Anna Penrose
Anna Penrose is the pen name Liz Hurley writes crime under. The books are published by Mudlark's Press, the imprint she runs from Mevagissey in Cornwall.
The Golden Murders
Malachite Peck was a City banker until it all went wrong in public. Now she's in Golden, a Cornish fishing village that looks like a postcard and behaves like nothing of the sort.
Mal is not a cosy sleuth. She's abrasive, clever, frequently the least popular person in the room, and very hard to lie to. The plotting is traditional whodunnit — clues laid fairly, solvable if you're paying attention — but the tone has considerably more edge than the village-mystery shelf usually allows.
The series has been shortlisted for the Holyer an Gof Publishers' Awards.
Each book solves its own case, so you can pick one up cold. Mal's own story runs across all three, though, so they're better in order.
The first three are available together as a box set, signed or unsigned.
Is it cosy crime?
Sort of, and not really. If you want the shape of a classic village mystery — a closed circle of suspects, a fairly clued solution, a recurring cast — you'll find it. If you want the gentleness that usually comes with it, you won't. Nobody in Golden is baking anything.
Readers who like Agatha Christie's construction but want a sharper narrator tend to get on with these.
There's a free sample of The Body in the Wall if you'd like to try the voice first.
About the pen name
Anna Penrose is one of three names Liz Hurley publishes under. She writes science fiction and urban fantasy as Eva St John, and women's fiction and Cornwall walking guides under her own name. Same person, same press, different shelves.