Obituary: Dr Marilyn Ruth Livingstone

As written by her husband, Morgen Witzel

Dr Marilyn Ruth Livingstone, who wrote non-fiction under her own name and fiction under the pen names A J MacKenzie and R L Graham, passed away at home in Northlew, Devon on the 10th September.

She was the author of two works of non-fiction and 13 novels. Born in Woodstock, Ontario, she took her first degree in history and history in art at the University of Victoria in Canada, later taking an MA in medieval studies from Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (as was) in 1993 and a PhD from The Queen’s University, Belfast in 2003.

I met Marilyn at university 45 years ago. Drawn together in part by a love of writing, we married two years later. Our first joint publication, The Road to Crécy: The English Invasion of France, 1346, was published in 2004 with a sequel, The Black Prince and the Capture of a King, Poitiers 1356, following in 2018.

But fiction was Marilyn’s real passion. Beginning in 2016, with The Body on the Doorstep (Zaffre), as one half of A J MacKenzie, she produced a steady stream of historical detective novels and thrillers: three Hardcastle and Chayter mysteries set in Romney Marsh during era of smuggling; three War of 1812 novels set on the Canadian frontier; and finally a series of novels featuring the herald Simon Merrivale set during the 1330s and 1340s against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just after we started the most recent of these, By Treason We Perish. Undaunted, she edited most of the text while sitting in hospital connected to a chemotherapy drip, and continued to work on two more novels; another Merrivale book, City of Woe, and the first of a new series by R L Graham, Death on the Lusitania. Both will be published posthumously in 2024.

I have never met a writer who could fashion a plot or sketch out a character so quickly as Marilyn. Ideas for books came to her almost without effort. We spent a lot of time walking on the beach at Widemouth Bay in Cornwall or sitting on stones on top of Dartmoor, where she talked and I made notes in a battered notebook; fond memories that I will never forget.

As well as a writer, Marilyn was an accomplished scholar, a very fine vocal musician who sang in an a cappella trio, The Briars, and an occasional composer of vocal works. She was a fine talent who departed life far too soon, and she will be sadly missed.