The Big Thrill recently chatted with Claire Langley-Hawthorn about her latest, The Serpent and The Scorpion
Give us a sneak peek at the second Ursula Marlow mystery, The Serpent and The Scorpion
It's nearly two years since her father's death and Ursula Marlow is embroiled in personal and professional struggles. Her relationship with Lord Wrotham has cooled since she rejected his marriage proposal and she continues to fly in the face of society's conventions as to the appropriate role of a woman in Edwardian England. Now she is besieged on all fronts as she struggles to succeed as an independent businesswoman, despite financial difficulties, labor unrest and arson attacks on her mills and factories.
While on a business trip to Egypt, Ursula witnesses a friend's murder in Cairo's Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and embarks on her own investigation, convinced the Egyptian police and Scotland Yard are mistaken in assuming the death was politically motivated. Days later a young woman dies in a fire in one of Ursula's factories in England and Ursula returns to discover the woman was already dead before the fire started. Driven by her need for justice and the dictates of her conscience, Ursula must rely on her own powers of detection and a growing interest in cryptography to discover a possible connection between the deaths, the return of her Bolshevik ex-lover and disturbing events in the Middle East.
Give us a sneak peek at the second Ursula Marlow mystery, The Serpent and The ScorpionIt's nearly two years since her father's death and Ursula Marlow is embroiled in personal and professional struggles. Her relationship with Lord Wrotham has cooled since she rejected his marriage proposal and she continues to fly in the face of society's conventions as to the appropriate role of a woman in Edwardian England. Now she is besieged on all fronts as she struggles to succeed as an independent businesswoman, despite financial difficulties, labor unrest and arson attacks on her mills and factories.
While on a business trip to Egypt, Ursula witnesses a friend's murder in Cairo's Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and embarks on her own investigation, convinced the Egyptian police and Scotland Yard are mistaken in assuming the death was politically motivated. Days later a young woman dies in a fire in one of Ursula's factories in England and Ursula returns to discover the woman was already dead before the fire started. Driven by her need for justice and the dictates of her conscience, Ursula must rely on her own powers of detection and a growing interest in cryptography to discover a possible connection between the deaths, the return of her Bolshevik ex-lover and disturbing events in the Middle East.
When describing The Serpent and The Scorpion Kirkus Reviews wrote "Pre-World War I England is a seething cauldron of conflicting ideologies as Bolsheviks, suffragettes, socialists and merchants of death battle for control." What inspired you to write about this historical period?I knew that I wanted to focus on the years 1910-1914, which is a period of great social and political upheaval in Britain. I wanted to explore what it was like to live in Britain after the death of King Edward VII, when the threat of war with Germany loomed over the horizon. The Serpent and The Scorpion takes place in 1912, a year in which the militant suffragette movement splits over the issue of militancy. There is also an escalating arms race between Germany and England, and tensions in the Baltic with the start of the First Balkan War. This is a fascinating time in which the arms dealers, the so called merchants of death, are becoming increasingly important, Jewish settlements in Palestine are rapidly increasing and the threat of socialism is causing upheaval throughout Europe. In The Serpent and The Scorpion, all of these elements provide a unique backdrop to Ursula's investigation.
How has your heroine, Ursula Marlow, changed in the second book?
Ursula epitomizes many of the contradictions and conflicts of the period. She is the daughter of a self-made industrial magnate from Lancashire and so is neither 'old money' nor 'a lady' in the eyes of London society. She is also an educated lady, having attended Somerville College Oxford and is a militant suffragette. In The Serpent and The Scorpion, Ursula is struggling to succeed as an independent, socially conscious, businesswoman. This allows me to explore the many strands of feminist and socialist thought in Britain - and how difficult it was to fly in the face of societal conventions.
Why the mystery/thriller genre?
The mystery provides the ideal framework to explore social and political issues, as well as drawing the reader into the darker underbelly of history. I am always drawn to the historical period and the characters first, but I think having a mystery propel the plot and affect each of the characters adds a further layer of depth to the story.
Clare Langley-Hawthorne was raised in England and Australia. She was an attorney in Melbourne before moving to the United States, where she began her career as a writer. Her first novel, Consequences of Sin, has been nominated for the 2008 Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Macavity award. The second in the Ursula Marlow series, The Serpent and The Scorpion, is due out in October 2008. Clare lives in California with her family.
