Karen Maitland

As you may have noticed, I`ve taken to punctuating my online journeys into the world of Sexton Blake with short pieces of news, comment etc to do with crime-writing generally.

My spies tell me that author Karen Maitland made an appearance at the library in Arnold, Nottinghamshire recently, to speak to a local reading group, an appearance that by all accounts has made a few more converts to her literary cause.

Ms Maitland is a new name to me, but a spot of googling reveals that she is the author of seven novels, all published by big-name publishers (Penguin and Simon and Schuster). Her choice of venue seems a little surprising given that she is, seemingly, quite a big name and does not live in Notts.

Myths, magic and medieval murder mysteries are Maitland`s thing. She writes these individually and also jointly with a group of writers known as the Medieval Murderers (the others are Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson). I seem to recall reading that a group of Sexton Blake writers did something similar in days gone by.  If you missed her trip to the Midlands then don`t despair as she will be hitting the road, Jack, quite a bit in the near future, including return visits to Notts later this month and in October.

For more information on her doings and goings-on, click here ; http://www.karenmaitland.com/news-and-events.