Georgette Heyer

🎭 Did you know the Queen of Regency Romance was also a master of murder mysteries? Join me as we explore Georgette Heyer's lesser-known but equally interesting career as a crime writer.

🏰 Heyer’s mysteries usually revolved around country house murders with police sleuths, Superintendent Hannasyde and Inspector Hemingway. 

⭐️ Whether you're a fan of her Regency romances or new to Heyer, you'll discover why her twelve mystery novels still intrigue fans today.

Where to start with Georgette Heyer’s books:

One of my favorites is Footsteps in the Dark, which has a fun, breezy tone and lots of gothic and thriller elements as well as a murder mystery. 

For more classic whodunits, check out my books in print, audio, or ebook: 

High Society Lady Detective series 

1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt series

Sources: 

https://www.officialgeorgetteheyer.com/books/

https://cozy-mystery.com/georgette-heyer.html

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11343817-georgette-heyer-mystery-collection

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/55450-the-reclusive-author-who-only-gave-one-interview.html

https://interestingliterature.com/2016/05/five-fascinating-facts-about-georgette-heyer/

🕵️‍♀️ 📦 Cozy Books Corner Subscription Box (affiliate code), a book box curated for cozy mystery readers.

➡️ Use code SaraR5 and get 15% off! ⬅️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Author Sarah Rosette. This is Season 6, Episode 5, and it's all about Georgia Hare. Now we're continuing the series looking at authors from the Golden Age of Mystery, and this author may be someone that you don't know as well as some other names that are mentioned. Georgia Hare is better known for her Regency romances. Overall, she wrote 54 books, and that included Regency romances, historical novels, mysteries, as well as some short stories. Her Regency romances are very well known, but she also wrote 12 mystery novels, which were published between 1932 and 1953. So let me give you a little background about Georgette Hare. She was born in 1902, and her father was a scholar who encouraged her in her writing. Her first book was called The Black Moth, and it was written when she was 17, and it was published when she was 19. So she wrote it to entertain her younger brother who had hemophilia. And according to one article I read, she sometimes used a quill pen to write. Now I don't know how long that lasted. Once she got to where she was pretty prolific, I have a feeling she switched to a typewriter. In 1925, she married a mining engineer who later became a barrister, and they worked sometimes together, tossing ideas around, it sounded like, for her mystery plots. And I'm sure that was very helpful because when you're writing a mystery, you always have legal questions. So I'm sure that was a good source to have. Now, Hare was intensely private. She didn't do public appearances or interviews. Really, she only did one interview her whole life. And the prerequisite for it was that there would be no questions about her books. So I read an article about this in Publishers Weekly, and it said she welcomed the reporter to her home, made her a martini, and they talked about books and films and other artistic endeavors, but never about her books or her writing, which is so interesting because it's completely opposite from what most authors do today, including myself. I'm willing to do interviews. But I just think that's very interesting that she would not talk about her books with anyone. She was really not interested in doing publicity. She was very private. And apparently she was only interested in answering fan mail that asked historical questions, questions about historical details, or had some interesting points to make. One of the articles I read said that she didn't seem to know how to respond to people who gushed about her books. So she just didn't answer those letters, which I think is pretty funny. Now, let's talk about her mysteries. Her first mystery was called Footsteps in the Dark, and it was published in 1932. She wrote it to show that she could write something else besides historical romances. Her mysteries often are set in a country house. They have a lot of humor in them normally. So she has two different detectives. She has a superintendent, a police detective who's a superintendent, and a police detective who's an inspector. And each of these characters have four books, and then she has some standalone mysteries. I wouldn't say that I've read most of these and I don't have any um super memorable impressions of the of the investigators, but I do have vivid memories of the characters and the settings and very interesting plots and clues. So she was very good at bringing everything together. I w I would say her detectives are not as memorable as some of the other golden age authors, but the setting itself and sort of the comedy of manners incorporated with the mystery element is very interesting. Now, this is a little bit shorter episode because there's not a whole lot of information about her, um, probably because she was so intensely private. But I do want to close with this quote. This is she said this about one of her books that came out during World War II, and she said, I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's unquestionably good escapist literature, and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from the flu. So I love that quote because it shows that some entertainment is meant to help us to escape, and that is perfectly fine. That is an end in itself. Not everything has to be super serious, super highbrow. Not everything has to have incredibly deep meanings. I think things that have themes and explorations of interesting topics are valuable, and I think that that can be found in lighter literature as well, but it's okay, and we shouldn't ever apologize for a really good book that just helps us get away from our everyday life. If you're new to Georgette Hare, where should you start? I would recommend one of my favorites, Footsteps in the Dark. It's got a fun, really breezy light tone. It has some gothic and thriller elements as well as a murder mystery, and it's very entertaining. I hope this podcast has given you some new possibilities for your to be read pile. And if you've enjoyed it, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader. If you can't get enough of the 1920s Who Done It, check out my High Society Lady Detective series in ebook, audio, or print at zara rosettebooks.com. And I will see you next time. Happy sleuthing.