Satchmo Turner, proprietor of the Waifs and Strays private detection agency, can feel all of his meagre past success slipping away. His relationship is on the skids, he's flat broke and his business partner is hell-bent on taking a murder case that...
This story represents the third novel-length piece of writing that I have finished. It is the most complex, and took me the longest to complete. I'm proud of it, but I'm aware that it is more of the same.
I enjoy putting myself inside Satchmo's head, and with a global pandemic and enforced free time, you might imagine that this would have been a far quicker affair. However, it turns out that I use writing as a release from the stress of work, and as a productive activity for my commute, so I actually hardly wrote at all over the pandemic period.
Still, better late than never!
I have (as usual) taken a number of liberties with history when writing this story. I feel honour-bound to set the record straight. Not least of which is because I would never be allowed back in Wolverhampton if I didn't.
For those interested to know more, read on. Everyone else just skip to the end.
Lady Wulfrun
Wulfrun is real. She was a Mercian Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who was gifted land by charter of King Aethelred. The land became known as Wulfrun's Heantun (high place) which is from where the name Wolverhampton is derived. The town's name, it's abbreviation to "Wolves" and its association with that animal, all stem from Wulfrun.
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Wulfrun was kidnapped as a child during the sacking of the Mercian capital of Tamworth and spent a short time in captivity with Viking invaders, after which little is known about her until she resurfaces in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle at the gifting of her land. She did found what became the city of Wolverhampton and is still highly regarded there today, with statues and a number of civic institutions still in her name.
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As an aside, she also features heavily in the Latin language school song of my alma mater, and I therefore feel it right and proper to make the following correction for the record:
Wulfrun was NOT involved in the occult. At all. In any way, shape or form. That suggestion is purely fictional and a flight of fancy taken for the purposes of the plot.
As far as I know.
It was not uncommon for women to hold positions of power in Anglo-Saxon society, so this elevation of Wulfrun would not necessarily have been as shocking as some today may think. Most notable was Queen Aethelflaed, the "Lady of Mercia" and daughter of Alfred the Great. She was a bona fide bad-ass who planned then commanded military operations against Viking invaders, giving them a sound kicking on a number of occasions. She also rocked a fancy hair-do, the very definition of the business bun:
