A Cluefinder for Gallows Court

When I wrote Gallows Court, I imagined it was going to be a one-off. I wasn't confident the book would find a publisher, because it's so very different from my previous novels. The storyline was not only not planned in advance to any extent, it was not only complex but also - and this was deliberate, because it seemed artistically 'right' if unlikely to be commercial - highly melodramatic. A thriller, really, rather than a whodunit. To my delight, the book found favour, and I was offered a two-book deal. When I came to write book two, Mortmain Hall, I decided to write a Gothic take on the classic detective story, with clues and red herrings galore. So it seemed like a fun idea to include at the end a Cluefinder.

At that time the Cluefinder was forgotten. This is a device that enjoyed a hey-day in the late Twenties and Thirties, and C. Daly King created some extremely elaborate Cluefinders which I've long admired, but it had fallen out of fashion after the Second World War. To my delight, readers responded to the Cluefinder with great enthusiasm. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the next three Rachel Savernake books have included Cluefinders by popular demand. And a Cluefinder will also play a key part in Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Unexpectedly, but much to my delight, both my agent and my publisher have been urging me to come up with a Cluefinder for Gallows Court. The paperback is due to be reprinted shortly, so now was the time to see whether it was viable. I was unsure, because Gallows Court is written differently from the later books in the series; in many ways, it's more of a thriller with plot twists than a detective story.

I've therefore been reading Gallows Court again, for the first time since it was published. I don't often reread my books, mainly because I'm instinctively self-critical and I know I'll feel the urge to make changes to them. But to my relief and, if I'm honest, surprise, I really enjoyed the experience. It's a better book than I remembered! And I'm very pleased to say that I discovered that the rereading resulted in my being able to devise a Cluefinder. So the next printing of Gallows Court in the UK will indeed be a revised version!