One of the advantages of still living with your parents at the age of thirty-six – don’t get me going on the disadvantages – is that my mum makes me breakfast. I remember, when I was at primary school, being asked to describe a typical breakfast. I began, ‘First you make the makki roti. . .’ Kevin Brewster laughed so much he had to leave the room. I realised that English families ate things like toast and rice crispies. They didn’t have stuffed parathas or chole or masala omelettes. Well, their loss.

I get up at seven, shower and go down to the kitchen, where my mother serves the freshly-made parathas with a dollop of butter or curds. My parents own a small shop and my Dad is already behind the till at six-thirty. He takes the dog, a German Shepherd called Starsky, out for a walk before he starts work. The dozy animal stares at me when I eat, willing me to drop some food on the floor. My mum gives me her views on the day’s news. ‘The Queen’s opening parliament, she must get so tired wearing that heavy crown. Some pop star’s won a prize. You know, the girl I like. The one who looks like a tree. . .’ I let it all wash over me, to be honest.

I’m at work by eight-thirty. It’s a twenty-minute walk but it seems shorter because I go along the seafront. Shoreham is not exactly a scenic place but, on sunny mornings, the water sparkles with light and I imagine that I’m somewhere I’ve never been, like the south of France. I even like stormy days when the waves crash against the shingle and the towers of the power station are obscured by clouds.

At the police station, I make myself a cup of coffee and go upstairs to the CID offices. My boss, Donna, is usually late because she has to drop her children off at school but my colleague Neil is always there, doing sit-ups and drinking disgusting pea-protein out of a flask. Neil is my partner or ‘work-husband’, as he cringe-makingly calls himself. He’s not a bad sort really but sometimes I find him so annoying that I have to imagine him as a woodland creature, something small and harmless and ultimately unimportant.

‘Morning Harbs. Did twenty minutes on the treadmill today.’

Nibble, nibble. Washes whiskers.

When Donna arrives, we start the business of the day. Being a detective sergeant in Shoreham is not exactly thrilling but sometimes there’s a case that changes everything. Like the day when Natalka Kolisnyk walked in and told me about the murder consultant.

The Postscript Murders
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: March 2021
Purchase Link

Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.

But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

And then things escalate: from an Aberdeen literary festival to the streets of Edinburgh, writers are being targeted. DS Kaur embarks on a road trip across Europe and reckons with how exactly authors can think up such realistic crimes . . .

About the Author
Elly Griffiths wrote four novels under her own name (Domenica de Rosa) before turning to crime with The Crossing Places, the first novel featuring forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway. The Crossing Places won the Mary Higgins Clark award and three novels in the series have been shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. The Lantern Men (Ruth #12, published in February 2020) was number two in the Sunday Times Top Ten Bestsellers list. Elly also writes the Brighton Mysteries, set in the theatrical world of the 1950s. In 2016 Elly was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library for her body of work. Her first standalone mystery, The Stranger Diaries, won the 2020 Edgar award for Best Crime Novel. Her second standalone, The Postscript Murders, was published in the US in March 2021.

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