Benedict Brown - Past Scandals, a Stolen Fortune and Hidden Secrets

Benedict Brown is a Welsh-Irish-Englishman originally from South London who now resides in Spain. Born into a family passionate about crime and mystery, he has always had a love for whodunits. At university, he even studied a course on detective fiction. After years of writing for children, Benedict transitioned to mystery novels, creating three bestselling series: Lord Edgington, Izzy Palmer, and Marius Quin. As our Author of the Day, he tells us all about his book, The Snows of Weston Moor.

What inspired you to set The Snows of Weston Moor in a snowbound manor during Christmas?

I don’t think there could be a more traditional setting for a mystery than a snowy stately home. I am a massive fan of Christmas and have now written six festive mysteries, so a snowbound mansion filled with mysterious characters is like a second home to me these days. I don’t think that a Christmas book without snow would be particularly satisfying, but I have since mixed things up by moving onto a snowbound village in my most recent release.

The relationship between Lord Edgington and Christopher is central to the series. How does their bond evolve in this story?

This series is narrated by a young man whose grandfather is a famous detective, and the relationship between them is definitely at the heart of the story and one of the things that my readers love best about it. In the first book, Chrissy is naïve and hasn’t seen much of the world, but with his Grandfather’s help he slowly comes out of his shell over the course of the series and becomes a half-decent detective’s assistant. I think the natural progression of their relationship is that Chrissy will become just as confident and capable as his mentor, but for the moment, he is enjoying coming to the realisation that Lord Edgington is a true eccentric and doesn’t always do things in the obvious manner.

How have authors like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers influenced your writing style and this book in particular?

I try to emulate the Golden Age of Detective fiction, not just in the language, style and atmosphere of the era, but in creating mysteries that are tightly written and difficult to crack. In “The Snows of Weston Moor”, there are any number of twists and seemingly perfect solutions that are ripped out from under the detectives. I know that my readers appreciate the complexity of the puzzles I create, and people rarely message me to say they have fully worked out the twists and motives in my books.

Your books blend humor with murder mysteries. How do you balance the light-hearted moments with darker themes?

I’m about to write my thirtieth novel and I still haven’t managed to create a murder mystery without a little humour thrown in. I think comedy suits cosy mysteries, and though one of my books this year followed a more serious and tragic plot, my regular readers have come to expect that mix of genres. At the same time, I like to keep the main mystery plot very clean and only use the humour to undercut heavier elements of the plot, and so it’s a constant balance that I hope works well.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

I really don’t think I have any other skills whatsoever, but I have about a hundred hobbies that I’m pretty terrible at doing. I sing all day long. I sit in front of our piano not knowing what I’m doing but having a lot of fun. I bake cakes regularly – nowhere near the standard of my grandparents who were famous bakers in South Wales. I make annual Christmas videos with my two children in which we all dance about like loons, I used to act, play the drums in a band and write bad songs. There really is nothing creative that I won’t try my hand at (extremely ineffectively).

Though part of a series, this book can be read on its own. How do you ensure new readers feel welcome while rewarding loyal fans?

All of my Christmas books and as many of my novels as possible are written as standalone adventures. This means that I can write self-contained mysteries without cliffhangers or complex story arcs that exclude new readers. This is possible because of the relationships between a big cast of characters which you don’t have to know anything about to enjoy. We see Chrissy slowly going up, and the day-to-day life of Lord Edgington’s grand estate, but that only needs a sentence or two to explain, so new readers can jump straight in, whereas I think that existing fans keep coming back from the unique dynamic between my protagonists.

How do you approach researching 1920s England to create authentic settings and characters?

I try very hard to be accurate with period language and mood in my books. However, the problem with research is that exploring topics from the twenties is so interesting that I can easily fall down a rabbit hole and find myself reading about things that are completely unrelated to the story I set out to write. This sometimes leads me to include threads in the books that I couldn’t have imagined when I started writing them, but also leads me to find out lots of fascinating but useless facts. Because of this, I write a chapter at the back of every book with all the juiciest facts, and it’s another feature of the series that readers have come to love.

With 15 books planned in the Lord Edgington series, what can readers expect from future instalments?

My Christmas book this year “The Christmas Candle Murders” is actually my fifteenth in the series, but the story isn’t coming to an end. In the new year, I’ll write the first book of a spinoff called “Lord Edgington Investigates Abroad”, which will see my main characters head off to the Continent to take in the sights, eat the food and stumble upon far too many dead bodies. The first book is called “Murder in an Italian Castle” and takes place in the real Castello di Montegufoni in Tuscany, which may just be the perfect setting for a sun-drenched whodunit.