The dust has settled after the arrest of DCI Mackie's killer and Lesley has been told to make a few changes. She's got two DIs to manage, including one she's clashed with in the past, and is overseeing the return of a colleague who left Dorset under a cloud.
Just as she's starting to get to grips with it all, a body is found in Poole Harbour. Is it Jackie Kendal, who went missing a year ago, or Rowena Sharp, who mysteriously vanished after leaving her baby alone in a Sandbanks hotel in 1973?
Establishing the body's identity, and therefore whose case this will be, will require Lesley's investigatory skills and, more challenging, all of her tact and diplomacy.
The Poole Harbour Murders heralds the return of the much-loved DCI Lesley Clarke and her Dorset team in the award-winning series that's sold over a million copies.
Collection: Dorset Crime Book 10 - The Poole Harbour Murders
Lesley’s back!
When I originally planned the Dorset Crime series, my intention was to write six books.
I had six locations in mind and, in May 2021, six days in Dorset to research them. Writing now in the summer of 2024, I can't remember which six locations they were, or more accurately which three of the nine locations that found their way into the first nine books I didn't plan to include. Maybe I intended to include more locations in each book.
But what I do know is that book 1 was always going to be set at Corfe Castle. And the final book in the series would be in Tyneham, which to my mind is the perfect place to dump a body, as it were.
What I didn't know at that point was that it would take seven interim books to get from Corfe Castle to Tyneham, not four.
But around the time I was writing book 4, The Monument Murders, it became clear that there was just too much story to be able to cram it into two more books.
I was deep into Elsa's storyline and not yet sure exactly how tangled up she would be in the affairs of Arthur Kelvin and his awful family. And Lesley was only just starting to get to grips with her unofficial investigation into DCI Mackie's death.
The truth was, I needed more space. Which meant more books. And so Lesley and her team spent time at Sandbanks (The Millionaire Murders), Lyme Regis (The Fossil Beach Murders), Blue Pool (The Blue Pool Murders), and Portland Bill (The Lighthouse Murders), before finally finding themself at Tyneham for the culmination of the story.
Nine books. At the time, I thought that was enough. Lesley's investigation was concluded, justice was done, and she even had a happy ending personally.
I moved on. I started writing the Cumbria Crime series with Joel Hames, and loved being back with DI Zoe Finch. I wrote the London Cosy Mysteries series with Millie Ravensworth, which was huge fun. And I continued writing Petra McBride (and the lovely DS Mo Uddin) in the McBride and Tanner series.
But I missed Dorset. And it became clear that readers were missing Lesley. Every time I did an author event, I was asked the same question.
‘Are you going to write any more books in Dorset?’
And the truth was, I wanted to.
So I started to make plans for a spinoff series, investigating cold cases. A bit like the TV show Unforgotten(who doesn't love a crime show with Nicola Walker?). I even planted seeds in The Ghost Village Murders, with Meera and Jill talking about Jill being interviewed for a job overseeing a new cold case team.
So the plan was in place. A new spinoff series, with Jill as the main detective and Lesley as her boss, taking on a similar role to the one she had in the Zoe Finch books.
I spent months mulling over storylines, and titles for the books. I identified locations, and themes. I made character notes and built up a new team.
But then it occurred to me. It's DCI Lesley Clarke we were all missing, not DI Jill Scott.
Jill will be great, I know. She's going to be a no-nonsense SIO who some of the team take a while to warm to, with a fascination for local history and a nose for sniffing out clues.
But she's not Lesley.
So then I rethought.
Why not return to the Dorset Crime series, with Lesley heading up not one but two units? The new cold case unit with Jill leading it, and the familiar MCIT with another familiar face leading it... someone Lesley's not so keen on.
And so the idea for the second phase of the Dorset Crime series was born.
The Poole Harbour Murders is the first of these and the tenth in the series. It will pick up some time after we last saw Lesley and the team in Tyneham, and introduce some new characters.
And there will be eight more books to follow it, making a total of 18 in the series. We'll be taken to new locations in Dorset, including Shaftesbury, Hengistbury Head, the Cerne Abbas Giant and more.
I really hope you enjoy reading them as much as I'm enjoying writing them.
