The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

Episode Date: April 11, 2021

The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths "This droll romp is a latter-day Miss Marple.” —Washington Post 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 Elly Griffiths Thank you for visiting my Amazon author page! I'm the author of two crime series, the Dr Ruth Galloway books and the Brighton Mysteries. Last year I also published a stand-alone, The Stranger Diaries, and a children's book, A Girl Called Justice. I have previously written books under my real name, Domenica de Rosa (I know it sounds made up). The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, a place I know well from childhood. It was a chance remark of my husband's that gave me the idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. We were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when Andy (an archaeologist) mentioned that prehistoric people thought that marshland was sacred ground. Because it's neither land nor sea, but something in-between, they saw it as a bridge to the afterlife; neither land nor sea, neither life nor death. In that moment, I saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards me out of the mist... I live near Brighton with Andy. We have two grown-up children. I write in a garden shed accompanied by my cat, Gus.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks chris voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in oh my gosh it's another brilliant podcast with another brilliant author she's gonna blow your mind she is a multi-book author we googled her and we just

said what authors have a multitude of books and she came up at the top so we're gonna be talking to her about her latest book the postscript Murder, you say? Murder? The Postscript Murders. It just came out March 2nd, 2021. Ellie Griffiths is her name. And she's going to be talking about this wonderful new book and some of the other work that she's doing coming up. So there will be a teaser for that near the middle or end somewhere. She is the author of two crime series, The Dr. Ruth Galloway books and the brighton mysteries last year she published a standalone the stranger diaries and a children's book a girl called justice and she mostly writes

books for a lot of different variety of things we'll get into some of the details of that and welcome the show ellie how are you hi chris it's lovely to be here. I'm really well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And I love your London sort of accent. I love people from the UK. Oh, thank you very much. We always think that we don't have an accent. Everyone else has accents. So it's always lovely to hear that. Thank you. I always love when English people say cheerio. Cheerio. Yeah, I'll make sure to say that. Thank you very much thank you yeah that was the whole reason i wanted you on the show was just to give me a cheerio no i'm just kidding give us your plugs or people can find you on the interwebs and order up your books

oh hi everyone it's lovely to be here i'm ellie griffiths i'm the author of the dr ruth galloway series which is about forensic archaeologists and also the brighton mysteries which is set in the 1950s and more recently of the stranger di, which is set in the 1950s, and more recently of The Stranger Diaries, which won last year's Edgar Award for Best Novel. Hooray! And most recently of The Postscript Murders, which is a standalone novel, but also features the detective from Stranger Diaries. And it starts, it's set near where I live, actually, so I'm speaking to you all from a shed in the bottom of my garden um in Brighton which is on the south coast of England I'm sure loads of you know it and just a little bit along the coast is a place called Shoreham so my book's set in Shoreham

and it starts when an elderly lady who lives in assisted living complex is found dead in her apartment and of course it's very sad but no one's very surprised because she's very old and she's been ill. But then when her carer goes to clear out her apartment, she finds lots of crime novels and lots of them are dedicated to this woman who's called Peggy. And lots of them say, thank you for the murders. And then the carer finds some business cards which describe Peggy as a murder consultant. And it turns out that this lovely, innocent, respectable lady was employed by crime writers to think of ways to kill people in their books. So has somebody killed the murder consultant? That's the base. That's the start of the book anyhow.

That's my, I think that's a new job. I'm going to take up a murder consultant. Well, I was thinking that, yeah. If the writing dries up i could do that and actually it it is based on a real person in a way because my aunt marge i've got an uncle marge so people seem to have an aunt marge and i've got an aunt marge and she lives in a seaside apartment and she is always thinking of great murder ideas for my books and I don't know what it is about maybe it's just I don't know what it is about maybe it's the sea view maybe it's the fact that she

has time to think but she'll often ring me on a Sunday how not many people ring on your landline so we always know it's her and she'll pick up the phone she'll say oh hello love um I was just thinking could you kill somebody with incense? So she thinks of murder ideas. She is the inspiration. I have to quickly say my Aunt Marge is alive and well. That is awesome. Does Aunt Marge have a husband? She has had a husband, but now she's a widow, yes.

Has anyone looked into that? No, I'm just kidding. She's had a couple of husbands. Has anybody looked into all this? This sounds like uh this sounds like something for scotland yard to look into you never know she just seems a very respectable ex-maths teacher they are always the ones so it always yes it usually it's the people you never think note to self never go into aunt marge basement it puts she'd be very nice to you it'll

be great i'm sure yeah there's always that moment where suddenly you're dealing with somebody. Anyway, but no, that's really funny that you have an Aunt Marge that does that. Now, my understanding is this is a standalone book, but this has a carryover character. Is that correct? Yes, that's right. It has the same detective that's in The Stranger Diaries, and she's called Harbin Decor,

and she's a fun character to write because she's called Harbin Dekor. And she is quite a, she's a fun character to write because she's a person who comes in and says, let's just assume I'm in charge. She's quite prickly. And she is a British Indian woman. She's from a Sikh family. She's gay.

She describes herself as the best gay Sikh detective in Sussex. But then she realises she's the only one. So she's a very fun character to write. And you get to know her and her family a bit more in this book. I just realized I'm going to be having nightmares about it. Hello, love. Would you like some tea and biscuits? I love your podcast. Come in. Cheerio. Cheerio. Hold this knife for me and you're back. This is a really interesting story.

And evidently there's a lot of writers that seem to be a target in this book. It's like a play on that. Yes. Yeah. I'm afraid because this Peggy character who is a murder consultant works for several crime writers and I'm afraid a few of them do get killed off in the book. And obviously I'm a crime writer myself and I used to work in publishing. I used to be an editor.

So you get into the world of editing and publishing and agents and all that sort of stuff. And actually crime writers are really good fun. I don't know why. I think it's because we might get all the sort of darkness out in our books, but actually anyone who knows crime writers know we love a party. We're actually nearly all very good friends.

We're very collegiate. We help each other out a lot. There's a lot of sort of very well-known British crime writers like Dermot Ian Rankin, who've been very generous to me and to other up-and-coming crime writers. So actually, it's a really lovely world. But I'm afraid to say in this book book a few of them do get killed off now all right did you maybe come up with this concept just editing and writing books and you're like just kill me now it's like it's some sort of projection of i don't know what i don't know what it was really i think it was the idea that those murderous ideas have to come from somewhere don't they and are they are you trying to murder your

competition is that what you're... None of the people that I kill in this book are based on anyone in reality, no. I love my fellow crime writers and can't wait to be back with them propping up the bar somewhere. But yes, a few of them do get killed off in this book, though.

Now, for those of you who don't know what a postscript is, and I sort of knew, but I didn't know, can you explain what a postscript is for our i sort of knew but i didn't know can you explain what a postscript is for our millennial generation that might be listening postscript is the ps that you get at the end of letters and can you explain what letters are to the millennials too yes so letter is something that you write on paper and you get a pen and my character is called peggy smith so her initials are also ps and the idea was that in some of these books, there would just be the acknowledgement P.S. for P.S.

So the postscript, the book was for Peggy Smith. So it seemed to fit quite neatly. And there's something quite sinister about postscript, after script, something that comes after. Sounds a bit like postmortem. So I felt it was quite a good title for this book yes ps yeah postscript is ps my gravestone is going to have ps something written on i don't know what it will be but ps i hated you all or something i don't know it'll be like it'll that'll be on my tombstone i feel ps is a quite a good way aren't they of saying that little extra thing yeah a

little extra thing that you don't say in the main thing in fact when i was writing the acknowledgments for this book my cat walked over my um keyboard so i felt i had to say p.s this is for the cat there's always a little extra it's always it's a nice exclamation point or you bet you can use it as a backhand it has so many different useful things all those three little dots ellipses i think they're called yeah a friend of mine who is my age in his 50s said that uh his children had told him that young people find those very sinister those three little dots i use them all the time i don't know about you but i use them a lot yeah i think they're even i i put them i think they're quite sweet and cute and but but apparently they're quite sinister so maybe my next book will be called Ellipses.

I'll keep you. Yeah, there you go. The Ellipses Murders. They lived in a world of dot, dot, dot. Dot, dot, dot. Murder came to the ellipses. And yeah, I can see the movie on this. So this is pretty interesting.

What does a murder consultant do? I really find the term intriguing, and plus I'm looking for work, so I'm just kidding. Is there a way to apply for this? I did make up the job, but in the book, it is somebody who would help a writer. And I suppose sometimes when people write serious fiction, particularly, you do get very fond of your characters,

and you don't want to kill them off, or you've just tried every single way of killing people off and you need a new plot. So this is where in my book, Peggy Smith comes in. She would come in and she might think of a new way to kill somebody. And in fact, my Aunt Marge did come up with a murder on a stairlift that I used in one of my books. And there was a review, I think it was in one of the really serious papers in the times of the financial times. And it said,

it's one of the nastiest murders I've heard in a long time. And my aunt Marge was so proud of that, that she framed it. She framed it. Wow. She was so proud of that. I'm never having tea at our aunt Marge's house. I think I'm going to set you up to drink it.

No, I'll be drinking a little tea and I'll be like this tastes a little funny and she's yeah the i think aunt marge should just go in business she should get some business cards and a website and just start coming up with ways to kill but or maybe she just keep her on your corner so you can so this is really interesting i think it's very intriguing what you have in here in the postscripts and the involvement of books and missing books and different things. What are some other tidbits from the books that you can tell us without giving away everything? In this particular book, in The Stranger Diaries, they go to Aberdeen to a crime writing festival and they meet lots of other crime writers and having a wonderful time there in wonderful

Aberdeen, such a beautiful place. But there's also a sort of theme of golden age murders, which is a kind of strange idea, isn't it? The idea that the Golden Age for murder mysteries was between the wars, and it was people like Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers or Marjorie Allingham. So that's another theme in the book, that some of the clues might come from these murder mysteries set in the past, really, set in a world that doesn't exist anymore so uh the there are four main characters in the book there's the carer natalka who's ukrainian there's an ex monk called benedict there's peggy's 80 year old neighbor edwin and there's harbinder the detective

and the story's told from each of their points of view so of course you get benedict desperately trying to turn everything to anagrams and secret literary clues. And there's Harbinder just thinking it's all a load of nonsense, really. So I had quite a lot of fun going between the two things, really. So two sleuths in this book, basically. Yes, really, almost four sleuths, because all of them want to be sleuths. And then you get the idea that, of course, which is the core of a lot of crime fiction, that you get the amateur sleuths trying to work out how to do it based on sort of basic guesswork and hunches and all those things. And you've got the professional detective, in this

case, Harbinder, trying to solve it through forensics and detection and police procedure, really. So I had quite a lot of fun putting the two against each other, really. And I guess that's also in the series that I write, which is the Ruth Galloway series. She's an archaeologist. So you get that in those books, too. You get the sort of amateur, the archaeologist. Professional archaeologists, of course, but amateur detective,

solving the crime. And then you have the detective, in this case, he harry nelson sewing it from a different angle so i quite enjoy doing the two things in one book really that's really awesome in fact do you guys have over in england do you guys have that csi series television series that we have over here where they solve murders and stuff like that and do you guys have that over there yes yes we do yes i love those. Your Aunt Margie could go. She could go on those shows.

She could help those shows do their murders. It wasn't surprising to learn she really likes that show. I think I saw an interview where you were telling the story about how she spends her days looking out her window at people going by. And she just starts thinking different things about them and possibly murder is that true yeah definitely she's got a beautiful apartment with a lovely balcony which has that sea view but it also has a view of the sort of promenade and yes she quite often once she rang me and said could i come over because there was a couple that always arrived at the same time every day in different cars. And she was just really intrigued by them.

And I did. I drove over the next day. She's not far from me at all. So I see her quite regularly. So I drove over. And yes, it was very true. They turned up in two different cars. They stood together. They didn't really look like they were together.

And Marge was writing all this down in her notebook. So I really don't know. I don't know the answer to this mystery. But they did meet up, obviously, about the same time every day, talked. You know, were they in a strange couple? Were they drug dealers? Who knows, really. But it was a mystery.

So, yes, she's got a good eye for mysteries. She reads a lot. She reads a lot of crime fiction. And people who read a lot know a mystery. So yes, she's got a good eye for mysteries. She really has. She reads a lot. She reads a lot of crime fiction and people who read a lot, know a lot. And that's definitely the case for her. I just thought of, I just thought of a book for her where she, you know,

she's keeping this journal of stuff and maybe that couple is like a, you know, they're cheating couple, you know, both. And they're meeting for a hookup and she's been writing all this down and they discover that she's been writing stuff down. And Aunt Marge disappears.

They find her journal. They know. Oh, dear. There you go. I just wanted to write you the next one. You are a murder consultant. See, I'm just stepping right into this business. I've been feeling like something is missing from my life.

I can go from being a murderer. Wait, what? Never mind. The murder consultant. I can give advice. I'm good at burying stuff in the backyard. So that might be something I, no, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. They're jokes, people. Please don't dig in my backyard. But after years of having enemies, I've often thought of being a murder consultant. Anything more you want to plug on this book? And then we'll talk about your next book that you have upcoming soon.

I really hope that people will enjoy the book if you like. If you like a good murder, of course, murder isn't good at all. But if you like a character-led mystery that's a little bit spooky, a little bit literary, but also good fun, I hope. The characters go on a road trip up to Scotland and they do all the things that you do on road trips, like play word games and get fed up with each other and solve murders. I hope anyone, I hope it would also be a bit of an escape really from the rather, you know, sad life we've been living this last year. So I hope this book will be in lots of ways lighthearted and a bit of light relief as well as a murder mystery. There you go. There you go. Now the next book that's coming up is the night hawks is that correct that's right yeah tell us about that june 29th 2021 you can pre-order right now oh thank you

chris for mentioning that one yes so this is book 13 in the dr ruth galloway mystery series which is my longest running series chris said you said at the beginning oh you've written so many books i thought have i really and then i thought I have because I've written 13 in this series already. And it's about a forensic archaeologist called Dr. Ruth Galloway. And my husband's an archaeologist. So I'm really interested in archaeology. And in fact, you were mentioning your garden, Chris. I'll tell you a really interesting thing I heard from an archaeologist is that if you have nettles in your garden,

you might have a dead body because you only get nettles where there's been human interaction with the environment. What if your whole yard is filled with it asking for a friend? Well, have a look at that. But it might not necessarily be a dead body. So Ruth is an archaeologist, and she's called in by the police in the first book. So the first book in the series is called The Crossing Places, when a body is found on marshland near her house. She lives in Norfolk, very beautiful, but rather lonely and quite bleak

part of Britain, also very beautiful on the east coast there. She's called in when bones are found on marshland and those bones are actually 2, years old that she's drawn into the murder mystery and into a long relationship with the policeman dci harry nelson so the night talks is book 13 and it starts i don't know if you have the same term in the us but over here night talks is a name given to metal detectorists unlicensed metal detectorists people who take things from of course most metal detectorists absolutely legitimate who take things from, of course, most metal detectorists absolutely legitimate and fine and do great work. But sometimes you have unscrupulous ones, and they're called Nighthawks. So it starts with a group of metal detectorists find a body on the beach, and Ruth is then called in to investigate. You can start right away with this one, book 13,

or you can go back to the beginning and start with The Crossing Places. That's awesome. Now, over here in America, people that search for metal, we usually call those gold diggers at the Florida bars. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Actually, it's true. So this is pretty interesting. And 13 books in the series.

And both these books that you've written, are they both fairly standalone books where if I haven't written the prior 12 Ruth Galloway mysteries, am I going to be able to maybe jump into this one or do I really need to go back? I hope you can. I hope that they're all written in that the mystery is self-contained and you can just go into them at any point. But as I say, if you want to have the whole story, and I would say the only thing is that the relationships by book 13, and I should just say I'm writing book 14 now, the relationships are quite complicated. Not only Ruth's relationship with Nelson, the police officer. So if you want to get all the relationships straight in your head, I would start from the beginning. But if you just want the mystery, dive in at any point.

Oh, my gosh. I was just reading the thing here on amazon and it says there's an area haunted by a black shuck a humongous black dog a harbinger of death and i got visions on my head of the hound of baskervilles yes the book does start with a quote from the hand of the basket oh does it really it was the footprint of a gigantic hound and black shuck is a really interesting legend and while i've been talking about this book, I found that there are similar legends all over Britain, but also all over the world.

And it's of a huge black dog that is meant to appear to people. And as always with such visitations, it's not usually a good sign. It's usually a sign that something bad's gonna happen or someone's gonna die. Or he can just be a companion. Some people call him a devil dog.

He can have red eyes and he can suddenly appear. And a lot of the action in the Nighthawks takes place at a farm called Black Dog Farm, which is said to be haunted by this dog. And of course, various characters do see him. And I've got a character in the books, recurring character called cath bad who's a druid and of course he has lots to say on the subject of black shark and other mysterious apparitions and you know the books are set in norfolk have you ever been to norfolk chris i haven't i need to it is a one a wonderful place it's very beautiful very unspoilt really but people tend to live there

for a very long time like generation after. So there are lots of these sort of folk tales. So this book also has the Black Shark. It also has the Sheringham Mermaid, and it has the Norfolk Sea Monster. So there are quite a lot of folk tales that come into this book. Oh, wow. I should move to England for 10 years and just wander about the countryside and everything. It's always such a really cool country. Except, hold on, you guys don't have any sun over there. That's the problem. Actually, in my Norfolk books,

it often seems to be raining or thundering or something, but actually, Norfolk does get a lot of sunshine. Oh, do you? Really? Might be one of the sunniest places in Britain. Maybe I should go to Norfolk then and not London proper. Beautiful coastline, sand, sea, and all these wonderful myths and legends. And some really fantastic old towns as well, like cities, I should say, like Norwich and Kings Lynn.

And I think you'd love it. I love places like that. There's a romanticism to it. Yes. The architecture is always beautiful. I used to go to old places to do day shoots with photography. And it's fun because the stuff has been around forever. And you can sense the voices or hear the voices of all the people who walk down those cobblestone streets and some of the different things.

And you just get a sense of the historic feel. And you wonder about the people that pass through here and by. And I just find it so interesting you'll sit in an old bar or something or some old tavern and you can you just feel like how many people have been here and all the different experiences they had there's something romantic about it i don't know that's exactly it i think it's a sense of all those layers of history and stories there's a marketplace in kingsland it's called tuesday marketplace which is a brilliant name anyhow And it's meant to have a witch's heart embedded in the wall. When a witch, a poor woman who is probably nothing more than a wise woman,

was burnt at the stake and her heart's meant to have gone into the wall. When you hear something like that, you have to go to the place, don't you? I wouldn't sit by the wall. I'd sit across from the wall. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I know. I just make sure I had my eye on it at all times. Yes. But that sounds lovely.

It's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you for coming on and sharing some of these wonderful books with us. Give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this chat. Yes, well, you can find me on the interweb. I'm Ellie Griffiths. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Do look me up. Do send me a message. I'd love to hear it if you've read or enjoyed any of my books. It's been great to be here. There you go. Thank you. And send our regards to Aunt Marge,

but don't give my address, please. I will, and I'll tell her to have the kettle on. And I should just say, cheerio. Cheerio. Cheerio. And with that, my friends, thank you very much for being on the show with us, Ellie. Check out her books, The Nighthawks, Ruth Galloway Mysteries, book 13. That's going to be out on June 29th, 2021. And check out the other book that she has that we started the show talking about,

The Postscript Murders. It's fresh off the print, March 2nd, 2021. You want to get that as well. And you're going to want to read them and get them fast so that you can keep up with her because she's pumping out. How often do you pump out books? I know I've been publishing two a year

for the last few years. Wow, good for you. I'm still trying to get publishing two a year for the last few years. Wow. Good for you. I'm still trying to get my first one done. Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot for tuning in. Go to youtube.com.

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