Brighton author Josie Lloyd offers Murder Most Proper

Brighton author Josie Lloyd offers Murder Most Proper (HQ – Harper Collins, £20, October 8), the second in her cosy crime mystery detective novel series, featuring Alice Beeton, proprietor of The Good Household Management Agency.

Josie, aged 57, explained: “Alice places discreet staff in high-end London homes and country piles and, like her distant, but much revered relative, Mrs Beeton, is a stickler for details, decorum and doing things by the book.

“So when Alice’s best friend and business partner, Jinx gets swept off her feet by her latest beau – property developer Guy Scott – Alice can’t help looking closely into his plans to renovate the faded Sussex estate Amberleigh Park House into a swanky private members club.

“But Alice uncovers more than she bargained for and before she knows it, she’s set events in process to re-instate a treasure hunt for Regency big-wig Sir Edmund Gurton’s ‘greatest treasure’ – said to be buried in the grounds of Amberleigh Park.

“However, when things take a sinister turn and people start to go missing, Alice, along with her astute canine companion Agatha, has to dig deep to find out the truth.

“Having grown up in the 80s and been a fan of Murder She Wrote and all the great female detectives on the TV, I wanted to write a modern female amateur sleuth, but with a retro feel. Alice is curious, just like me – probably bordering on nosey! – and notices the small details about people that give them away. She’s so much fun to write. I’d say this is very much for fans of Agatha Christie and Nita Prose.

“Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency, the first in the series came about when I was clearing out my mum and dad’s house and I came across my grandmother’s copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, stuffed full of old recipes cut out from magazines and newspapers.

“I was intrigued by the history of the book, which, in its time was the bestselling book of the twentieth century and was the tome that many young women setting up home abided by.

“I always had a notion that Isabella Beeton was an old matronly sort, but actually she was a young businesswoman who died tragically in her late twenties.

“I’m a huge foodie so I wanted to write books that had recipes in them and having Alice refer back to The Book of Household Management was my starting point. You can always find Alice in the kitchen making homemade chutney or rustling up a delicious festive treat for her staff and clients, but she uses this time to figure things out.

“I wanted a protagonist who fancies herself as a sleuth but always encounters so much more than she bargained for. Coming back to Alice and her friends for the second book was an absolute joy. I hope there will be sequels. I love writing Alice.

“Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency is currently in development with Escapade Films and hopefully will be on a TV screen soon!”

Murder Most Proper is Josie’s 23rd novel: “I’ve written as Josie Lloyd and Joanna Rees and also co-written with my husband, Emlyn Rees. Our latest joint novel, You & Me is out in January in paperback.

“I started writing as a child – mainly because I was so chatty and on car journeys my mother would give me a notebook and tell me to write everything down. I’m an avid reader and loved escaping into a book when I was a teen and when I discovered I could get the same escapism from writing, I was hooked. I wrote my first novel when I was 25 and never looked back.”