GUILTY AS CHARGED - STEALING FROM THE DETECTIVES

 

Audiobook cover

My own series character, Granny Smith is an amalgamation of varied pop culture detectives - 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 amateur musician of note (pun intended).

Breathtaking! The allotments are supposed to be peaceful and relaxing. However a body appears to have been planted here. Can Granny solve another case? Granny is a senior free spirit who has no qualms speaking her mind. A great character. *****

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 amateur crime buster. 

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around. *****

. 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 hard drinking 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, 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 depiction 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.

It had been a while since I have read the likes of the character Miss Marple from Agatha Christie works. Now Granny Smith has fulfilled that void in my reading life. Granny Smith is not exactly old to be a Granny by heart but irrespective of that, everyone has been calling her Granny. She is a young at heart woman who has a trait to be curious about everything that is happening around her. So when her friend Sheila gets engaged to Nigel, who is younger than her, Granny Smith gets suspicious. The following murder in the town makes Granny even more curious and on she follows the clues of the murder, much to the chagrin of Detective Inspector Miskins.

The story then follows Granny Alice Mary Smith into various stages of the mystery in a humorous but intense way. The book is beautifully written and is a pleasure to read. The Miss Marple references are not only in our mind but the author has given in the book too, calling Granny Smith as “Miss Marple on steroids”

It is a cozy and wonderful murder mystery, the likes of which, I have not read for a long time. Agatha Christie story lovers must catch this book. It brings back many memories of age old murder mystery classics. *****

There are four books in the Granny Smith series:

Granny Smith Investigates

Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs

Granny Smith and The Welsh Connection

Granny Smith: Murder Plot

All are available now.


CLICK HERE

The Granny Smith series are available in all major eBook formats, as well as paperback and 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.

The Rise of the Self Publisher

 

Looking back through the archives of this blog, the reader will discover that I've always supported digital publishing. Right at the beginning, when the Kindle was just one of the eReaders fighting for our hearts, minds and money - 

back in 2011 in fact, in an article entitled, The Times they are a'changing, I wrote, 'It's a new phenomenon and many in the publishing industry believe that the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum - only recently there was a stigma against self publishing, which seemed to be lumped under that dreaded term, Vanity Publishing. These days however things are changing - and rapidly. With the advent of eBooks and the ease in which anyone can publish to a platform like Amazon's Kindle, we are seeing newcomers outselling long established names.'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

And now in 2021 the eBook market has, if not mutured, then at least entered it's troubled teenage years. The Kindle device now dominates the market, although there are other eReaders that have pretty solid user bases. Kobo eReaders for one have a strong following, as does the Nook but for the writer it is the Kindle which is the gold standard. Amazon have the best eBook store out there and for author's hoping to gain an audience it is the Kindle that  offers the best opportunities. Though that is not to say you should ignore the other platforms and it is a good idea when producing your eBook file to create an ePub version alongside the mobi for uploading to marketplaces other than Amazon.


I got into self publishing, though I prefer the term Indie Publishing, back in 2012 when I made the first of the Granny Smith series available to the Kindle and Kobo devices. I'm what you would call a hybrid author - I publish traditionally with Crowood Press and Pen and Sword Books, but I also publish my cozy crime novels under my own own digital publishing house, Red Valley Books.  Sales of the Granny Smith series have been strong with both Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs going top five several times in the Cosy

Crime charts. The first book, Granny Smith Investigates went as high as No 2.

CHECK THEM OUT PEOPLE

Recently I saw the  the publication of the fourth Granny Smith title, Mudrer Plot and in the build up to publication the previous three titles are on offer for the knock down price of 0.99c or equivalent. So now may be a good time for new readers to check out the books.

Now after several years of self publshing - no scrub that and start again - Now after several years of INDIE PUBLISHING I have learned one or two things, and I intend to share these hard learned lessons with readers of the Tainted Archive through a series of articles that goes under the collective  title, Indie Publishing. This article here is an introduction to the series, and I apologise upfront if I mention my Granny Smith series several times in each article...hey, the importance of  self publicity is one of the things you'll learn during this series of articles.

ALSO AVAILABLE The Reluctant Terrorist - Armageddon has never been so much fun

Why not Grab a Granny

Go Grab a Granny

 AUDIBLE AUDIO SAMPLE


The second book in my widely popular Granny Smith series, that's Miss Marple on steroids, is now available as an audiobook  The book is read, though performed is a more descriptive word, by the talented Fiona Thraille. The audiobook can be purchased from Audible and Amazon and following this LINK will bring you to the product page where you can listen to a free sample of the audio.



There are currently four books in the Granny Smiths series, with a fifth coming later this year. The first two Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs are also available in the audio format, with the others due to follow in due time.

So who is Granny Smith? - well, I suppose the series fits most easily in the cosy crime genre, but these are cosies with balls. The books are quite a bit more earthy than standard cosy titles and readers seem to like the character, and the world she inhabits.

Here are a few samples of the reviews.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended!  


The Welsh elements, the humour, the familiar characters and a well-developed plot combine to produce a better than average cozy mystery. What more could you ask for? Apart from the next in the series?

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around.

tunning! Granny is back with a vengeance. Another murder and she is set on solving it. Can she do so without upsetting the police too badly? She is simply a terrific character who isn't afraid of being herself. Regardless of whether it is politically correct to do so. A wonderful humorous read.

Once again the pipe-smoking granny is on a search for the truth after a 'Save our frogs' activist is found very dead, and yet again she leaves no stone unturned, and of course upsets the local constabulary. A great fun read.


 Audiobook sales are booming - have been increasing year on year for the past several years. They are so convenient and these days a lot of people listen to audiobooks on the smartphones  - they are great for long drives, when jogging, or even potting about in the garden. In fact they can be listened to  in any situation you can imagine - with a well concealed pair of earbuds you can even listen while having sex. Now here's  a way to get hold of the red hot Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs audiobook for FREE - Simply head over to Audible and start your free trial, and then select Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs as your first title. 

Granny Smith Q & A

This winter, an all new Granny Smith adventure will be hitting the digital bookshelves, and in order to celebrate the release of the eagerly awaited firth book in the Granny Smith series, the first four titles have been reduced to 0.99c on Amazon for the Kindle versions. This offer will continue until 30th March so why not catch up on Granny Smith now. Get yourself in the loop before the publication of, the new Granny Smith misadventure.

NOTE THIS Q&A IS A REPRINT OF PUBLICITY MATERIAL FROM THE PREVIOUS GRANNY SMITH ADVENTURE, MURDER PLOT

Born in 1965, Gary M. Dobbs (Gary Martin Dobbs) is a British writer and actor. As a writer using the pen name Jack Martin^[1] he is responsible for a string of popular westerns for Robert Hale's Black Horse Western imprint. These include 'Arkansas Smith', 'The Ballad of Delta Rose', and 'The Afterlife of Slim McCord'.
As Gary M. Dobbs he has written the popular series of mysteries featuring the character of Granny Smith - described as Miss Marple on steroids. As an actor Dobbs has appeared (often unaccredited) in many British TV shows, as well as in the films The Reverend^[2] and Risen.^[3] In 2014 Gary wrote the non-fiction historical book, Cardiff and the Valleys in the Great War, published in 2015 by Pen and Sword Books.


Q- So what next for Granny Smith?

A-    Well, of course we have just seen Gerald’s wedding,which changes the Granniverse somewhat.  The next full-length novel will be called Murder Plot and concerns murder and intrigue at the allotments society. It's very nearly ready to go and will see publication at the end of March.

Q-Where did the idea for Granny Smith come from?

A- The back of my brain, likely. I’ve a fondness for classic crime fiction and also the old Ealing comedy movies. I think that the Ealing movies and Agatha Christie, particularly her Miss Marple series are the two biggest influences on the Granny Smith series, but there are other influences that all meld together to form the unique universe of the novels, the Granniverse of you like. I love Tom Sharpe for instance and although my writing maybe more PG Tips than PG Wodehouse I do hope there’s a lot of good humour in the books. M C Beaton’s The Agatha Raisin series are also a major influence. I’m aiming for the sky with Granny Smith, but if I only reach the shithouse roof then at least I tried.

Q – The books usually concern a murder and the subsequent investigation. Does humour have a place amongst such dark themes?

A- The novels would fall loosely into the cozy crime category, so yes there is a murder but this takes place off page and there is very little gore or graphic detail. And of course the characters are all so much larger than life. We know we’re not dealing with a real world murder and all the ramifications resulting from such.  It’s all fantasy as

is our detective the very wonderful Granny Smith. Miss Marple on steroids, indeed. In one of the reviews someone called her, Batman with dentures...I think I like that.

Q- Which character from the Granny Smith books would you most compare yourself to?

A-    Gerald, obviously! But no I think there’s a bit of myself in all the characters. I love the way Granny sees political correctness for what it truly is and I hope I share this trait. Also Gerald’s flamboyance, Arthur’s lust for solitude and Twice’s self importance are swirling around in my DNA.

Q- Granny aged ten years from the original draft of the first novel. Why was this?

A-    It’s true when I first wrote Granny Smith she was in her early Sixties, but I always wanted her to be older. I always thought her early Seventies was the correct age for the character but I was worried that it would be too much of a stretch to imagine all the things she does and so I created her as an extremely fit woman in her Sixties – which is not old by modern standards. Of course I soon realised that this was a mistake and that she had to be an older woman – and so I republished the first novel and aged her. That’s the beauty of electronic publishing in that it is so easy to go back and revise a book that’s already been published. I guess I’ll age Granny into her Eighties over maybe ten books.

Q- So you see the series going on for at least ten books?

A-    And more. Granny’s a fun character to play with and I love the way the world looks through her eyes. I’ve become a fan of series characters in cozy crime and especially enjoy the works of Simon Brett, M. C. Beaton and Lesley Cookman and if these guys can continue to come up with ideas for their characters then I’m sure I can for mine.

Q- You have had some success writing westerns as Jack Martin so isn’t cozy crime a big switch?

A-    Not really. My westerns contain a lot of humour. And I see no reason why a writer is expected to stick to one genre. That doesn’t happen in other fields where creators are free to switch genres whenever the fancy or need takes them. Stephen Spielberg doesn’t only make one kind of movie and The Beatles switched genres from track to track. I write the story that takes over my imagination at any given time and the genre is a secondary issue.

Q- So would you write Erotica?

A-    Good God, no. I find it difficult to type one-handed.

Q- Where can people find out more about your writing?

A-    That’s a convenient question – thank you. Well you can follow me on Twitter @garymartindobbs and I keep a Facebook page under the name Gary Martin Dobbs and then there’s my very active blog, The Tainted Archive which you can find at http://tainted-archive.blogspot.co.uk/ . Oh and Granny has her own Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GrannySmithInvestigates/

Q- Finally where you get your ideas?

A-    Well I do a lot of people watching – well one woman really but the police have told me I’ve got to stop. Where do ideas come from? Anywhere and everywhere – from other books, movies, events in newspapers.

Q- Tell the truth: you made these questions up yourself didn’t you?

A-Yep

           

"The story then follows Granny Alice Mary Smith into various stages of the mystery in a humorous but intense way. The book is beautifully written and is a pleasure to read. The Miss Marple references are not only in our mind but the author has made them too, calling Granny Smith as “Miss Marple on steroids”

It is a cozy and wonderful murder mystery, the likes of which, I have not read for a long time. Agatha Christie story lovers must catch this book. It brings back many memories of age old murder mystery classics." Goodreads five star review for Granny Smith Investigates

Granny Smith: Double the Trouble - The world unfolds before your ears

The Granny Smith series has proven very popular, especially on the Kindle with sales of the back-list remaining strong. There are three full length novels, and one short story in the series and later this year Granny will return in an all new adventure.

Amazon bill the books as cozy crimes, and to some extent they are just this but they are a lot more earthy than the standard cozy crime - the language is often far more fruity than is the norm for the genre, and the situations the senior detective finds herself in would shock anyone expecting nice polite murders in the library, a highly polished dagger between the shoulder blades, the newly created corpse shedding little blood and falling in an orderly position onto the plushly carpeted floor. Nope, that's not really Granny Smith - as the tagline states, It's Miss Marple on steroids.

Last month a new audio-book that collects together the short story, The Welsh Connection and the novel, Murder Plot was published by those nice people at Audible under the title, Double the Trouble. The book is performed by Fiona Thraille, the same voice who has brought the other Granny Smith titles to life with her wonderful interpretation of Granny's world.  Fionna really brings the stories to life and listening to her performance is always a joy.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended! *****

The narrator really brought the characters to life. Great performance, fun and engaging murder mystery. *****

If I won the lottery I would attempt to hire Fiona Thraille to read books to me on a regular basis! I love the non stereotypical characters in this amusing adventure, but Fiona's range of voices and accents brings each character to life, making this audiobook a real pleasure. If I didn't know better I'd believe Ms Thraille grew up in the Welsh valleys! I will definitely be looking out for more books narrated by this talented actor. *****



Audible members can buy the audio now, as well as the other titles in the series. If you're not a member of Audible then you can get any of the Granny Smith titles for free when you sign up for their NO RISK trial. The audio-books can be listened to on computers, tablets, MP3 players, smart phones or on those personal assistant thingies such as Alexa, Google Home and other smart speakers.

How to describe the world of Granny Smith?

Well, imagine Agatha Christie liked to hang out at dogging sites and nine months after a particularly inventive orgy involving Tom Sharpe, Terry Pratchett and an industrial strength tube of Vaseline, a love child was born - that love child would be Granny Smith.

The words above are not mine - they come from a review and made me chuckle. And I'm sure you'll enjoy Granny's adventures too - so why not go get the new Audio-book, Granny Smith: Double the Trouble - not only will you be entertained but you'll also discover the answers to many profound questions. Such as:


Do all dicks tastes like Chicken?
Who was the better lover - Keef Richards or Shakin Stevens?


Discover the answers to these questions and many more in Granny Smith: Double the Trouble - available now at Audible, Apple Books, Amazon and anywhere else that audio-books are sold.

All titles are also available as eBooks and paperbacks.

Go Grab a Granny

 AUDIBLE AUDIO SAMPLE


The second book in my widely popular Granny Smith series, that's Miss Marple on steroids, is now available as an audiobook  The book is read, though performed is a more descriptive word, by the talented Fiona Thraille. The audiobook can be purchased from Audible and Amazon and following this LINK will bring you to the product page where you can listen to a free sample of the audio.



There are currently four books in the Granny Smiths series, with a fifth coming later this year. The first two Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs are also available in the audio format, with the others due to follow in due time.

So who is Granny Smith? - well, I suppose the series fits most easily in the cosy crime genre, but these are cosies with balls. The books are quite a bit more earthy than standard cosy titles and readers seem to like the character, and the world she inhabits.

Here are a few samples of the reviews.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended!  


The Welsh elements, the humour, the familiar characters and a well-developed plot combine to produce a better than average cozy mystery. What more could you ask for? Apart from the next in the series?

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around.

tunning! Granny is back with a vengeance. Another murder and she is set on solving it. Can she do so without upsetting the police too badly? She is simply a terrific character who isn't afraid of being herself. Regardless of whether it is politically correct to do so. A wonderful humorous read.

Once again the pipe-smoking granny is on a search for the truth after a 'Save our frogs' activist is found very dead, and yet again she leaves no stone unturned, and of course upsets the local constabulary. A great fun read.


 Audiobook sales are booming - have been increasing year on year for the past several years. They are so convenient and these days a lot of people listen to audiobooks on the smartphones  - they are great for long drives, when jogging, or even potting about in the garden. In fact they can be listened to  in any situation you can imagine - with a well concealed pair of earbuds you can even listen while having sex. Now here's  a way to get hold of the red hot Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs audiobook for FREE - Simply head over to Audible and start your free trial, and then select Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs as your first title. 

Granny's Raciest Story now available in audiobook

 AUDIBLE AUDIO SAMPLE


The second book in my widely popular Granny Smith series, that's Miss Marple on steroids, is now available as an audiobook  The book is read, though performed is a more descriptive word, by the talented Fiona Thraille. The audiobook can be purchased from Audible and Amazon and following this LINK will bring you to the product page where you can listen to a free sample of the audio.



There are currently four books in the Granny Smiths series, with a fifth coming later this year. The first two Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs are also available in the audio format, with the others due to follow in due time.

So who is Granny Smith? - well, I suppose the series fits most easily in the cosy crime genre, but these are cosies with balls. The books are quite a bit more earthy than standard cosy titles and readers seem to like the character, and the world she inhabits.

Here are a few samples of the reviews.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended!  


The Welsh elements, the humour, the familiar characters and a well-developed plot combine to produce a better than average cozy mystery. What more could you ask for? Apart from the next in the series?

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around.

tunning! Granny is back with a vengeance. Another murder and she is set on solving it. Can she do so without upsetting the police too badly? She is simply a terrific character who isn't afraid of being herself. Regardless of whether it is politically correct to do so. A wonderful humorous read.

Once again the pipe-smoking granny is on a search for the truth after a 'Save our frogs' activist is found very dead, and yet again she leaves no stone unturned, and of course upsets the local constabulary. A great fun read.


 Audiobook sales are booming - have been increasing year on year for the past several years. They are so convenient and these days a lot of people listen to audiobooks on the smartphones  - they are great for long drives, when jogging, or even potting about in the garden. In fact they can be listened to  in any situation you can imagine - with a well concealed pair of earbuds you can even listen while having sex. Now here's  a way to get hold of the red hot Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs audiobook for FREE - Simply head over to Audible and start your free trial, and then select Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs as your first title. 

Listen up

The second book in my widely popular Granny Smith series, that's Miss Marple on steroids, is now available as an audiobook  The book is read, though performed is a more descriptive word, by the talented Fiona Thraille. The audiobook can be purchased from Audible and Amazon and following this LINK will bring you to the product page where you can listen to a free sample of the audio.



There are currently four books in the Granny Smiths series, with a fifth coming later this year. The first two Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs are also available in the audio format, with the others due to follow in due time.

So who is Granny Smith? - well, I suppose the series fits most easily in the cosy crime genre, but these are cosies with balls. The books are quite a bit more earthy than standard cosy titles and readers seem to like the character, and the world she inhabits.

Here are a few samples of the reviews.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended!  


The Welsh elements, the humour, the familiar characters and a well-developed plot combine to produce a better than average cozy mystery. What more could you ask for? Apart from the next in the series?

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around.

tunning! Granny is back with a vengeance. Another murder and she is set on solving it. Can she do so without upsetting the police too badly? She is simply a terrific character who isn't afraid of being herself. Regardless of whether it is politically correct to do so. A wonderful humorous read.

Once again the pipe-smoking granny is on a search for the truth after a 'Save our frogs' activist is found very dead, and yet again she leaves no stone unturned, and of course upsets the local constabulary. A great fun read.


 Audiobook sales are booming - have been increasing year on year for the past several years. They are so convenient and these days a lot of people listen to audiobooks on the smartphones  - they are great for long drives, when jogging, or even potting about in the garden. In fact they can be listened to  in any situation you can imagine - with a well concealed pair of earbuds you can even listen while having sex. Now here's  a way to get hold of the red hot Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs audiobook for FREE - Simply head over to Audible and start your free trial, and then select Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs as your first title. 

She's back - larger than life and pushing against political correctness.

The second book in my widely popular Granny Smith series, that's Miss Marple on steroids, is now available as an audiobook  The book is read, though performed is a more descriptive word, by the talented Fiona Thraille. The audiobook can be purchased from Audible and Amazon and following this LINK will bring you to the product page where you can listen to a free sample of the audio.

There are currently four books in the Granny Smiths series, with a fifth coming later this year. The first two Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs are also available in the audio format, with the others due to follow in due time.

So who is Granny Smith? - well, I suppose the series fits most easily in the cosy crime genre, but these are cosies with balls. The books are quite a bit more earthy than standard cosy titles and readers seem to like the character, and the world she inhabits.

Here are a few samples of the reviews.

I knew from the first few minutes that I was going to enjoy this audiobook and I was right. The dry (yet sassy) humour was spot on and the narration was perfectly matched to the tone of the story. Highly recommended!  


The Welsh elements, the humour, the familiar characters and a well-developed plot combine to produce a better than average cozy mystery. What more could you ask for? Apart from the next in the series?

Wonderful! Reminds me of my mother. An outspoken, senior rebel who seeks to clear up the mystery she finds herself in. A simply delightful character who had me chuckling whilst she dealt with the clues surrounding her. An example of the best cozies around.

tunning! Granny is back with a vengeance. Another murder and she is set on solving it. Can she do so without upsetting the police too badly? She is simply a terrific character who isn't afraid of being herself. Regardless of whether it is politically correct to do so. A wonderful humorous read.

Once again the pipe-smoking granny is on a search for the truth after a 'Save our frogs' activist is found very dead, and yet again she leaves no stone unturned, and of course upsets the local constabulary. A great fun read.


 Audiobook sales are booming - have been increasing year on year for the past several years. They are so convenient and these days a lot of people listen to audiobooks on the smartphones  - they are great for long drives, when jogging, or even potting about in the garden. In fact they can be listened to  in any situation you can imagine - with a well concealed pair of earbuds you can even listen while having sex. Now here's  a way to get hold of the red hot Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs audiobook for FREE - Simply head over to Audible and start your free trial, and then select Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs as your first title. 

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.