Crow Court is not a conventional crime novel; indeed, it breaks almost all the rules of the genre. Genre crime novels require strong, bold ‘detectives’ who are brilliant if flawed and are pitched against equally brilliant villains. These heroic detectives get put through the wringer by their villains and also by their own superiors; they always prevail, but at a significant cost to their souls, making the prospect of facing another case even more daunting.
To write genre fiction (any genre, but particularly crime)—to bring something fresh to a formula that is almost as old as the police force itself—requires great imagination and skill, and in turning away from the conventions of the genre to write Crow Court I knew I was taking a risk. But Crow Court was set in Wimborne Minster in 1840 and although it carried a story that spanned several decades, there was no police force at the start, so to impose a detective-style character would have taken the story further into the realm of fiction than I wanted to go. In reading about criminal cases from the time, I also found they were more haphazard and messy than a single narrative would make them appear. Justice in those days was in the hands of local magistrates and it was far from certain and definitely not a matter of procedure.
To serve this historical context, therefore, I felt I had to break free from convention. Crow Court is told through fourteen separate and distinct episodes, each of them from a different perspective and in a distinct style. With this structure, the reader is afforded far fewer clues about how things will work out. Indeed, this format asks much more of the reader—the plot is not spoon-fed, no character ever summarises where matters stand; the reader has to make the connections and understand when and how events are relevant (and some episodes are very tangential).
As Crow Court opens, the death of a choir-boy leads to discoveries about the choirmaster who is subsequently discovered with a knife in his ribs. Fearing they’ll be blamed for his death, four young men take fright and the remaining episodes cover their further adventures. One disappears off to India with his lover, another becomes a sailor, a third seeks his fortune in smuggling. Their stories involve a music composer, a farmhand, a priest, a whole troupe of actors down from London, boot-makers, lawyers and others.
In fitting all these pieces together, it was important to sculpt the characters’ psychology and motivations accurately. Motives are carved from beliefs, and associations around identity can make many ideas seem threatening. With this in mind, Crow Court digs deep into the mindset of nineteenth century Dorset characters, and examines all the threats to their existence—the rise of the railways, urbanisation, removal of land rights and even the emergence of Darwinian theories about evolution. They all play a part.
Crow Court is published by Unbound
