Book synopsis
The best light-hearted mystery fiction you’ll read all year!
New to the private investigator game, Edie Fox is delighted when a handsome American client with disconcertingly dazzling teeth asks her to find his missing cousin, Isabella. Especially when he leaves her a bundle of cash to get started.
However, the case quickly gets complicated, and so does her life when a one-night stand from her Oxford university days gets in touch and asks if her 26-year-old daughter, Maeve, is also his child.
Juggling a chaotic home, a brimming wine glass, a daughter besotted with her new-found daddy, and a rekindled old flame, Edie must try to focus on the job.
But with unreliable witnesses, a less than trustworthy client, and an assistant with her mind on other things, Edie will be up against it and risks losing all.
THE MISSING AMERICAN is the first book in a series of hilarious cozy mysteries by bestselling author Julie Highmore. Look out for the next book in the series, THE RUNAWAY HUSBAND, coming soon!
If you enjoy fiction by Richard Osman, Jesse Sutanto, Rachel Ward, and T E Kinsey, you’ll love these books!
Author Q&A – Julie Highmore
- Can you tell me and my readers of my blog about the book?
THE MISSING AMERICAN is the first in a humorous crime series with a bit of an edge to it. The protagonist is Edie Fox, who has either bravely or foolishly given up teaching to open a private detective agency in Oxford. Edie’s late father was a policeman and she’s always had a hankering for detective work. She’s late forties and, as with many a fictional detective, she’s had a complicated love life and likes a drink. Edie, her daughter Maeve, and three-year-old grandson, Alfie, all live together in a chaotic Victorian house, just around the corner from her office. It’s a vibrant, studenty and multicultural part of Oxford, and a far cry from the nearby cloisters and quads of the university.
When a wealthy American client comes to her office offering her silly amounts of cash to find his missing cousin, the struggling Edie jumps at it. And with the help of young Emily, her part-time assistant, she begins the search for Bella.
Edie manages to juggle investigating and family life… until, that is, the situation takes a turn towards the dark, and Edie realises people have been less than truthful with her, and that she might have put herself and her precious family in danger.
- What inspired you to write this book?
Having been hooked on crime and psychological thrillers for decades, I decided to have a go at writing one myself. With the rising popularity of TV shows such as Happy Valley and, before that, the Danish version of The Killing, the older female detective was in vogue again, albeit not quite Miss Marple!
I wondered if making my protagonist a hands-on young grandmother, trying to be a serious investigator, would be fertile ground for humour – and it was. I’ve enjoyed writing about Edie, her family and colleagues so much that I’m now halfway through the third in the series. The second book – THE RUNAWAY HUSBAND – will be out in early summer ’23.
- What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
The Edie Fox books are set in a city, and area of that city, that I know really well, so you could say that the decades I’ve lived in Oxford were my research. Also, having been a single parent and a grandparent, and having had a variety of jobs over the years – including car delivering, running a pet-feeding business, teaching foreign students English and being a paid carer for a terminally-ill friend – has given me a lot to draw on. However, if Edie is suddenly given a case on a North Sea oil rig, I might panic…
- How do you select the names of your characters?
I’m not sure, but I do know I like names that can be shortened because then they’re easier to insert into dialogue. ‘Put the gun down, Ben, and raise your hands,’ is less clunky than, ‘Put the gun down, Benjamin, and raise your hands.’
I often change a character’s name at some point, if it doesn’t feel right. Or in the case of THE MISSING AMERICAN, it was because once I’d finished it I realised I’d used five out of six of my (ex)brother- and sister-in-laws’ Christian names!
- How long have you been writing or when did you start?
I always enjoyed writing short stories, and did creative writing as part of the English degree I took as a mature student. However, the real beginning for me was having my first full-length manuscript accepted in my forties. With a pile of rejection letters from agents, I’d thought, ‘Oh, why not,’ and sent it off directly to a major publisher I’d liked the look of. It happened to land on the right editor’s desk, eventually and luckily, and I went on to write another eight novels for them.
- What is your favourite childhood book?
I loved Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven the most. But also, I remember rather nerdily reading page after page of the children’s encyclopaedia my parents gave me for my eighth birthday. It was a bit like an early version of the internet and would absorb me for hours.
Thank you to the Author for answering my questions for this blog post. If you would like to read the book you can get a copy here.