Death In A Shetland Lane by Marsali Taylor

 A good crowd gathered at the Shetland Library
4^th May for the launch of
Marsali Taylor’s latest book,
Death in a Shetland Lane

The library always gives local authors a good spread, and this time they held a ‘name the cover places’ competition beforehand (all eleven books now have bonny photos of Shetland on the cover), and a display of Marsali’s complete works behind her as she spoke.

The crowd included members of the Westside Writers, the group which has encouraged and supported Marsali for nearly twenty years now, friends, neighbours, teaching colleagues and even visitors from three continents: Tasmania, North Carolina and South Africa. They were all established Cass fans who just happened to be doing a course in Fair Isle knitting in Shetland that week!
Marsali began by reading the atmospheric opening of the book, where a Victorian servant girl in Yell watches mysterious goings on in a kirkyard at night. She then talked about the inspiration for the book: a Facebook post by local archivist Mark Smith asking for stories about the sinister Book of the Black Arts. It was last seen in Yell, a place which Cass hadn’t visited yet, and a friend had also told Marsali a story of a man digging up a seven-foot horned skeleton there ... a spookybook was starting to grow! Add one of Britain’s most haunted houses, the ruined Windhouse, and Cass clearly only needed an excuse to go there. She found it in an idiotic decision by the driving test organisers to close the Lerwick driving test centre, and send all candidates to the isles of Yell or Whalsay.

After that, Marsali said, she spent a month
mulling over ideas and characters. The key question was: what would someone want so much that they’d use a devil’s book to curse someone else? Fame, fortune, or just enough money for a warm house, clean clothes and food on the table?
Timing of the book was next, and now Cass has an actual job it had to fit in with her schedule – so mid-March was decided.

Local events are really useful, as well as being fun ’colour’ for the reader,’ Marsali said, ‘because it gives Cass a chance to overhear conversations, bump into suspects or note suspicious behaviour. And of course mid-March is the Delting Up Helly A, where the Viking longship is burned right beside the marina where Cass keeps her boat ... ‘

Research visits included an afternoon helping at the Foodbank as well as a site visit to Yell – where, Marsali discovered, none of the cafes were open yet, meaning Cass would have to miss out on Nita of the Auld Haa’s
famous chocolate cake – but on the other hand, it meant Cass would have to visit the incredible Aywick shop to get lunch – and meet another suspect behaving suspiciously ...

 

After the talk there was tea and cake from the famous Shetland Cake Fridge, as seen in the Shetland  TV series, while Marsali signed, chatted. and recruited two would-be authors to the Westside Writers. The evening was a great success.

https://marsalitaylor.co.uk