plot and characters while doing other things. Once it was written, the big difficulty was editing it. I must have read it at least 10 times before and during the professional edit.”
Once he and his editor were happy with the script they found a publisher and the book was launched: “My family, especially my wife Pat, has been very supportive, and those that have read Murder Mapped Out have said they really enjoyed it.
“It’s a total departure from what I’d been doing but it’s been great fun and I’ve now completed the first draft of the second novel which is due out in 2021.
“My book writing journey has been an incredible experience, instructive, at times frustrating and yet so very enjoyable!”
