The first Freddie Felstead mystery is set in 1991, when two perfectly modern young Londoners often behave as though it were 1925. So wondering why 1991, and why the 1920s, is fair. Let’s consider the two halves of the question in order.
Take 1991 first. It was a London of paper travelcards, instant coffee and Chesney Hawkes on the radio. Canary Wharf was only just becoming a skyline. People still used phone boxes; nobody carried a telephone in their pocket, and nobody could settle a question by looking it up. If you wanted to know where an item of jewellery had come from, you wrote a letter, rang an archive, or stood in a library until somebody took pity on you. When it comes to a provenance mystery, clues have to be sought the old-fashioned way, and the people who hold secrets have to be talked round.
Now the 1920s. Freddie and Charlotte did not find a trunk in an attic and decide to dress accordingly. This is not nostalgia, and it is certainly not fancy dress. It is a choice: the decade has a great deal to recommend it. Dresses that let a person move. The bob hair and the cloche hat. The Bright Young Things, who treated a party as a serious undertaking. Jazz arriving in ordinary living rooms by gramophone and wireless.
It also suits the puzzles. Many of the mysteries in the series begin with an object that belongs to the world Freddie and Charlotte already live in: something precious surfaces, carrying a history that wants tracing. Nobody needs to be murdered for the stakes to be real. A lost inheritance, a hidden attachment or a name discreetly rubbed out will do very nicely.
Book 1, Freddie Felstead and the Whitmore Affair, publishes on 22 October and begins in September 1991. You can pre-order it here. If you would like to receive the occasional short note about the series and its universe, sign up for the Newsletter.
