Ann Crew's Blog

After a glitch when trying to publish the paperback edition of this book, it finally is available through amazon.com and its other amazon sites. Sorry about the delay.

My next book, A Danger in Dublin, will probably be coming out in the late spring of next year. I’m working on to now. I can’t believe it, this will be the fifteenth book in the Elspeth Duff mystery series. When I first began writing about Elspeth, I never thought there would be so many books, but Elspeth and Richard have become very important people in my life. :-)

My latest mystery, A Tangle on Loch Tay, was just published and is available for purchase on my website or at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other amazon sites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it.

Here is the back cover description:

During the time Elspeth Duff, special security advisor for the Kennington hotels, is in forced retirement in Scotland, she discovers an old diary written by her mother in 1943 that gives an account of an unsolved murder that happened on Tay Farm at that time. Dissatisfied with her new life, Elspeth decides to ferret out the murderer despite the long time that has passed since the killing had occurred. She begins by questioning her parents about an escaped prisoner of war, the four Land Girls who worked on the farm and the members of her family who were involved. Her investigation leads to an unexpected conclusion that can only cause pain to people still alive. Should she remain silent or reveal the truth?

Set against the background of the hardships of the Second World War, A Tangle on Loch Tay is rich in details about wartime Scotland and what life was like on the Homefront for the people who lived and worked at Tay Farm, as well as Elspeth’s family history.

This is the fourteenth book in the Elspeth Duff mystery series.

Visit elspethduffmysteries.com or anncrew.com for more.

I am taking time off from writing but never can get entirely away from thinking about the Elspeth Duff books. Today I was in Edinburgh looking at art at the national galleries but will eventually go up to Perthshire where many of my books take place. Today I had lunch under typical Scottish skies but a break in the clouds meant I could sit outside and sketch overlooking the Walter Scott monument and the wonderful Scottish gothic Balmoral Hotel, which will turn into a Kennington hotel in a future Elspeth novel when Elspeth and Richard are stranded there in a snow storm. Of course there is a murder. But that will have to wait until 2025 or 2026.

My wonderful daughter-in-law, Gim, is helping me promote my books. She has suggested that good reviews on amazon.com will help immensely. So please, if you like my books, give me a supportive review. Since I just issued A Murder in Malta, Second Edition, reviews on that one would be particularly appreciated.

In the meantime my editor is working on A Tangle on Loch Tay, in which the murder takes place on Tay Farm in 1943, and where Elspeth in 2009 seeks to find the killer in this unsolved crime. This should be issued in September or October along with a new edition of A Scandal in Stresa, the second in the Elspeth Duff mysteries.

Thank you so much.

Greetings. I have been busily at work. After having published the thirteenth of my Elspeth Duff series, A Victim in Victoria (not yet posted on this site but available on amazon.com), I was reminded by my family that it had been ten years since I published my first book, A Murder in Malta. They suggested I revise it and re-issue it as a tenth anniveersary edition, which I have done. This rewriting, which picks up a number of beginner errors, was published this week both in paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon. It serves as a reminder of the origin of thirteen of my characters who carry on through the books. Who knew when I first started that they would still be around!

My latest book, A Victim in Victoria, is now available on amazon.com and other amazon sites. Elspeth Duff gets in real trouble. Enjoy!

I realise I have slowed down in getting my new books to press, but since the pandemic is over, I have been able to travel more and writing less.

During the last week I have been busy putting together the last few things to get by next book ready for. A Victim inn Victoria is the next (thirteenth) in the Elspeth Duff series. Most of it takes place at the Kennington Victoria in British Columbia, Canada and is the first one that occurs in North America. At the end the action switches to Scotland, however.

Here is the back cover description:

Elspeth Duff, special security advisor to Lord Kennington owner of the Kennington hotel chain, inveigles him into giving her an assignment at the Kennington Victoria hotel on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. She wants to be near her husband when he is to give an address in Vancouver. What appears to be a benign job turns into a case of dual murders involving international delegates to a conference on whaling. Elspeth is injured during one of the deaths, and is suspected of being the perpetrator of the crime. She is restricted by both the police and her infirmity and cannot easily investigate what has really happened. She recruits her cousin, Charles Baillie Shaw, who is also at the conference, to help her snoop out the killer. They make a dangerous team. But the solution is not as apparent as Elspeth might hope.

I’ll let you know when the book is out.

I just checked amazon.com and A Mater of Murder, my newest book, is available now.

Here’s a teaser:

Author’s Introduction

As the creator of the Elspeth Duff mystery series and feeling a bond to its main character, I often wondered what could have happened to Elspeth if Malcolm Buchanan had not been murdered at Cambridge. She initially had contemplated a career as a solicitor in her father’s law firm in Pitlochry, Perthshire, but Malcolm’s murder changed all that. A Matter of Murder is a spin off from the main Elspeth Duff series and explores the life of a young woman solicitor in the Highlands of Scotland.

Readers of the Elspeth Duff mystery series will recognise several characters from that series. Elspeth is obliquely mentioned several times. The main character, Portia MacRoberts, first mentioned in A Presumption in Perthshire, takes the role Elspeth might have followed if she had returned to Scotland rather than pursuing life elsewhere. Paige MacDonald from A Legacy on Lewis, acts as Portia’s mentor in A Matter of Murder. Elspeth’s father and Maxwell Douglas-Forbes, QC, are minor characters, although they are significant players in several of the Elspeth Duff mysteries. I used the device of reusing characters to connect A Matter of Murder to earlier books of mine.

I hope you enjoy this diversion.

In this spin off from the Elspeth Duff Mystery series, Portia MacRoberts, a young lawyer who has taken over the Duff, MacBean and MacRoberts firm of solicitors in Pitlochry, Perthshire, is faced with a blustering client, Sir Gerald Cruikshank. He claims his wife is soon to be arrested for the murder of her long-lost son, Bradon, who is found murdered in her studio. But why and how has Bradon suddenly appeared in Scotland? Could his death bring economic relief to the Cruikshanks, who have experienced a downturn in their finances? Portia normally does not take murder cases but this one draws her in. She recruits a new member of her firm, Angus Elliot, and Paige MacDonald, an experienced criminal lawyer in Perth, and relies on ‘conversations’ with her dead husband, Tim, to help her in this complex and puzzling case because she senses the danger to her firm and herself. Portia plunges fearlessly into the case which is filled with intriguing and complex characters and the vagaries of the Scottish weather. 

It should be available on Kindle and in paperback by June 12 or 13. Check amazon.com and my website.

Sorry for the long wait. Amazon received the manuscript for A Challenge in Chelsea on December 13th, 2022 but didn’t publish it in paperback for until today! Normally it takes a day or two.