Lesley Mace asked B.K. Duncan:

The research in Faith's Reward and Foul Trade is meticulous. I wondered how you go about it? And whether you prefer using the internet or more traditional methods.

B.K. Duncan Lesley, thank you so much for saying my research is meticulous – for a writer of historical fiction that ranks up there with winning an Oscar! I have done my very best to bring to life my slice of 1920 by using every method of research at my disposal. The Internet was a blessing as well as a curse. I found all sorts of sites that gave me material I couldn't have come across in any other way: oral histories documented by family members intent on preserving the past; leads for books by authors I’d never even heard of; out of print (and copyright) works on Project Gutenberg; in-depth research on the East End compiled by historical societies; newspaper reports of coroners’ inquests, and notable trials; forensic and medical issues and knowledge from The Lancet. The danger was always that I wouldn't know when to stop. But stories won’t write themselves and I had to draw the line somewhere or I’d still be researching today.

The old-fashioned way of soaking it all up included visiting museums (particularly the wonderful London Museum of Docklands – the poem in Foul Trade came directly from the samples of imported wood in the East India Docks’ Customs cabinets); watching films and CDs; dipping into my bound copies of The War Illustrated accounts of the 1914-18 conflict as it happened; constantly consulting the 1919 OS maps of Poplar and Limehouse, and studying the terrain and towns around the 1918 Front Line. But first and foremost, my research source of choice will always be books. I'm a writer, and the printed word is my world. I hope with all my heart that through Foul Trade and Faith’s Reward I have done justice to everything I have read by preserving and passing on, in turn, a little of the past -- albeit one peopled by my imaginings.

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