MY NAME IS A D FOX AND I WAS A BLUECOAT!
Updated: May 27, 2021
SEVEN DEADLY THINGS - the third Henry & Sparrow crime thriller - is now out - and once again I have been ransacking my own past for inspiration.
For one long, murder-filled weekend, I have taken the action away from Salisbury and Kate and Lucas’s home county of Wiltshire and gone east - to the coast of Suffolk. Kate Sparrow, newly promoted to Detective Inspector, is having a well-earned break - a reunion with the bluecoats she spent a memorable summer with seven years ago at a Buntin’s holiday camp.
Many, many years ago, at the age of 19, I also had a memorable summer as a bluecoat at a Pontin’s holiday camp in Suffolk.
Here’s a photo of me with the lovely Uncle Brian in the Pontin’s children’s theatre, where I was one of the ‘children’s aunties’ helping to run the events for kids.
It was a role that horrified me when I first arrived, but I soon realised what a brilliant option it was. Instead of spending every day in smoky rooms with the adults, running bingo and darts tournaments, me and my fellow children’s auntie just hung out with the kids who were much better company, running theatre shows and taking them all down the beach to hunt for lucky stones (children were easily entertained back in the 80s!).
It was a brilliant and memorable summer in my life and although I’m glad to confirm there were no murders there (as far as I know) during my stint, a lot of the original atmosphere and some similar characters from that time have made it into this story. Names may or may not have been changed and all the action is, of course, completely fictitious. The old bunkers on the beach, which feature on the cover and in the story, were for real. There are a lot of these along the east coast of England.
I did wonder whether it was a bit too soon to be taking Kate and Lucas out of their usual patch, but it felt right to give them a break. Well… not exactly a break, obviously. In fact far from it.
But the conclusion of this instalment does find them back in Wiltshire and it’s a stonker. Will you have seen it coming, I wonder? Maybe… maybe not.
I’ve heard from a few readers that they would loooove to meet Lucas in real life. And yeah… I have made him a bit of a sizzler… Who would you pick to portray him in a screen adaptation, I wonder?
I’m thinking maybe someone a bit like Kit Harington (who played Jon Snow in Game of Thrones). Although Lucas has much more humour about him. Jon Snow did a lot of pained staring into the middle distance and that’s not at all Lucas. Facially, though, it’s not far off.
BOOK CIPHER TIME!
ANYONE fancy a book cipher? If you enjoy working out whodunnit you might also like to solve this code.
Kindle edition ciphers have to be done slightly differently to paperback, because, as most of you will probably know, pagination shifts according to what you’re reading on.
But I have a solution… can you work it out? You’ll need to refer to the FREE PREQUEL to my Henry & Sparrow series - UNDERTOW (which you likely already have, but go straight HERE and get it if not). Then you’ll have the text.
Once you’ve solved it, feel free to drop your answer to me on my A D FOX Facebook page
HERE IS THE UNDERTOW CIPHER:
4-8-2, 2-1-2, 2-1-4, 2-1-5, 6-16-15, 5-10-24, 1-2-93, 2-1-11
Good luck!
AD
