Fiona Veitch Smith on the Clara Vale Mysteries and the Books That Shaped Her

Fiona Veitch Smith’s mysteries pair vintage style with stories that take serious ideas seriously. Her books bring together recurring characters, humour and familiar Golden Age touches with feminist themes, social commentary and darker emotional turns. In this conversation, she reflects on how she came to write historical mysteries, names the books she’s proudest of and introduces the sixth Miss Clara Vale case, The Oxford Murders.

From historical fiction to mysteries

Veitch Smith didn’t set out to write a crime novel. Her debut, The Jazz Files, began as a historical novel about the death of a suffragette, then developed into a murder mystery as she wrote. She later recognised that her childhood affection for Nancy Drew, starting with The Secret of the Old Clock, may have quietly shaped her work.

The debut introduced Poppy Denby, a young investigative journalist in London in 1920. It was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2016, and the series eventually grew to six books under the Lion Fiction imprint. Embla Books has since re-published the novels with new titles, beginning with A Front Page Murder.

Veitch Smith says her agent and successive publishers helped guide her towards writing crime. She’s now comfortable writing historical mysteries, though she also identifies as a historical novelist and belongs to both the Historical Writers’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association. Other forms still appeal: she may one day try a straightforward historical novel, historical non-fiction, contemporary literary fiction or a comedy in the style of Bridget Jones.

A series with room for darker stories

Her current series follows Miss Clara Vale, a female forensic sleuth who inherits a detective agency in Newcastle upon Tyne. The stories are set in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The sixth instalment, The Oxford Murders, is out now.

Asked which of her own books she’s proudest of, Veitch Smith chooses The Berlin Murders, the fifth Clara Vale mystery. Reviewers have called it her darkest and least cosy book, but she says she never set out to write cosies, even though her books are marketed that way. Her work may include quirky characters, humour, a familiar cast, Golden Age conventions and vintage fashion; it also makes space for feminist ideas, historical analysis and difficult emotional arcs.

For Veitch Smith, The Berlin Murders brings those elements together especially well. Set during Berlin Fashion Week in September 1930, it has been her bestselling book after the first Clara Vale mystery, The Picture House Murders. Its darker mood, she says, hasn’t kept readers away. That mix of appealing series details and more serious material is central to how she describes her work: the books don’t always sit neatly within genre labels, and she prefers to follow the story she wants to tell.

Books she admires and remembers

Among modern mysteries, Veitch Smith singles out Janice Hallett’s The Appeal for its structure and plotting. She likes the way its epistolary form invites readers to weigh the evidence and work out who is responsible, and why. She’s experimenting with the same form herself. The novel also reminds her of Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Documents in the Case, a favourite of Veitch Smith’s, though not of the interviewer, who says they enjoyed writing a review of it more than reading the book.

Her favourite non-mystery novel is Richard Adams’ Watership Down, one of the few books she returns to. It carries a personal history: she first read it on a plane when her parents emigrated to South Africa, aged ten. Veitch Smith felt a connection to Fiver, forced to leave home for an unfamiliar place where life worked differently. The journey brought both good and difficult adventures, giving the novel a lasting emotional place in her reading life.

Clara Vale heads to Oxford

The Oxford Murders, Veitch Smith’s homage to Sayers’ Gaudy Night, opens on May Day, 1931. Clara is attending her brother’s wedding in the Cotswolds before travelling back to Oxford for Somerville College’s ten-year reunion. The planned break from detective work ends when Clara and her mother find the body of a young research student at the ancient Rollright Stones.

The circumstances point towards a Beltane fertility ritual dedicated to the Celtic goddess Cuda. Clara turns to her assistant Bella, who is visiting for a romantic weekend with an archaeologist, and joins forces with WPC Rosie Winter. Their inquiry brings academic rivalries, dangerous extremism and buried secrets into the story, as Clara tries to distinguish myth from a modern killing before the May Day festivities continue.

The book was due out on November 5 in paperback and ebook. The interviewer, who had arranged a review copy after meeting Veitch Smith at Death In The Dales, says they intend to return to her earlier work. Readers can find more about the author and her books at her website.

Fiona Veitch Smith bibliography

Poppy Denby Investigates

• A Front-Page Murder aka The Jazz Files (2015)
• Murder At The Old Vic Theatre aka The Kill Fee (2016)
• Murder On Lexington Avenue aka The Death Beat (2017)
• Murder At Winterton Hall aka The Cairo Brief (2018)
• Murder At The Art Gallery aka The Art Fiasco (2020)
• Murder Of An Oxford Scientist (2021)

Miss Clara Vale Mysteries

• The Picture House Murders (2023)
• The Pantomime Murders (2023)
• The Pyramid Murders (2024)
• The Penford Manor Murders (2025)
• The Berlin Murders (2026)
• The Oxford Murders (2026)