mina scarletti Archives

Sapere Books Sign a New Sherlock Holmes Series by Linda Stratmann

Following the publication of Linda Stratmann’s sensational Mina Scarletti Mysteries – Victorian crime novels with a courageous woman sleuth at the centre – editorial director Amy Durant has signed up her exciting new series, which follows a young Sherlock Holmes. The first instalment will be published next year.

In Linda’s words:

“22 year old Sherlock Holmes, realising that his destiny is to be the world’s first and best consulting detective, has abandoned conventional education and come to London to acquire the very particular and unusual skills and knowledge he needs for his chosen career. This is Holmes before Watson: youthful, fiery, determined, energetic, still learning his craft. This is the legend in the making, the story of how young Holmes became the Holmes we know.

“Sherlock Holmes is the epitome of the great detective, iconic and instantly recognisable. It was a tremendous thrill to be asked to create new adventures and explore those periods of Holmes’s life which Conan Doyle left to the imagination. It is a pleasure to continue working with the wonderfully supportive team at Sapere Books, and to be a part of the Sapere family of authors.”

Click here to order MR SCARLETTI’S GHOST

Click here to find out more about the Mina Scarletti Mysteries

His Father’s Ghost by Linda Stratmann

Linda Stratmann is the author of the MINA SCARLETTI INVESTIGATIONS, a traditional British detective series set in Victorian Brighton.

More than a year ago, I determined to write a book in which Mina Scarletti, disabled by the scoliosis that twists her spine and cramps her lungs, is taken ill and solves a mystery while confined to bed. It is not a new concept. In The Wench is Dead, Inspector Morse solves a Victorian murder while in hospital, and in Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, Inspector Alan Grant, hospitalised with a broken leg, explores the fate of the Princes in the Tower.

But these are historical puzzles, and therefore considered suitable to engage the mind of a bored invalid. In His Father’s Ghost, Mina has additional challenges. She is intrigued by a current conundrum, the disappearance of a local man while out sailing, declared legally dead, but his actual fate unknown. Her doctor, however, has advised her against any activity that might tax her delicate health, and that includes solving mysteries. She has to use all her ingenuity to gather the information she needs. In doing so, she finds that she has uncovered evidence of past crimes and scandals. Her enquiries are a catalyst that set off a train of events that ultimately have dramatic and life-changing consequences for several prominent citizens of Brighton.

One of the themes which I explore in this book is hallucination. Mina, when stricken by a fever, sees and hears things that reveal what is troubling her. The son of the vanished man, disturbed by significant events, has terrifying visions in those dark hours that lie between sleeping and waking.

I really enjoyed my research for this book. I visited the fascinating Police Cells Museum of Brighton, and read about the curious spiritoscope, an apparatus designed to prove that it was spirits and not the medium who cause the movement of the divination table.

It was my real pleasure to include two characters who have appeared in previous books, the flamboyant actor Marcus Merridew, fresh from his acclaimed season as Hamlet, and the creepy young photographer Mr Beckler.

While editing the manuscript, which was completed at the end of 2019, I was struck by how Mina’s plight echoes our current time. She is ill with a lung infection, and effectively on lockdown. But when she scents a puzzle, it gives her strength. She needs not only warmth and air and nourishment, but material to keep her busy mind alive.

Click here to pre-order HIS FATHER’S GHOST

MIDWINTER MYSTERIES: Our Christmas Crime Anthology

This Christmas, we’ve put together an anthology of festive crime fiction that is sure to give you the chills! Here’s a taste of what to expect from MIDWINTER MYSTERIES…

In Graham Brack’s AWAY IN A MANGER, a decidedly non-festive Lieutenant Josef Slonský investigates a string of thefts amid Prague’s bustling Christmas market.

At a Christmas Eve gathering, Charles Dickens weaves a gory, atmospheric ghost story that becomes a little too real in J C Briggs’ FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW.

Keith Moray’s LOST AND FOUND follows the residents of West Uist as they merrily prepare for their New Year’s Eve traditions – until one of them is found dead…

While trying to provide for his family, young Alfie finds himself investigating the disappearance of gold bars from a bullion store – which have vanished along with his beloved dog, Mutsy – in Cora Harrison’s THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.

In Seán Gibbons’ THE STOLEN SANTA SACK, unlucky driver Ben Miller is stuck with a dead Santa Claus and a sackful of cash in the back of his cab…

While hurrying to develop her clients’ portraits in time for Christmas, photographer Julia McAllister is landed with a drunken newlywed and a photograph of a ghost in Marilyn Todd’s WILL POWER.

Gaynor Torrance’s CHRISTMAS SPIRITS follows headstrong Detective Inspector Jemima Huxley as she finds herself caught up in an armed robbery while doing her Christmas shopping.

In David Field’s THE ESSEX NATIVITY, Detective Sergeant Jack Enright discovers a destitute couple expecting their first child in the shelter of a barn.

When one of her clients is stalked by a mysterious figure, Private Investigator Eden Grey attempts to uncover the unwelcome follower in Kim Fleet’s SECRET SANTA.

Major Thankful and Thomazine Russell investigate the theft of a scandalous manuscript written by the king in M J Logue’s STIR UP SUNDAY.

In Linda Stratmann’s THE CHRISTMAS GHOST, wilful sleuth Mina Scarletti attempts to bring peace to a woman haunted by the spirit of her dead son.

Click here to order MIDWINTER MYSTERIES!

The Woman Who Created Mina Scarletti by Linda Stratmann

The heroine of the Mina Scarletti books is not based on a specific individual; however when I created my diminutive protagonist two people were in my thoughts, one of whom I knew personally.

Eva was the aunt of a friend of mine. She had a very severe distortion of the spine, but the thing that I remember most about her was her sweet smile. I never got to know her well and she died when I was a child.

Annie Jane Fanny Maclean was delicate and very small, due to the curvature of her spine and she walked with a limp. In 1879 aged 33, she inherited some family property. She also attracted the attention of Lewis James Paine, a 49 year old insurance salesman in need of money.

Unknown to Miss Maclean, Paine was a married man, although he denied it when challenged by her suspicious family. By July that year they were living together as husband and wife. Annie had been a moderate drinker, but Paine plied her with alcohol, sometimes forcing her to drink it against her will, and as she fell more and more under his control, he withheld food.

In September, in a very weakened state, she was induced to sign a deed making over her property to Paine. In less than a month she was dead.

Paine was tried for the wilful murder of Annie Maclean at the Central Criminal Court in February 1880. The question for the jurors was had Paine deliberately set out to kill, or had he caused death through recklessness and negligence? He was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

Paine made a long statement to the court, claiming innocence, but the judge, who clearly despised him, stated bluntly that he didn’t believe a word of it. He stated that Paine was guilty of manslaughter ‘in about as cruel and barbarous circumstances as I ever remember having heard of. . . . Had you been guilty of murder, you would most unquestionably have been hanged, as you richly deserve to be.’ (Times 25 Feb 1880 page 11) Paine was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He died in 1897.

In commenting on the case, The Times pointed out that the victim’s appearance was not an insignificant fact, and this led me to reflect on the vulnerability of women in the Victorian marriage market, especially those with a disability, who if they had property could be manipulated by cruel and unscrupulous men.

Marriage and motherhood were considered to be the primary and most desirable roles for Victorian women, and Miss Maclean must have seen Paine, perhaps her only wooer, as her chance of happiness.

In Mina Scarletti, who has been told by her doctors that she must never think to marry, I have created a heroine who is able by her unique insight and force of will to make a challenging and fulfilling life for herself.