Letters from the Dead A Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery #7

Telling the Story

It is often a challenge to find new ways for JT to uncover the past. As a genealogist, he uses all the records at his disposal, and this time I thought the inclusion of old letters, often a rich genealogical resource in themselves, would be a particularly good way to slowly peel back the layers of the story JT is trying to unravel.

At the same time, I wanted to have a go at writing a proper whodunnit murder mystery. Most of my books can be described as murder mysteries to some extent, but believe it or not, seven books into the series and this is the first time I intentionally set out to write one, with all the suspects gathered before the reader in the more traditional murder mystery sense.

Letters from the Dead
A Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery #7

Inspiration

I did not have to look far for the inspiration to write Letters from the Dead, because the desire to write about colonial India had already been with me for several years before I actually began to write this book. I think my passion for the time period and location can largely be attributed to the great sense of adventure it has always instilled in me, which is something I hope I’ve managed to capture in the book.

In the past narrative the story unfolds through the viewpoint of a woman called Jane Hardwick, and is drawn from her letters home from Jaipur to her brother in England in the 1820s. For the present-day narrative, Scotland quickly became an obvious choice. I had already decided to take Jefferson Tayte’s adventures to other parts of the British Isles, and as so many of Scotland’s second sons went off to seek their fortune and make a name for themselves--primogeniture dictating that only first-born sons would inherit their father’s estate--I quickly found that Scotland fitted right in when it came to creating the sense of adventure I was looking for.

Research

As with all my Jefferson Tayte books, I’ve found the research for Letters from the Dead fascinating, particularly for the past narrative during the time of the Honourable East India Company. When I started writing the book, I had no idea how long it took a letter to travel from India to England and vice-versa, and I was very surprised by what I discovered. We really do take communication for granted these days. Imagine waiting a year or so to get a reply to a letter you’ve just posted. It’s unthinkable today, and yet it was the norm when mail had to travel by land on carts and by sea on steamships.

I find colonial India in general utterly fascinating: the wars and the alliances, the continual state of unrest and the political sensitivity, the extreme poverty juxtaposed by enormous wealth. The whole time period was a boiling pot, just waiting to explode.

‘A centuries-old tale of greed, murder and forbidden love.’

Above is the Rajmahal Palace in Jaipur, much as it would have appeared during the time the story is set. Today it is a fine hotel, but during the 1820s it was taken over as a British residency building, home to the resident at Jaipur, who is another key character you’ll meet in the book. If your genealogical research has already taken you to British India, you’ll no doubt already be aware of the FIBIS organisation - the Families In British India Society. If not, I highly recommend you take a look. Here’s a LINK.

I hope you find the history of the time as interesting as I have, and above all, of course, I very much hope you enjoy the story it all combines to tell.

From the wilds of the Scottish Highlands to the colour and heat of colonial India...