Thirteen years ago today, the Scottish writer Sara Sheridan launched her most well-known character in the first of the eponymous Mirabelle Bevan mystery novels. Brighton Belle - which can be freely borrowed online - is set in post-war 1951 Brighton. It follows Bevan, a former Secret Service operative who has retired to Brighton after the death of her lover. She works at a debt collection agency, hoping for a quieter life, but is drawn into a complex investigation when a pregnant Hungarian refugee, Romana Laszlo, goes missing under suspicious circumstances. Chapter one opens with this aphorism: ‘Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.’ And the first few paragraphs take us straight to Brighton Beach.
Well put-together and in her prime, Mirabelle always ate her lunch on Brighton beach if the weather was in any way passable, but out of sheer principle she never paid tuppence for a chair. We did not win the war to have to pay to sit down, she frequently found herself thinking. Mirabelle’s stance against the deckchair charges was one of the few things that kept her going these days. In an act of personal defiance, she carefully timed the coming and goings of Ron, the deckchair attendant, and concluded that it was perfectly possible to sneak enough time to enjoy her sandwich while he tended the other end of his pitch. By selecting the right chair she could have an average of twenty-five undisturbed minutes, which was perfect. Mirabelle’s life these days revolved around small victories, little markers in her day that got her through until it was time for bed.
She loved the beach! There was something soothing about the expanse of grey and cream pebbles, the changing colour of the sea and the movement of the clouds. Mirabelle didn’t mind if it was cold or if there was a spot of rain and it was only during a full-blown downpour or a gale-force wind that she retreated to the steamy interior of the Pier Café. Now she ate her fish paste sandwich with her large hazel eyes on the ocean and her sixth sense switched on in case Ron returned early.’
Sheridan was born in 1968, in Edinburgh, Scotland. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin, and soon set about a writing career with her first book Truth or Dare. She has authored over 20 books, including the nine-part Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries, and several historical novels such as The Secret Mandarin and The Fair Botanists. She says, on her website, that she is deeply interested in diverse readings of history and has worked on projects like remapping Scotland according to women’s history. She is also an occasional journalist and blogger, contributing to outlets like BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, and The London Review of Books. She has one daughter, Molly by her first marriage to Irish businessman, Seamus Sheridan, and she married her second husband, Alan Ferrier, in 2011.
Brighton Belle, first published by Polygon on 20 March 2012, follows Mirabelle as she investigates, with a colleague Vesta Churchill, Romana’s death. In so doing, she uncovers a web of intrigue involving Nazi war criminals, counterfeit coins, and murder! The narrative is said to explore themes of post-war austerity, societal changes, and racism while evoking the atmosphere of 1950s Britain. Other titles in the series include British Bulldog, England Expects, and Operation Goodwood.
It is worth noting that the name ‘Brighton Belle’ is more famously associated with The Brighton Belle, a named train operated by the Southern Railway and subsequently British Railways from Victoria to Brighton. Commissioned as the flagship of the Southern Railway’s mass electrification project, which commenced in January 1931, the world’s only electric all-Pullman service ran daily between London Victoria and Brighton from 1 January 1933 until 30 April 1972.
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