Lights, camera, action! It’s publication day for The Picture House Murders, the first in the Miss Clara Vale Mysteries. Is it too early for champagne? While I ponder that, you can get your copy now! Ebook, print or audiobook via Amazon, or order a copy through your local bookshop. Embla Books, Bonnier Books UK
As part of Fiona’s writing process, before she start writing a new book she looks for an original map from as close to the period in which she is writing as possible. It helps her to visualise the location and to be aware of the historical differences of locations from what they are now. She found this fabulous map in Reid’s Newcastle City Guide (1928). See below the main locations of The Picture House Murders and follow Clara as she solves the case.
The Picture House Murders has received a glowing review from the library review site, Library Thing. You can read the full review here.
“Unputdownable! Five Stars!
Library Thing
Engaging characters, clear background and historical information, inventive plot twists, and diabolical red herrings. Can hardly wait until the next book!”
The opening of The Picture House Murders sees Clara watching a showing of The Canary Murder Case in a Covent Garden theatre. The Canary Murder Case was one of the first ‘talkies’ to be shown in Britain, and audiences were so amazed at the voices on screen that they applauded the very first time the actors opened their mouths to speak.
You can view the film on YouTube at the link below.
The film, starring William Powell as the gentleman detective Philo Vance, was directed by Malcolm St Clair, and was an adaptation of the 1927 novel of the same name by SS Van Dine (the pseudonym for Willard Huntington Wright). Wright wrote the screenplay.
The film also stars the beautiful Louise Brooks as the Canary. In The Picture House Murders friends tell Clara she looks a little like Louise Brooks and her hairdresser convinces her to get her hair cut the same way. This is the style her mother considers ‘boyish’ in chapter 1.
Fiona first started making 1920s clothes when her debut Golden Age crime novel, The Jazz Files, the first in the Poppy Denby Investigates series, came out in 2015. She made this outfit inspired by Lady Mary from Downton Abbey. (That’s Fiona in the photo, not Lady Mary!).
She made it from an original 1920s pattern, republished by Mrs De Pew. The hat and shoes aren’t vintage but were bought new. She started out using a vintage 1920s Singer Sewing Machine, but after much anguish and colourful language, switched to a modern machine (shhh don’t tell anyone).
She decided to wear the outfit again for her video shoots for the Clara on Location promo videos at Exhibition Park (here on the left) and at the Royal Station Hotel. To view the videos click on the video link on the top menu or visit Fiona’s YouTube channel here!
The audiobook of The Picture House Murders, narrated by the very talented Hannah Geniuses , is available now! The Picture House Murders, published by Embla Books, is the first in the new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries. It is set in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1929, and Hannah does a smashing job with the Geordie accent. The clip below is from the opening scene of the book (no Geordies involved yet!). You can order the audiobook for yourself here: The Picture House Murders audiobook.
The Picture House Murders has received its first review appearing in the August edition of the new Writers’ Narrative Magazine. Reviewer, Wendy H. Jones says:
“I am a long-time fan of Veitch Smith’s work, particularly her Poppy Denby Mysteries. Therefore, it was with great excitement, and a little trepidation, I sat down to savour the first in her new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries. The trepidation was born of a fear that this series would not measure up to her previous series. Let me put you out of your misery and say, this one met all my expectations and then some.”
You can read the full review here. (see page 31 – 32). And you can subscribe to Writers’ Narrative yourself. It’s a free monthly online magazine – information on the back page.
It was announced in the Bookseller on 9 February 2023 that Emba Books UK had signed Fiona for a three-book deal for the first three titles in the new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries series. You can read the announcement in the Bookseller here.
Join Fiona as she takes you to various locations for the setting of the Miss Clara Vale Mysteries – while wearing vintage style clothing she made herself from original 1920s patterns. In this first video she visits Exhibition Park in Newcastle upon Tyne, the location of the Great North East Coast Exhibition in 1929. You can read about how Fiona made her fabulous outfit here.
The Picture House Murders, the first in the brand new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries, is available to pre-order now! Coming out in ebook, audiobook and print on demand on 29 August 2023. Published by Embla Books, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK.
Order your copy now: The Picture House Murders.
Murder is no occupation for a lady… or is it?
1929: Miss Clara Vale is a woman ahead of her time. Rather than attending Oxford to bag an eligible aristocrat (as her mother, Lady Vale, so desperately hoped), she threw herself into a degree in chemistry, with aspirations to become a scientist in her own right.
But the world isn’t ready for Clara. Unable to land a job in science because she’s a woman, she is stuck behind the desk at a dingy London library. Until her estranged uncle dies suddenly, leaving her his private detective agency in Newcastle upon Tyne, and a laboratory, in his will.
Clara couldn’t become a detective, could she?
The decision is made for her when one of her uncle’s old clients comes to her for help with a case surrounding the local picture house and invites Clara to see the latest show, before they discuss the details. But during the film, a fire suddenly engulfs the picture house, with tragic consequences. It seems at first an accident, but Clara soon begins to question if it was in fact a carefully orchestrated murder. She’s suddenly in the middle of a deadly mystery and will discover her scientific skills make her a sleuth to be reckoned with… Can she catch the killer before they strike again?
Set in the colourful world of early cinema, just as silent films are being replaced by talkies.
From Fiona Veitch Smith, the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates books.