There is just ONE DAY LEFT until Mistletoe and Murder is released in the UK and Ireland. Christmas is nearly here!
In Mistletoe and Murder, Daisy and Hazel have to outwit not only the murderer, but another Detective Society, the Junior Pinkertons. You’ve already met Alexander in First Class Murder, and heard about him in Jolly Foul Play – and now he’s BACK and in the centre of the action, along with his best friend George.
George is a character I’m particularly excited about introducing you to. He’s super smart and great at noticing things, he’s brave and not afraid of speaking his mind, and he’s the first English character Hazel meets who isn’t white. George’s father, Mangaldas Mukherjee, came to Cambridge from India as a student in the 1890s and decided to stay in England. George and his older brother Harold were born in London, so they’re much more English than his friend Alexander is (Alexander was born in America, and his grandmother is a Russian refugee).
There’s been a lot of stuff in the news lately about immigration, and almost all of it is saying that a) immigration is bad and b) immigration is a new thing. I’ve always known that a) was wrong (I am an immigrant, and the child of an immigrant, and I’m pretty sure I’m a good thing), but what I realise more and more as I do research is how incorrect b) is. I’ve put Hazel and George and Alexander in my books not just because I want to, but because people like them were there, in 1935. It’s all true (apart from the murders).
Below is a picture that I found (via Twitter) of Cambridge students in the 1890s. There are two Indian students among them, and in my head, one of them is George’s dad. Isn’t it cool? It proves to me (along with the picture of two Chinese schoolgirls in the English countryside from the 1920s that I’ll show you all one day) that English history is very interesting, and very diverse – and that’s the England I want to write about.
