Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten, stories that can be found throughout the history of the element. Ranging from glassworks to penny stocks, medicines to weapons, and something to be feared to a powerful source of energy, this global history not only explores the development of our scientific understanding of uranium, but also shines […]
Felicity’s War by Jean Fullerton
It’s 1941. While London is battered by air raids, Felicity ‘Fliss’ Carmichael has troubles of her own. Still reeling from catching her fiancé cheating, she flees to her childhood home at St. Winifred’s Rectory, reuniting with her sister Prue and Hester Katz, a Jewish doctor sheltering there. Though heartbroken, Fliss finds purpose again as a […]
Looking for radioactivity in Las Vegas
Lucy Jane Santos, the author of Chain Reactions, is prepared to go anywhere to look for the history of radioactivity. Even Las Vegas. Fortunately, she found that the sinful city still radiates with its atomic heritage, which hasn’t decayed yet. Over the last — almost — decade of tracing the history of radioactive elements – […]
The Stranger’s Companion by Mary Horlock
October 1933, and with a population of five hundred souls, isolated Sark has a reputation for being ‘the island where nothing ever happens’. Until, one day, the neatly folded clothes of an unknown man and woman are discovered abandoned at a coastal beauty spot. As the search for the missing couple catches the attention of […]
The Sark riddle of 1933
‘Island riddle’ said the headline in October, 1933, reporting the mysterious disappearance of a man and a woman on the Channel Island of Sark. The case gripped people around the UK. And, around 90 years later, the author Mary Horlock was intrigued, too. She writes about the background to her latest novel, The Stranger’s Companion. […]
The Pyramid Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith
1930: Miss Clara Vale, chemistry major turned detective, is taking a night off from sleuthing to attend the launch party of a new exhibition at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. But when the piece de resistance, a rare ornate sarcophagus, is finally opened and it turns out the mummy inside it is a fake it […]
How period guidebooks and maps help me write murder mysteries
Fiona Veitch Smith explains how period guidebooks and maps help her write 1920s & 30s murder mysteries. The next, The Pyramid Murders, comes out on 13 June. “The Pyramids – The indispensable excursion on the outskirts of Cairo is that to the Pyramids. There is an excellent tram service, and many people will find that […]
The Drummond Affair: Murder and Mystery in Provence by Daniel Smith and Stephanie Matthews
1950s France. A British establishment figure. A shocking crime. A miscarriage of justice. The search for truth. In 1952, in a peaceful corner of Provence, a farmer’s son stumbled upon a terrible scene. Three bodies: a husband and wife shot dead, their ten-year-old daughter savagely beaten to death. They were all British. So begins one […]