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Today, I am chatting with Val Penny about Murder in the Braids, the fifth novel in her Detective Hunter Wilson Mystery series.
This time, Hunter’s latest investigation has an unsettling connection to his own past, when events in the present bring back memories of something he witnessed as a teenager. Set once again against the beautiful backdrop of Edinburgh, Murder in the Braids combines a present-day mystery with questions that have remained unanswered for decades.
Val joins me today to talk about returning to Hunter’s childhood, the inspiration behind the novel’s intriguing mystery, and what it is like to continue developing a detective readers have now followed through five books.
But first, let's check out Murder in the Braids
Publisher: Joffe Books
Print Length: 290 Pages
Genre: Crime / Thriller
wo missing bodies. Thirty years apart. One killer who thought they’d buried the truth forever.
Two weeks before Christmas. Two off-duty detectives out running through the wooded Hermitage of Braid on the outskirts of Edinburgh find a man bleeding to death beside the icy Braid Burn.
They race for help but when they come back, the body has gone.
No corpse. No name. Just a pool of blood freezing into the snow.
Detective Hunter Wilson has seen this before. As a boy of fifteen, he and his brother stumbled on a murdered stranger in those same woods. That body vanished too. That case was never solved.
Now the past has clawed its way back to the surface. Someone has spent a lifetime making sure certain victims are never found.
And they’ll kill again to keep the truth buried.
Murder in the Braids gives Hunter Wilson a case with a very personal connection, taking him back to a disturbing discovery he made when he was just fifteen. What inspired you to reach into Hunter's childhood for this particular mystery?
Hunter’s family has been shown as important to him throughout the series and in Murder in the Braids I wanted to emphasise the importance of his childhood memories and family connections. It also allowed me to show that some forms of prejudice were alive in the past and still are now.
The idea of two bodies disappearing from the same woods thirty years apart is wonderfully unsettling. Did that central mystery come to you first, or did Hunter's childhood experience lead you towards the idea of history repeating itself?
The use of the woods around the Braid Burn developed first. It is a beautiful, peaceful area in the centre of Edinburgh where I used to walk with my kids when they were younger. To make the story mysterious, I then developed the idea that this had happened previously and wove Hunter’s childhood experience into the tale.
By Book 5, readers have spent considerable time getting to know Hunter as both a detective and a man. How does confronting an unsolved event from his youth allow us to see a different side of him?
For me, this book allowed Hunter to show his vulnerabilities. These extend not only to the flash backs he has to the unsolved case from his youth, but also to his feelings for his girlfriend Meera.
The Hermitage of Braid provides an atmospheric setting for the novel, particularly with the story unfolding in the depths of winter. What made this part of Edinburgh the right location for such a dark mystery?
The Hermitage of Braid is a part of the city where Tim, Bear and even Jane have gone running in previous stories. It is also a lovely, peaceful part of the city, therefore it seemed like a perfect foil for an unexplained puzzle.
One of the intriguing elements of the story is the absence of a body. In both the past and present, Hunter knows what was seen, but the physical evidence disappears. What challenges did this create when constructing the investigation?
The disappearing bodies were fun to write. But I’m glad I plotted this book carefully before I started writing it, because I had to make the recovery of the evidence both exciting but also realistic.
The novel explores the idea that secrets can remain buried for decades but never entirely disappear. What interested you about examining the consequences of something concealed for so long?
I believe everybody has secrets, some of which we choose to take to the grave. However there are other secrets that some attempt to smother but eventually they erupt and the truth will out. That mystery and excitement has to carry the story in this novel forward.
Hunter has a very strong sense of right and wrong, something you attribute partly to his upbringing as a minister's son. Does a case that reaches back into his own childhood test that sense of justice differently from the investigations he usually encounters?
In this book the reader becomes indignant on behalf of Hunter and his brother, Fraser when they are belittled and disbelieved by Peter Myerscough. This attitude reflects the way Sir Peter treated the adult Hunter in the very first book, so it really doesn’t matter where readers start, the characters retain their individuality throughout the series. Hunter’s father stood up to the policeman when his boys were young but Hunter felt dismissed by authority then and is determined that authority will not let the victims down again.
Edinburgh has become an integral part of the Detective Hunter Wilson Mysteries, with its beauty often contrasting sharply with the crimes Hunter investigates. How important is that contrast to the atmosphere of the series?
It’s true, Edinburgh has become an additional character in the Hunter books and it is a beautiful city. That makes it easy to lighten a dark or gruesome scene with a reference to an area of the city.
The investigation forces Hunter to reconsider something he witnessed as a teenager through the eyes of an experienced detective. How interesting was it to explore the difference between what fifteen-year-old Hunter understood at the time and what the older Hunter can recognise now?
That passage of time provided a fascinating juxtaposition. It allowed me to let the reader experience the protection and loyalty Hunter’s father afforded him when he was young and the loyalty and determination Hunter showed towards the victims and his team as a senior police officer. As a child, the young Hunter saw what he expected to see, it is only as an adult that he can interpret what is in front of him and get justice for the victims, past and present.
Five books into the series, Hunter has accumulated relationships, experiences, and personal complications alongside his professional cases. What do you most enjoy about writing a recurring detective whose life continues to develop from one novel to the next?
I enjoy that I can trust Hunter and the members of his team. I know how they will react in any given circumstance. So, in order to keep the readers guessing, I need to devise different and wicked crimes for Hunter to solve.
A huge thank you to Val Penny for joining me today and taking us behind the scenes of Murder in the Braids.
One of the pleasures of a long-running mystery series is discovering more about the characters we thought we already knew, and this novel certainly sounds as though it gives readers an opportunity to see another side of Hunter Wilson. With a mystery stretching across decades and Edinburgh once again providing the setting, there is plenty here to tempt both established fans and readers discovering Hunter for the first time.
If you enjoy character-driven crime fiction, intriguing mysteries and a strong sense of place, then Murder in the Braids is one to add to your reading list.
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See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx