Amy Rowlings Mysteries

Over the years I’ve read hundreds of murder themed novels. My favourites were from the Golden Age of murder mysteries, books set in the twenties, thirties and forties. One thing about the vast majority of the famous authors at the time, was the disparaging attitude they took towards the working class. No one had a good word to say about them, they were always portrayed as, rude, subservient, uneducated or just plain criminally minded and I include the wonderful Agatha Christie in that criticism. It’s easy to see why they did it. The working class wasn’t their intended audience. Their books were aimed squarely at the middle classes. Dorothy L Sayers even made her investigator a lord and he hated anything to do with the smelly, unwashed. They have to be forgiven though, they were all wonderful writers and their books were just, of a time.

As the latest Amy Rowlings mystery, The Murder Awards hurtles towards its conclusion, SpellBound Books Ltd have issued a publication date of November 5th 2023. Thank you Sumaira Wilson from SpellBound for the social media reveal yesterday.

I am now in the happy position to be able to reveal the cover, designed once again by the fabulous Nikki East.

The Murder Awards

May 1939

When Amy Rowlings and Inspector Bodkin are invited to a black tie, civic awards ceremony at the Town Hall, they expect to be met with the usual, boring speeches and toe-curling sycophancy, but when the recipient of the night’s ‘Businessman Of The Year Award’, Nelson Kelly, is found stabbed to death after being called from the stage to answer the telephone, the evening begins to liven up.

Nelson’s company has just won a lucrative contract to build a new armaments factory and many of the town’s elite, having backed a rival bidder, aren’t happy at missing out.

When the CID department at the local police station is suddenly reduced in manpower, Bodkin is told he will have to manage the murder investigation alone.

Into the breach steps young Amy Rowlings, the twenty-one-year-old with a mind every bit as sharp as her fictional hero, Hercule Poirot.

Amy, an avid crime fiction reader, movie buff and collector of American records, brings her insight and intelligence to the aid of the overstretched inspector, as he attempts to find a way through the morass of lies, deception and corruption.

Once again, Amy must utilise all the investigative techniques she has learned from Agatha Christie’s famous detective to help bring a brutal killer to justice.