Charles Maddox & Charles Maddox

Created by Lynn Shepherd

So… this British author writes this historical series of witty and unapologetically literate mysteries inspired by classic 19th-century novels, featuring not one but two (count ’em, TWO!) different detectives, both named CHARLES MADDOX.

The first Charles, and the hero of most of the series, is a former copper turned private detective, struggling to make ends meet in the squalid streets of Victorian London. He’s ocasionally aided and abetted by his great uncle, a legendary, Regency-era “thief taker.” But it’s in fact the elder Charles who’s the detective in the first novel in the series, Murder at Mansfield Park (2010), a gleeful rip on Jane Austin’s Mansfield Park. In it, the elder Charles gets tangled up with the murder investigation of Austen’s Fanny Price, who’s been slaughtered and unceremoniously dumped in a ditch at the estate.

In its sequel though, Tom-All-Alone’s (2012), it’s the nephew who gets messed up with a cast of characters drawn from Dickens’ Bleak House. By now, his great-uncle is getting on in years, and is starting to show it.

It was followed by A Treacherous Likeness (2013), in which the young detective encounters Percy Blythe Shelley and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as several of the other Romantic poets of the day, while the Gothic-tinged fourth entry, The Pierced Heart (2014), is very much inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It has Charles journeying across Europe to the castle of Baron Ven Reisenberg, an egnigmatic scientist with some peculiar habits and a very disturbing secret, only to return home to find London rattled by a string of bloody and brutal murders committed by a killer they’ve dubbed “The Vampire.”

All imaginative and clever, and as I said, unapologetically literate. Perhaps too much so—because when the four novels were republished in 2022, by Hera Books, they boasted  new, less literate titles (and less, uh, po-faced covers).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Shepherd studied English at Oxford and was a professional copywriter for more than a decade, before deciding to write full-time.

UNDER OATH

• “Shepherd has become a mistress of literary conceit, nodding her head at the classics but conjuring up her own magic with tantalising tales that revisit well-trodden themes and territories but bravely venture down extravagant and fanciful new avenues….”
  — Lancashire Evening Post on The Pierced Heart
• “A clever reworking of the Austen novel that’s strong on plot, character, and historical accuracy. … While mystery fans will find much to like, it is Austenites who will be most gratified, particularly by how well Shepherd has captured the tone of Austen’s original… this will be a
  — Publishers Weekly on The Pierced Heart

NOVELS

• Murder at Mansfield Park (2011; aka “The Mansfield Park Murder”) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
• Tom-All-Alone’s (2012; aka “The Solitary House,” “The Man in Black”) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• A Treacherous Likeness (2013, aka “A Fatal Likeness,” “The Frankenstein Monster”) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• The Pierced Heart (2014; aka “The London Vampire”) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• The Charles Maddox Series
  The author’s official web site.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Karen Mix for her help with this one.