As an inveterate Web browser I was intrigued to see the name of a former Suite101 travel writer, Barbara Bothwell, pop up when I was searching for new crime novels. Even further intrigued when the title of one of them, Homicide in Hampshire, indicated that the story took place on my own home ground.
The setting for Homicide in Hampshire (Hampshire, U.K., that is) is England's New Forest which is actually the oldest forest in the land having been settled by William I as a hunting area in 1079 when it was a New forest. An action-filled tale, the main protagonist is a down-to-earth cockney in her 40s named Cleo Mainwaring, who has won the lottery and is in the process of turning her life around.
It looked as though her plans were about to be derailed when late one evening on her return from London she finds the dead body of her housekeeper, Janet Spencer, in the swimming pool. The housekeeper's husband, Dan, is missing. Two days later he turns up on the beach:dead. Then the village gossip turns up in the garden strangled with one of Cleo's scarves. Three dead bodies within a few chapters - and there's a romance as well!
There are a few sub plots to keep the pot boiling in this action-packed story which is well plotted and well paced. The background of the New Forest is the perfect place for this intriguing mystery which also includes that essential, a good car chase, in this instance one involving an old BMW, a Land Rover, a Mini and a Toyota, made even funnier by the fact that driving through town they even obey the speed limit and traffic signals.
Barbara's second book is Writing can be Murder, set in a location which couldn't be further away from the New Forest - sunny Florida, U.S.A., where Barbara lived for a number of years. It is the story of British travel writer, Trudi Johnson, now living in the Sunshine State, who becomes a member of a writers' circle shortly before one of the members, Marcia, a realtor with ambitions to be a writer, is murdered. Marcia is in the habit of stealing other people's ideas and presenting them as her own, something which doesn't endear her to the others in the group. Several members are less than pleased about this: does someone decides to do something about it?
On this question hangs the story, a mystery that Trudi and her friend, Lucia set out to solve, gathering information to help the police catch the killer. But then another writer is murdered. This time a quiet, inoffensive woman whose murder cannot be understood by anyone – least of all the Sheriff who doesn't care for murders on his patch. A very satisfying read from this well-travelled writer.
Barbara has now returned to live in the U.K. again and I tracked her down to her home in the south of England, not far from the New Forest, to ask her a few questions about the novels. Obviously Barbara believes in writing what you know and about where you know, as she is familiar with the locales of both her stories.
“So when did you turn to novel writing, Barbara?” I asked.
“I've always enjoyed writing,” she told me. “I began working in tourism as a travel courier in Mallorca, Spain, graduating to working on cruise ships in the Caribbean, then working in Spain. Italy, San Fransisco and Florida. During the years I worked in tourism I was writing all the time and I also wrote many travel articles which sold on the international market. When I gave up that side of tourism I settled in London and I found that writing was a vital part of relieving the boredom of an office job”.
Eventually, she moved back to Florida and here she found the time to concentrate on her novel writing, although she didn't give up travelling either, or writing about travel for the natiional press in the U.K. and U.S.A., the inflight magazines of the major airlines and other magazines with travel sections.
“As well as writing, I acted as tour leader for a local agency and took groups around the U.S.A., England and on trans-Atlantic and Caribbean cruises, and my favourite - a cruise through the Panama Canal.
“I have always made up stories since I was a little girl. Most of my books are mysteries but originally I wrote Romances. Then one day my heroine discovered a dead body and now I write mystery tales with the occasional off-beat romance”.
I asked her why she chose to e-publish and she told me it was to ensure that her books would have an immediate world-wide audience. Barbara writes for various websites and has a popular blog so she already has friends and fans around the globe. This way they can all read her books.
Details:
Homicide in Hampshire (ISBN) 978-0-9569624-0-9
Writing can be Murder (ISBN) 978-0-9569624-1-6
Available on Amazon.com.co.uk.de.fr and from the following websites:
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Diesel
Both books are also available via computer downloads on Smashwords www.smashwords.com/profile/view/barbarabothwell
Barbara's blog can be read on http://barbarabothwell.blogspot.com/
Mari Nicholson - Award Winning travel writer and historian, member of British Guild of Travel Writers.Travelwriters.co.uk, and Society of Women Writers and ...
