The #MysteryNovember Book Tour Day 26 Jacqueline Jacques @jacqjacq70

Welcome to day 26 of the #MysteryNovember Book Tour

Our guest today is Jacqueline Jacques and her book The Illusion Of Innocence

Three people on a crowded train, brought there by the same crime.  Archie Price, painter and police artist, blessed with a photographic memory, is travelling to Chelmsford to testify in a murder trial.

The accused, Freddie Porter, is under police escort in the guard’s van. Freddie’s sister, Polly, is desperately trying to escape her brother’s gang before they realise what she’s done, unaware he’s on the same train. When the locomotive is derailed, Archie and Polly are injured and put up by the same local family while they recover.  Where is Freddie? Polly is so terrified she is drawn to desperate measures and Archie finds himself drawn into her nightmare.

Where is your home town?

I live in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, though I was born in Wales (TyCroes, Anglesey).

What do you like about writing in the mystery genre?

I have only lately come to writing mysteries – (‘The Illusion of Innocence’ is my seventh published book) – and am finding it a new and exciting genre.  I like the structure, the laying down of clues, the thrills and spills, the nuances of character that can lead to unexpected actions, the building of suspense, and the final revelations and denouements.

What sub-genre of mystery does your book fit?

The Archie Price novels are set at the turn of the nineteenth century (au fin de siècle).

Where is your book set?

My first mystery novel, ‘The Colours of Corruption’ was set In and around London’s East End, centring on gangsters and an ancient tunnel under Walthamstow High Street, a criminal ‘rat-run’.  ‘The Illusion of Innocence’, out next month, continues Archie’s brushes with criminals, and takes us as further afield to the Essex countryside and rural communities.

Can you introduce us to the main characters?

Main characters: Archie Price is a tall, well-built young man who came to England as an art student from Wales. His parents run a butcher’s shop in Llantwit Major.  He lives and paints above a greengrocer’s in Walthamstow’s High Street and is trying to make his way in the world of art, painting to commission and augmenting a lowly income with the local police by drawing suspects from witnesses’ descriptions.

At the start of the story Polly Porter is a slightly built, rather dowdy photographer who has her own shop in the High Street.  She is hard-working and intensely interested in the Suffragist movement.  Events force her to conceal her true identity.

Freddie was taken in off the streets as a small child and apprenticed to Polly’s father as a photographer.  However, he leans more towards his original calling, that of cat-burglar, and owes allegiance to the gang-master in the slums, Tuddy Skinner.  He received an education in the Porters’ care but has never outgrown his violent and abusive childhood.

Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?

Readers can find out more about me at www.jacquelinejacques.com and on Facebook.

I have an author page on Amazon. co.uk.

Where can readers find your book?

Purchasing links are:

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illusion-Innocence-Archie-Victorian-Thriller/dp/1909983373

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Innocence-Jacqueline-Jacques-ebook/dp/B016USYOU2/

 

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27289672-the-illusion-of-innocence