Moving Between Cultures & Classes - CRA July 2024

Growing up in Portsmouth, I learned about the history of ordinary people from a young age. Although the excellent Mary Rose Museum was yet to be built, the sailors who conducted tours around HMS Victory recounted the horrors of floggings, weevil biscuits and anaesthetic-free surgery. Despite his elevated position in Trafalgar Square, Horatio Nelson came from lowly origins. His sailors were press-ganged from nearby Portsea streets, where my paternal grandparents grew up.

After joining the Marines and serving in both world wars, my grandfather could only find unskilled work. Struggling to feed his nine children, he sought apprenticeships for those who survived to adulthood, through which my father, the youngest, found relative prosperity in the Ministry of Defence.

As I learnt more about my family’s history, and ordinary people in previous centuries, I admired their bravery and resilience. When I started writing historical crime fiction, I wanted to include their everyday pre-occupations and aspirations, not just those of royalty and nobles at court.

From these strands, the fictitious young Alexander Baxby and his friends were ‘born’, in the Tudor/Stuart generations who lived through seismic change. With increased literacy and access to printed publications, many broke free from earlier constraints to find respectability and economic security in the emerging middle class.

In 1600, Baxby proves his potential by removing the soldier John Crackleton’s injured foot at the Battle of Nieuwpoort, enabling his patron Geoffrey to arrange for him to train as a physician in Lincoln. Having formed a close bond, Baxby vows to help Crackleton discover how his wife Catherine died in suspicious circumstances in the city.

As he starts his apprenticeship, the young man struggles to adapt to Lincoln life. He is incensed when wealthier locals will not answer his questions about Catherine. What are they hiding? What are they afraid of?

He grows increasingly nervous when called to a grisly murder scene, then more nervous still when Geoffrey introduces him to politics at court. But as he battles ‘demons’, within and without, Baxby never forgets his promise to his friend. His loyalties will be tested, but the mystery of Catherine’s death must be solved. 

Modern psychology diagnoses anxiety, post-traumatic stress and imposter syndromes now. Nevertheless, anyone who moves between cultures and classes, may recognise the challenges Baxby faced.

Read more about Karen and her books here