We’re halfway through Home Grown Talent Week! Today we’re following the Scottish Lady Detective to Fiji.
The Shoeshine Killer features DS Louisa Townsend from Edinburgh who, on her first visit to Fiji, immediately gets caught up in the search for a double killer. This takes on her on a dangerous journey into Fiji’s murky underworld, which is as far removed from the country’s tourist images of blue lagoons and palm-lined beaches as possible.
Marianne Wheelaghan on The Shoeshine Killer
Before becoming a writer, author Marianne Wheelaghan was many things including a croupier, a marketing manager for a company that sold warm air hand driers, a chambermaid, a cashier, a Brussels sprouts picker, but mostly she taught English and Drama in Germany, Spain, the Republic of Kiribati and Papua New Guinea. The Shoeshine Killer is the second of her bestselling Scottish Lady Detective mysteries, following on from The Food of Ghosts, both set in the Pacific.
What inspired you to write The Shoeshine Killer?
When I was growing up we didn’t have a lot of money. This meant we never went ‘away’ on holiday like my friends did and treats were for birthdays and Christmas only. But one thing we had all year round were books, hundreds of them bought by my mum and dad from secondhand shops and jumble sales. They included, amongst many others, almost all of Agatha Christie’s 66 novels, RL Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stacpoole’s The Blue Lagoon and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Praire. I loved reading them. The books fuelled my imagination and shaped my dreams. When I wasn’t reading, I was travelling around the world in my head, voyaging to faraway, unspoiled places, populated by gentle, innocent people.
Not so long ago, I was lucky enough to work in some of the lesser developed countries in the Pacific, namely Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and later Fiji. I was going to live my dream. The reality, however, was very different from what I expected. Yes, there was unspoiled beauty and traditional culture and kind people, but there was also a very dark side to life there. It struck me that travelling was not so much about going to new places, as seeing our surroundings with a fresh perspective. As Marcel Proust once said: ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in looking with new eyes.’ As a writer, I wanted to share this lightbulb moment with others and did what writers do, I wrote a book.
‘Why a crime novel? I believe a good crime novel can tell us as much about the darker side of society as any literary novel.’
I have many fond memories of reading an Agatha Christie or Margery Allingham into the wee hours. I wanted to recreate that feeling of suspense in my readers. So The Scottish Lady Detective was born. Maybe not surprisingly, DS Townsend is a kind of modern day Miss Marple: a tad more gritty than cosy, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly but can also be kind, who is shrewd and intelligent but who can also make mistakes and who has a dark side of her very own.
What do I hope readers will take from The Shoeshine Killer?
First and foremost I hope readers will find The Shoeshine Killer a gripping read, and that it holds their attention to the end. Next, I hope the readers will feel as if they have been in Fiji and Kiribati, soaking in the exotic sights and sounds. I try to bring Fiji (and Kiribati) to life for the reader by using very specific sensory detail, allowing the reader to see the magnolia trees, hear the traffic, smell the overripe mangoes and feel the intense heat and giant drops of warm rain on their skin. When I lived in the countries I kept a diary and I used the details I recorded to help make the descriptions in The Shoeshine Killer vivid and fresh. This is especially important as some Pacific countries, such us Kiribati, are in imminent danger of disappearing forever due to global warming and rising seas levels. In other words the only way to visit Kiribati may soon be in a book like The Shoeshine Killer (and Food of Ghosts, the first Scottish Lady Detective mystery). Finally, I hope some readers’ preconceptions may be turned on their heads and that other readers will have a new awareness of how, despite all our outward differences, we are all very similar people underneath.
Time to Read reading group on The Shoeshine Killer
Time to Read book group is made up staff from St John’s RC High School in Dundee. They are a newly formed reading group, and their choice of reading so far has been titles from their school library shelves. They envision this changing over time to suit the specific tastes of their members. They all love talking to others about books, bringing out different aspects and view and inspiring hearty debate.
We were all very excited to read a book by a fairly new Scottish writer. Attending a money laundering conference in Fiji, Louisa Townsend, a detective from Edinburgh based in Tarawa, finds herself in the middle of a coup. Two expats are kind enough to take her in until the curfew ends and she can make her way to her hotel in the city centre.
Unfortunately, when one of the men is murdered, she becomes a suspect. Out of her jurisdiction, she is desperate to clear her name and is determined to find the truth.
The book was engaging and easy to read. However, the start of the novel, we were almost shouting at Louisa for being so careless to get in a car with three strange men at the airport to get away from five strange men! For a detective she seemed to make some very dangerous decisions…
We really enjoyed finding about the aspects of life on Fiji from Marianne’s personal experiences. It was a great idea to include the violent underworld of the paradise island. Some aspects of the novel, such as Louisa’s underlying angst, her relationships and ongoing OCD, may not appeal to all readers but the second half of the book, in its exploration of poverty, deprivation and abuse, was thought-provoking.
Get involved
Find out more about The Shoeshine Killer by Marianne Wheelaghan, published by Pilrig Press
Read about all the fantastic Scottish authors taking part in Home Grown Talent Week.
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