Leonora Nattrass & A.J. West in conversation with Jake Kerridge - Traf Sq

Join bestselling authors Leonora Nattrass and AJ West, in conversation with Jake Kerridge, to discuss their latest books - pair of thrilling historical crime novels based on real-life skulduggery.

Scarlet Town:

Loosely based on the real-life Helston election of 1790, this sequel to 2021's critically acclaimed Black Drop and 2022's bestselling Blue Water, finds reluctant sleuth Laurence Jago in his native Cornwall ensnared in generations of bad blood, petty rivalries and a deadly election.

The Spirit Engineer:

Based on the true story of Professor William Jackson Crawford and famed medium Kathleen Goligher, and with a cast of characters including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, The Spirit Engineer conjures a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia and one ultimate, inescapable truth.

Leonora Nattrass lectured on the literature and politics of the 18th century for almost ten years before running away to Cornwall, where she now lives in a seventeenth-century house with seventeenth-century draughts and knits the wool of her small flock of Ryeland sheep into elaborate jumpers. Her first novel Black Drop was a Times Book of the Year and her second Blue Water was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

A.J. West was born in Buckinghamshire and studied English Literature at university in Preston, Lancashire before graduating to become a radio and television producer, news presenter and journalist at the BBC in London and Northern Ireland, where his fascination with William Jackson Crawford’s story began. After a characteristically strange twist in events he became a television personality before embarking on a new career as a PR and communications director. During this time, he has written for national newspapers and appeared on network current affairs programmes on radio and television. AJ's second novel, publishing June 2024, will tell a story of adventure and peril in the hidden world of London's underground Molly culture, where gay men face a choice between love and the noose.