London Hot Spots
Art in And By Fire: Wooden Boat with Seven People
Art plays a key role in And by Fire. The killers in each of the novel’s two plotlines may be separated by centuries, but they are united in their passion for creating art and in their belief that art justifies not only self-sacrifice but the sacrifice of others—a line that most creatives, including this novelist,…
Read MoreVIDEO: Standing in the Spot Where It Happened–Site of the Opening Scene in AND BY FIRE
I am one lucky author! Actually I got TWO times lucky with my narrator! First of all the very talented Lillian Rachel gave me shivers with her characterizations in the audiobook version of And by Fire (also available on CD from Dreamscape). Then, in are real “cherry on top” move, she made a pilgrimage to Sir…
Read MorePoint of Ignition: Where the Great Fire of London REALLY Started
For precisely 350 years, everyone in England believed that Pudding Lane was THE London hotspot—the place, on the property of Thomas Farriner’s bakery, that the Great Fire of London sparked. Then a historian and House of Commons Clerk said nope, not so. Yes, the Great Fire began—as generations of British school children had learned—on the…
Read MoreA Flat with a View: Ni’s place in Bankside
In And by Fire DI Nigella Parker enjoys a posh lifestyle. Not, to be clear, on her salary from the City Police of London (I am writing fiction, not fantasy), but because she comes from a wealthy, Oxbridge educated family. Central to her daily life is a flat in Bankside purchased with money inherited from…
Read MoreSir Christopher Wren’s Stamp on a NEW London
In 1666 when London caught fire, Christopher Wren wasn’t the city’s most famous architect—not by a long shot. Just thirty-three years old, Wren was considered an amateur in the field, albeit a passionate one. His actual job was as a Professor of Astronomy at Oxford (where he’d also been commissioned to design and build a…
Read MoreHelping London Rise Again . . . Allegorically
While London’s Monument to the Great Fire is, as a whole, splendid, its most significant artistic element is Caius Gabriel Cibber’s stunning bas-relief stone panel on its West face. So lets have a closer look (see, told you in my Monument Post that I’d get back to it). Cibber’s carving is allegorical, depicting post-Great-Fire London…
Read MoreLondon “Hot Spots”—Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to The Great Fire of London
In And By Fire Detectives Nigella Parker and Colm O’Leary race through London tracking a murderous arsonist who makes sculptures using burnt flesh along with burnt wood. You may not be able to hop a plane or train to follow in my DI’s footsteps, but in a string of posts I am calling “London Hots…
Read More