To Remain Silent by Mackenzie McStewart

The Monypenny Breviary (a real book mentioned in the source book): thanks to Antiques Trade Gazette 

Title: To Remain Silent 

Author: Mackenzie McStewart (aka Andrew Everton, Chief Constable of Kent) 

Publisher: self-published on Kindle

Source book: The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club #3)

Andrew Everton apparently has more time on his hands than most of us. He’s a Chief Constable, which obviously doesn’t involve any on the ground detecting, more of the wearing a fancy uniform and telling everyone how hard the police are working for us… yes, well.

Anyway, the Devil makes work for idle hands, they say, and Andrew Everton starts writing a series of detective novels. He self publishes on Kindle using the nom de plume Mackenzie McStewart. His detective is called Chief Inspector Catherine Howard. She is haunted, but teak-tough. 

Yes, Catherine Howard as in Henry VIII’s fifth wife. Poor little thing.

Andrew decides it would be a good idea to give a reading of his latest book, To Remain Silent, to the Coopers Chase Literary Society. Their last speaker was a woman who had written a book about fish (sadly we have no details about what sort of fish, or indeed who the woman was).

His audience seem to find it a bit confusing that the main character in To Remain Silent has the same name as Henry VIII’s fifth wife, and Andrew’s reading is a little disrupted when Elizabeth, resident of Coopers Chase and leader (probably) of the Thursday Murder Club, suggests that a series of books in which the real Catherine Howard was a detective might be successful. 

I was at school with a girl called Jane Seymour, same name as Henry’s third wife, and I expect this sort of name confusion happens all the time, except perhaps not many girls in the UK are called Catherine of Aragon, or indeed Anne of Cleves.

Andrew’s previous books are Given in Evidence and Harm Your Defence. And before he hit on a good system of titles: The Bloody Death of Archibald Devonshire. And there’s another book on the way called Guilty or Not Guilty. 

When Andrew Everton admits to [spoilers], To Remain Silent goes to the top of an Amazon bestseller list, and Andrew comes to greater fame in a way I suspect he hoped would not happen. But at least he can carry on working on the new book. Well … just as soon as he is allowed to use a computer. Also, thanks to his new found notoriety, Andrew’s books are flying off the virtual shelves and a real publisher is considering a contract for a proper printed series. And Netflix have bought the TV rights.

Andrew may call a future book Death Comes Knocking. He has written it in his notebook under ‘good titles’.

Even now he is considering plans for the future. What about a series of books where a prisoner solves crimes from inside his cell? Hard Cell or The Wing Man perhaps?

And in other matters, Joyce has just written her first short story. It’s called Life is But a Dream: A Gerry Meadowcroft Mystery. She has begun on a second. It will be set in Morocco. Joyce is using details from a Rick Stein documentary to help her out with descriptions of Marrakesh because she’s never been.

Thanks to Historic Royal Palaces