L C Tyler on Comic Mysteries, John Grey and The Murder Planner

L C Tyler’s fiction moves between comic mysteries and historical intrigue, with a reading life shaped by PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie and John le Carré. His latest book, The Murder Planner, brings that comic instinct to a new premise: a crime editor with a sideline in advice on murder. In this interview, Tyler talks about the books he admires, the title he’s proudest of and the unexpected route that led him into crime writing.

A crime writer by an unexpected route

Tyler has written twenty one books, mainly crime fiction, spanning historical and contemporary settings. His work has earned the Last Laugh Award twice and a CWA Dagger once. Before writing became his career, he worked in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Khartoum and Copenhagen. He and his wife Ann have been married for more than forty years, and they have six grandchildren.

Crime fiction wasn’t the plan when Tyler began his first book. He says he discovered that The Herring Seller’s Apprentice belonged to the genre only after his editor pointed it out. The books that shaped his desire to write came from a wider range of comic and literary voices: PG Wodehouse, Jerome K Jerome, Mark Twain, Anthony Buckeridge and Evelyn Waugh. He had also read plenty of Agatha Christie, whose influence shows in several of his titles.

Asked to name the book that inspired him to write crime, Tyler jokingly proposes Wodehouse’s Right Ho, Jeeves, then settles on Christie’s The Body in the Library. The interviewer lets the Wodehouse answer stand too, a small exchange that suits the playful spirit of the conversation. Tyler’s path into the genre may have been accidental, but his taste for wit was there from the start.

The books that stay with him

Choosing a favourite among his own books proves harder. Tyler recalls the idea that writers tend to believe their newest book is their best, and points to a line from Surfeit of Herrings, the next book in the Herring series, due out in February 2027. In it, agent Elsie tells crime writer Ethelred that authors imagine their next work will finally reveal their “very special genius”. The joke lands as both character banter and a knowing observation about the writer’s hopes.

Still, Tyler names Crooked Herring as the book he’d choose if pressed. It won one of his two Goldsboro Last Laugh Awards, and its opening line still makes him smile. He admits to a fictional worry that his other books might resent the choice, but the answer offers a useful pointer for readers: start with the Herring title that made its author laugh on rereading.

For a crime novel everyone should read, Tyler chooses The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He praises its plot and recalls a moment near the ending when the full extent of John le Carré’s misdirection becomes clear. Tyler’s own John Grey books, about a seventeenth century spy, are an attempt to write something “half as good”. The ambition is revealing: even in a comic interview, his admiration is for tightly controlled storytelling.

His choice outside crime fiction is Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, a book he has returned to repeatedly. Tyler admires its craft, character and dialogue, as well as its evocation of the period in which it was written. He also singles out its humour. That combination of precise observation and comedy connects his reading taste with the qualities he brings to his own mysteries.

A new mystery with a darkly comic premise

The Murder Planner, published by Allison and Busby on 22 October, introduces Sable Knight. Her day job is running a small publishing house and editing crime fiction; her sideline is offering advice on how to murder someone. That unusual service brings in extra income for her and some of her writers, until complications begin. Tyler describes the book as a darkly comic mystery, and its publishing connection gives the premise an extra twist of professional familiarity.

The setup makes room for the kind of humour Tyler is known for while still promising a mystery to unravel. Readers drawn to crime fiction’s backstage world may enjoy seeing an editor and her writers caught up in a dangerous business of their own. The interviewer, who says a review will follow, praises the book’s originality, humour and cleverness; that assessment is the interviewer’s, not Tyler’s.

L C Tyler’s books

Tyler’s bibliography includes the Sable Knight title, the Ethelred and Elsie mysteries, and the John Grey historical series. The listed books trace a career that has moved between comic detection and seventeenth century settings.

Sable Knight

• The Murder Planner (2026)

Ethelred & Elsie

• The Herring Seller’s Apprentice (2007)
• Ten Little Herrings (2009)
• The Herring In The Library (2010)
• Herring On The Nile (2011)
• Crooked Herring (2014)
• Cat Among The Herrings (2016)
• Herring In The Smoke (2017)
• The Maltese Herring (2019)
• Farewell My Herring (2021)
• A Surfeit Of Herrings (2027)

John Grey Historical Mysteries

• A Cruel Necessity (2014)
• A Masterpiece Of Corruption (2016)
• The Plague Road (2016)
• Fire (2017)
• The Bleak Midwinter (2018)
• Death Of A Shipbuilder (2020)
• Too Much Of Water (2021)
• The Summer Birdcage (2022)
• A Well-Earned Death (2023)
• The Three Deaths Of Justice Godfrey (2024)

For readers meeting Tyler through The Murder Planner, the interview points toward a writer whose comic voice sits alongside a serious interest in plot and character. His recommendations offer a route back through the books and influences that shaped that balance.