Third book featuring 1940s female detective for St Leonard's author

The series focuses on British ex-con turned private eye Elvira Slate, a private detective with a difference: she’s a former gangster’s moll who was banged up in Holloway Prison for most of the war and jumps probation on VE Day.

The first two novels in the series Jailbird Detective: Elvira Slate Investigations 1 and Chipped Pearls: Elvira Slate Investigations Book 2 were both published by Shedunnit Productions.

“Dead Language and Other Stories features some mysterious smaller cases for Elvira to handle, and they complement the published longer novels, timewise fitting in before and between both longer novels. They explore how a young woman who has fled England can live a new life in America and her struggle to belong and succeed in her new calling. They are very much transatlantic in theme. Elvira lives with the ever-present threat of being discovered by her enemies – Scotland Yard and the Little Italy Mob but she is also threatened by her own lack of trust in herself.

“My Californian stepdad, to whom I have dedicated Dead Language and Other Stories, is part of my own transatlantic identity. I wanted to set a series in Los Angeles as it’s one of my favourite cities, and its complex past, as a city where people have long gone to reinvent themselves and escape their pasts, had always had a big pull for me.

“I wrote most of the novelettes during the pandemic, and they were a brilliant escape from reality of lockdown and getting over Covid myself. I say that each book in the series represents some aspect of Elvira’s journey to being her own woman, but also reflects stages of mental health recovery. In Jailbird Detective, she is suffering PSTD but in denial – shell-shocked from incarceration but on the run. In Chipped Pearls, she is now a private eye, but very much suffers from lack of confidence, anxiety and dealing with imposter syndrome. In Dead Language and Other Stories, Elvira is finding her direction and has a new supportive group of friends, but memories of London interrupt her like ghosts. I like the fact that each book will reflect her inner journey as well as outer cases. Recovery is not a straight line, and her journey will show this. Elvira Slate is a woman who would have been disapproved of in the 1940s – she’s illegitimate, an ex-offender, sexually liberated, getting over trauma – and this makes her a truly memorable character.

“These cases are brought to Elvira by some very challenging female clients. She has to crack their cases, while avoiding the law herself, not so easy when some of her clients’ cases lead her straight to trouble. But she pulls it off using the skills of survival, nimble moves and intuition. A hallmark of the books is the fact that many of my characters are regulars – women mobster bosses, female entrepreneurs, and of course Elvira’s allies like her male secretary Barney, a wounded gay veteran, and her mentor, a respected older private eye called Beatty Falaise. But no 1940s crime book can do without a copper! A recurring character is Randall Lauder, who knows Elvira’s truth. He has saved her life in that he knows her past and could easily send her back to Blighty. But he has decided to give her a chance, believing she is innocent from the crimes the British want her for. In Dead Language and Other Stories, I explore their strange relationship further.”