FREE book PROMOTION

Over at Amazon the latest Granny Smith eBook is free for the next five days - what better time to catch up on Granny's adventures! Go grab a freebie and PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW...it doesn't have to be long, a few words will do and reviews help immensely.

There'll be a new Granny book this year.

Here's a little histoy of the character.

STEALING FROM THE DETECTIVES

My own series character, Granny Smith is an amalgamation of varied pop culture detetectives - when I was creating the character the biggest influence was, of course, Miss Marple. I like the idea of a fish out of water, and that's just what Granny is - a busybody pensioner who becomes embroiled in one crime after another, usually besting the police and bringing the guilty to justice. In creating the character I wanted to build her character by taking traits of other detective characters... some of these traits were so ingrained in detective fiction that they had become stereotypes. However stereotypes are not always to be avoided, and can be used almost as a kind of shorthand in character building.

Granny smokes a pipe - that comes from Sherlock Holmes and indeed the silhouettes used on the book covers are very much based on Holmes. I instructed artist, Tony Masero, -  to think Holmes as an old lady, when creating the illustration. It can of course be argued that every fictional detective holds genomes of Holmes in their DNA. For Holmes may not have been the first fictional detective, but in terms of creating the modern genre he was indeed standing on Ground Zero.

(C) Tony Masero

Granny's love of music - this primarily came from Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. The author used Morse's love of music to flesh out his character, and often to power the plots -  but where Morse enjoys classical music and opera, Granny is more into heavy metal and rock operas. It seemed to be that most fictional detectives had a leaning towards one form of music or another - Ian Rankin's Rebus was into his rock music, Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch loves his Jazz, Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne likes country and western and Inspector Frost - well, I like to think he woud have enjoyed his music if only he could find a CD player amongst the chaos of his office. Music, of course, holds a long tradition in detective fiction - think Sherlock Holmes and his violin. Then again we have Lord Peter Wimsey who was written as an amatuer musician of note (pun intended).

Thorne had tried, once, to tell him. To explain that real country music was fuck all to do with lost dogs and rhinestones. It had been a long night of pool and Guinness, and Phil Hendricks - with whichever boyfriend happened to be around at the time - heckling mercilessly. Thorne had tried to convey to Holland the beauty of George Jones’s voice, the wickedness in Merle Haggard’s and the awesome rumble of Cash, the dark, daddy of them all. A few pints in, he was telling anybody who would listen that Hank Williams was a tortured genius who was undoubtedly the Kurt Cobain of his day and he may even have begun to sing “Your Cheating Heart” around closing time. From Lazybones by Mark Billingham (2003)

Maigret - another pipe puffing sleuth

Granny is something of an anti-establishment figure. This of course comes from the long tradition of  maverick detectives  - there have been so many - detectives with their own code of right and wrong, detectives who don't mind breaking the rules if the end justifies their actions.

Granny's fashion sense is, to say the least, unconventional - something I borrowed from the wonderful character of Michael Belker from Hill Street Blues. This guy looked truly unique and this was something I felt was important for Granny's character.


Granny Smith was thought by most to be an odd sort, altogether harmless but decidedly odd. She dressed, an unkind person would say, like a dosser. While more kindly souls would have to admit that her style of dress was, to say the very least, eccentric. She usually wore tight leggings that were better suited to a woman half her age and would wear these with a variety of T-shirts and a body warmer of navy blue fleece.  She always wore that body warmer, zipped up in winter and open during the warmer months. And if all this didn’t make her look bizarre enough she topped it off with the corncob pipe that seemed to be permanently clamped between her teeth. From Granny Smith Investigates by G M Dobbs (2012)


Yep...Granny Smith's character came from a lifetime of enjoying the wonderful creations of others, and wanting to take my own spin on the Agatha Christie type of amatuer crimebuster.  The fourth Granny Smith novel, Murder Plot is free at Amazon at the moment. Granny is a character who has been called both Miss Marple on Steroids and Batman with dentures. The pop culture references are suitable since in creating Granny I thought long and hard about those who had gone before - we are all standing on the shoulders of giants, you know.

Gene Hunt - The hardrinking cop from Life on Mars actually owed much to Jack Regan from the 1970's classic, The Sweeney. And on the surface you'd think that Gene Hunt was a million miles

away from Granny, but the character had a straightforward way of speaking - delivering banter which was often crude but mostly hilarious. This non PC attitude is something that was very important to the creation of Granny Smith. Granny doesn't take no shit and she abhors political correctness, seeing it as a form of censorship.

 Jessica Fletcher played memorably by Paul McCartney lookalike, Angela Lansbury, owed more than

a little to Miss Marple herself. The character lived in Cabot Cove, Maine, which seemed like an idyllic seaside resort but had an alarming murder rate: Lansbury encountered a total of 274 killings, despite the town having a population of just 3,500.  Granny's own village of , Gilfach has a smiliar population and whilst the murder rate may not be so high it is certainly climbing.

Another character I kept very much in mind when writing the first Granny Smith was Columbo as played by the wonderful, Peter Falk - the detectives bumbling manner concealed a razor sharp mind. In the murder investigations he becomes involved in Columbo often seems to be the underdog pitted against a much smoother foe. I still love Columbo and can (indeed I often do) watch the old episodes over and over again, so it is no wonder that a little of the detective seeped into the creation Granny Smith. Where Columbo has his shabby raincoat, Granny has her tatty body warmer.

Have I mentioned location - well yeah I have briefly, but the location in which the Granny Smith books would be set needed to be fleshed out to a point where the village of Gilfach became a character in itself. This is something that other authors are particularly good at - Ian Rankins Rebus books thrive on the well realised depection of Edinburgh, and Morse would be nowehere without the donnish Oxford he inhabits. Wilkie Collins Moonstone (1868) displayed the importance of location in crime fiction by setting the expertly plotted story in a remote country house. And so I was aware that the location, the setting of the Granny Smith books was of vital importance. I decided on a fictional version of my own village, Gilfach Goch which is situated in the South Wales Valleys. And so the village of Gilfach in the Granny books may not an exact watercolour of the real Gilfach Goch but it is certainly an abstract representation.


The Granny Smith series are available in all major eBook formats, as well as audiobook...do a Google search on Granny Smith by G M Dobbs and you'll find your way to Granny's madcap world of murder and mayhem. I do hope you stay for awhile, and please please do leave some sort of review.

Troubled Agatha Christie drama will air this Easter

The new BBC production of Ordeal by Innocence was lined up to the the TV event of last Christmas, but the three part drama was pulled when one of the actors, Ed Westwick was accussed of rape and sexual assualt - the actor denies these claims and is still fighting the case (LATEST NEWS), however the BBC and Agatha Christie LTD decided to re-shoot the actor's parts with a new leading man, and the results will air on BBC this Easter. FULL STORY

Hercule is back from the dead for Agatha Christie revamp

Agatha Christie is the latest dead author to be exhumed as it was announced this week that her most famous creation, Hercule Poirot will return in an all new adventure. Following the success of novels in the style of Ian Fleming and P G Wodehouse but written by contemporary authors it seems that the Christie copyright holders now want a bite of the cake.

Bestselling crime author, Sophie Hannah is to pen the  new novel which will be set between the novels The Mystery of the Blue Train and Peril at End House.

"Writing a book about Poirot will be like writing about someone I know really well. I've read all the books so many times and know them inside out.' Sophie Hannah

The novel to be published by HarperCollins will be the first authorised Poirot novel since Agatha Christie's death in 1976.

The Creation of a Detective - Agatha Christie

1916 was a watershed year for Agatha Christie - she had been married to her husband Archie for just over a year, but because of the war she saw little of him. He was serving in the Royal Field Artillery which meant that Agatha had a lot of time to herself.

Agatha found herself working in the dispensary of Torquay hospital and as part of her training the young, soon to be bestselling author made careful notes of the appearance and effects of all the different substances she would have to dispense. She knew how different poisons acted, their aroma and how their use could be disguised - useful knowledge for a woman who would become the queen of crime fiction.

During the period Agatha was working on what would become her first novel and with her knowledge it was natural that she should use poisoning for her storyline.

'I was steeped in Sherlock Holmes, so I carefully considered the kind of detective I would create. I knew I could never emulate Holmes and must create one of my own. I started to carefully examine the detectives I found in books." Agatha Christie.

After toying with the idea of both a schoolboy detective and a scientists, Agatha' attention turned to the Belgian refugees who were living in the nearby parish of Tor. She decided to make her detective Belgian, a refugee police officer and from that idea the character of Hercule Poirot began to form in Agatha's imagination.


The novel that would introduce the world to the new detective was The Mysterious Affair at Styles and it was rejected by Hodder and Stoughton, the first publisher Agatha sent it to.However the young writer stuck with it and it was first published in the US by John Lane in 1920 and then in the UK by Bodley Head the following year.

"The only fault this story has is that it is almost too ingenious." It went on to describe the basic set-up of the plot and concluded: "It is said to be the author's first book, and the result of a bet about the possibility of writing a detective story in which the reader would not be able to spot the criminal. Every reader must admit that the bet was won." The Times Literary Supplement

"Though this may be the first published book of Miss Agatha Christie, she betrays the cunning of an old hand … You must wait for the last-but-one chapter in the book for the last link in the chain of evidence that enabled Mr. Poirot to unravel the whole complicated plot and lay the guilt where it really belonged. And you may safely make a wager with yourself that until you have heard M. Poirot's final word on the mysterious affair at Styles, you will be kept guessing at its solution and will most certainly never lay down this most entertaining book." The New York Times Book Review

A Published Author - Agatha Christie

In 1919, Agatha Christie thought she deserved a well earned rest after the birth of her daughter Rosalind. The baby came in at a bulky eight and a half pounds and Agatha's first words after the birth were reported as, 'I don't feel sick anymore.'

It was a busy time for Agatha and on top of the birth she found herself having to face a move to London after her husband, Archie was offered a job at £500 a year. On top of Archie's savings and investments which brought in another £100 a year, Agatha also received £100 a year from a fund set up under the term of Agatha's grandmother's will. The money was ample to support a modest sized family and Agatha was pleased that she would be able to afford a maid and a nanny - all middle class families of the time had servants. It was the done thing, old boy and it wouldn't have been cricket to go without.

A housemaid proved no problem but Agatha had trouble finding a suitable nanny but eventually, after interviewing many intimidating women, she settled for a thirty five year old woman named, Jessie Swannell.

And so it was all system go for the family as they settled in a ground floor flat in Addison Mansions. With so much going on in her life, it is little wonder that Agatha had almost forgotten about the manuscript of a detective novel she had written and sent off to publishers.

A letter came from publisher John Lane at Bodley Head who suggested the young author visit their offices to talk about her novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Agatha did so  and was told that Bodley Head would publish the book if she considered changing the ending. Agatha had written the denouncement as a court room scene, but John Lane felt that it didn't read true. He felt that Agatha didn't know enough about the legal profession to make the scene credible.Agatha was more than willing to change things as the thought of being a published author thrilled her. Agatha thus created the blueprint that many of her future novels would follow, when she had her detective, Poirot called all the suspects together at the end of the novel and explained how the murder was carried out.

Agatha signed the contract without showing it to a lawyer, which was something she would come to regret years later when she was the bestselling writer in the entire world, but for now the thought of seeing her name on a book, of becoming a published writer was enough.


"I had married the man I loved, we had a child, we had somewhere to live and I was a published author. I saw no reason why it shouldn't be happy ever after." Agatha Christie

Agatha's initial contract meant that she didn't get any royalties until the book had shifted 2000 copies, and the author was also obliged to offer Bodley Head her next five novels. That didn't seem to matter as Agatha had no intention of writing another, and had only penned the first one after being challenged to do so by her sister, Madge.

Agatha would have laughed had anyone told her of the long and lucrative literary life ahead of her, and for now it was enough to be a published author...

The Body in the Library

"There are certain cliches belonging to certain kinds of fiction. The bold bad baronet for melodrama, the body in the library for the detective story. For several years I treasured up the possibility of a certain variation on a well know theme. I knew that the library had to be highly  orthodox and conventional. The body, on the other hand, must be widely improbable and highly sensational." Agatha Christie talking about, The Body in the Library.

The Body in the Library was first published in 1942 and was another case for the author's second most popular character, Miss Marple. When the book was published World War II was raging, and Christie, feeling that her readers needed some nostaligia to take their minds off the horrors in each days' newspaper, decided to bring back Miss Marple and set the story around the English seaside - the book was a celebration of the very essence of English life - "Everything we were then fighting to defend with a cryptic crime thrown in for good measure." Agatha Christie

Classic Marple

When the war broke out Christie and her second husband, Max moved from Devon and went back to London so Max could take up a position in the Home Guard. He initially served with the Home Guard before being drafted into the air force and stationed in the Middle East where his knowledge of Arabic would prove indispensable. Christie herself had trained as a dispenser for her war work during the first world war, and so she took up a position at a London University hospital. She missed her husband terribly and during this period threw herself into writing two novels - N or M? and The Body in the Library. The title for The Body in the Library had been with the author for some time and was first mentioned in the Poirot novel, Cards on the Table as one of the novels penned by the fictional writer, Ariadne Oliver, a particular favorite of Poirot.


The book was reviewed favorably with the Times rejoicing that Mrs Marple was back - "Professional detectives are no match for elderly spinsters and their old maid logic."

Miss Marple and her old maid knowledge was just what readers wanted and Agatha Christie had another iconic crime novel on her hands.

Multi Media Murders

The original title was Ten Little Niggers, but the title was changed in the US to Ten Little Indians in 1940  - not because of the racist overtones of the original title, but because the title was derived from antiquated English terminology.  However it was not until many years later that the UK title was changed to, And Then There were None and this was due to the racist overtones. In terms of adaptations in other media the novel stands alongside other Agatha Christie Classics such as The Mousetrap and Death on the Nile.  As a novel it is the author's most successful. It's outsold all other mysteries - more than Conan Doyle, more than Raymond Chandler, more than any other crime novel in history.

It was originally published in November 1939 and  the novel, based on a nursery rhyme, was done as an intellectual challenge for Agatha Christie - the challenge was to kill off ten people on an isolated island without revealing who was the killer until the final few pages.

'It was a difficult book to write. Ten people had to die without it appearing ridiculous or the killer becoming obvious. I was immensely pleased with the finished book. No one but I knew how difficult it was and how much planning it had needed.' Agatha Christie

Christie immediately thought it would make a good stage play but again this was not without difficulty. There was no one left in the story to tell the tale, and so the author realized she would have to change it for the stage. Christie did so by making two of the characters survive the ordeal. However Christie found problems in getting a backer for the play but it was eventually produced by Bertie Mayer and after a short run in Wimbledon, the play opened in the West End of London. It was an immediate success and then went onto have a successful run on Broadway.


Bullet points:
A detective novel without a detective
A genuinely stunning twist in the tale
Characters that are believable

Palpable terror and tension in most scenes
It is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery

I would like to make it clear that although the word, Nigger is definitely racist by today's standards, the novel is most certainly not. The title comes from a nursery rhyme and back in the day the word was perfectly acceptable. It is not used in the book in a racist sense and none of the characters utter any racist words or thoughts.

After it's stage success it was filmed by 20th Century Fox under the direction of Rene Clair. And like the book and play before it the film was a huge hit. Over the years it has enjoyed many successful stage runs, become several successful movies, TV and radio plays and in 2005 it even became a computer game which started a series of PC games based on Christie's works.

The book was set in a modern house on a small island, the absolute last word in luxury - and it was based on the Art Deco Hotel off the South Devon coast which was a favorite haunt of the author.

I recently read the book for the first time - in one mammoth sitting too and all I can say in review is - WOW, no other word in a lexicon of praise can do it justice. In terms of language and style Christie is very straightforward and in terms of pure storytelling she is something I aspire towards.

I have found the original rhyme which Christie based the novel upon hidden away on You Tube and it is embedded below.

The Great Detectives - Miss Marple

The elderly spinster who dabbles as an amateur detective - the only way one  could use such a character in a crime novel these days would be as a parody or homage. The character wasn't exactly fresh when Agatha Christie first presented Miss Jane Marple to her readers in 1930's Murder in the Vicarage, although Christie had already used the character in the short story, The Tuesday Club which was published in 1927 in The Sketch Magazine.

Christie started to think of creating a great female detective after she clashed with stage writer Michael Morton over the stage adaptation of her successful novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Morton had wanted to turn Poirot into a dashing young Frenchman but Christie would have none of it. Christie was however forced to compromise and allow her character of Caroline Shepard to be changed from an insightful old maid who aids Poirot into a bright young thing to allow for a romantic interest. Caroline was Christie's favourite character from her novel and her transformation  for the stage play stung. Christie told friends then that she would create an aged female detective and thus the seeds of Miss Marple were sown in the writers' mind.

Christie was very well read and kept up with the works of her contemporaries - a favourite writer was Dorothy L Sayers and Christie was taken with the character of Miss Climpson an elderly spinster who  aided Sayer's detective, Lord Peter Wimsey in the 1927 novel, Unnatural Death. Christie and Sayers became great friends and when the first Miss Marple novel was published Sayers wrote to Christie saying, 'Dear old Tabbies are the only possible right king of female detectives and Miss M. is lovely.' Sayers later went onto create a detective agency of ageing spinsters set up by Peter Wimsey and Miss Climpson - Climson may have influenced Miss Marple but now the favour had been returned.

Another writer who helped sow the seeds of Marple was Anna Katherine Green, often called the mother of modern detective fiction. Green used a character called Amelia Butterworth in several mystery novels.The writer was a favourite of Christie who wrote of the importance on her own work in her autobiography by stating that Green's works are what started her thinking of becoming a mystery writer in the first place.

However the British tradition of  the literary spinster can be traced back to Miss Burns in Jane Austen's Emma and Betsy Trotwood in Dickens' David Copperfield. There is also Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest who was interestingly brought to the screen in the shape of Margaret Rutherford, the actress most associated with Miss Marple.

Christie used Miss Marple in a dozen novels and several short stories and the character is arguable the most famous female detective in all of crime fiction. A diverse range of actresses have brought the character to the screen and next to Poirot she is Christie most well loved and read character,

A great fictional detective indeed.

 In March 2011 it was reported that The Walt Disney Company had acquired the cinematic rights to the Miss Marple character, and was planning a contemporary adaptation to be set in the United States. It was reported that Jennifer Garner would portray Miss Marple in the new franchise, and that Mark Frost had been hired to write the script for the first film which would give us a younger, more seductive Marple. What Agatha Christie would think of this sexing up of the character would likely be unprintable.

Rebel never without a book: Agatha Christie

The accepted theory of the times was the children shouldn't be taught to read until they were eight years old because, the fashionable opinion was that both eyes and brains would develop better if they were used less during the early years. However the child that was to become crime queen, Agatha Christie amazed her parents by teaching herself to read by the time she reached the age of five.

It was Agatha's nursery nurse who informed Agatha's parents, telling them - 'I'm afraid Ma'am that Agatha can read.'

Apparently whenever a story was read to the young girl, Agatha would then study the books, trying to make sense of the words until she in fact could read. Agatha's mother, Clara whilst pleased with her daughter's display of intelligence restricted reading to the afternoon so as not to tax the young brain. And years later Agatha wrote in her autobiography - 'The book ban had a long lasting effect. Even to this day if I sit down and read a novel after breakfast I have a feeling of guilt.'

Christie is said to be the world's bestselling writer, her books coming third to The Bible and the collected works of Shakespeare and there is a great series currentlty available from Hachette Partworks that enables interested readers to collect the complete works in perfect facsimile editions. The books are identical to the original hardcovers - indeed they are published by Collins who has for many years been the UK publisher of Agatha Christie. Each fortnightly magazine features articles on the specific book as well as features on Christie's life.

I picked up the first issue in the local supermarket and immediately subscribed as the thought of owning the complete set in these facsimile editions appeals to me - not only will they make up a library of some of the best detective fiction ever published but each individual title is a book lovers dream - they are identical in every way to the original hardcover editions - mind you they wouldn't be much good as facsimiles if they weren't.

Each book's dust jacket is a faithful replica of the original first edition cover artwork and also features contemporary advertisements for other Collins Crime Club titles.

Check out the website HERE

Now they're sexing up Agatha Christie

Disney are to produce a new version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, featuring a younger, more streetwise version of the character. Jennifer Garner will take on the role of Miss Jane Marple in what Disney are hoping will be a franchise in the style of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.


The female sleuth, who has always been portrayed by older actresses as a mystery-solving spinster, was expected to be revived as a younger character after Disney made a deal to bring back the franchise.
Christie wrote 12 mystery novels starring Miss Marple, beginning in 1930. The character inspired several motion pictures and a long-running BBC series.

 Instead of the elderly spinster who lives in the English village of St. Mary Mead and solves mysteries as a hobby, the new configuration is for Mark Frost to script a version where Marple is in her 30s or 40s.

The sound of Poirot

Roger Ackroyd is found dead in his room, the door locked from the inside - Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate in this enjoyable BBC Radio adaptation that is available on the BBC 7 homepage for the next three days. Christie fans won't want to miss this.

John Moffatt is the Belgium sleuth