If you like history – and mysteries like Phryne Fisher, Miss Marple, Midsomer…. You might like Lendorph & la Cour. It’s sort of that kind of feel. But with true crime as the main course.
Most of the stories are real crimes with actual, real crims. From 1910. I’ve made up main characters with friends and families to put it all together and make some likeable people who can do my bidding. The real ones, well they’re real,so there are limits to how much I can fiddle – or want to.
I know, I need a vacation from the news, and what’s easier than a trip to the past? Safe too – you know what happened next. So if you like cosy mysteries and some real stories from the past – this is for you.
I wanted a female lead – independent and fierce and preferable wealthy, so she can engage in whatever I come up with without me having to explain how she can afford it. I made her a journalist as a perfect excuse for her being nosy while not in the police. There were no female officers in Denmark in 1910. And no, she is in not my alter ego. We have the same taste in art but that’s about it.
And Christian? He had to be the policeman as I had decided to use real cases and – well, you need one of those in a crimestory. And like this? Because I was utterly fed up with frustrated, women-fearing, chubby, alcoholic, chainsmoking middle-age chappies marinated in frustration and at odds with their boss. So I had a go at the opposite. And I made him a ballet dancer because to dance you need stamina, willpower, elegance, being able to relate to and read people, have one hell of a pain-threshold and a memory like an elephant – most of which is often related to intelligence as well. Not bad qualities in a police officer especially a detective. Ok, elegance not required, but all the rest of it. I wanted a leading man that was different. So I made one.
Because the stories are a mix of fact and fiction, there is – of course – a chapter called Fact and Fiction to tell you what’s what. And maybe tell a bit about what happened next. I am a historian after all. In fact the whole thing started out as concept for a tv series, so when I started writing I knew my main characters very well – and had enough enough crimes to last a couple of years episodes. Or books…
I know, I need a vacation from the news, and what’s easier than a trip to the past? Safe too – you know what happened next. So if you like cosy mysteries and some real stories from the past – this is for you.