Mays snaps up Marris debut in Bedford Square's first Frankfurt

Bedford Square Publishers, in its first Frankfurt Book Fair since it launched in 2022, has snapped up cosy crime tale A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder by debut author Gay Marris.

Carolyn Mays acquired world rights in the first book, and a second, from Eugenie Furniss at 42. A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder will be published in hardcover in June 2024.

Set in London in 1968, the book follows the lives of the inhabitants of a suburban street that "is no ordinary street. Ask anyone on Atbara Avenue how well they know their neighbours, and they’ll answer, ‘Well’. After all, they see each other across the vast distance afforded by close proximity, and that is probably for the best… For the best, because Atbara Avenue is a street where, all too often, what lies behind the very respectable facade is quite different to assumptions." 

Marris, who is a retired insect ecology scientist, said: "To me, people are endlessly fascinating and brilliantly inconsistent. I’m particularly drawn to the details of domestic settings, so A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder scrutinises the darkly humorous, sad, or purely accidental reasons why respectable neighbours may wreak havoc in each other’s lives.

Mays added: "From the moment I picked it up I just loved this funny, dark and quirky novel. Stuffed with gruesome characters, with scalpel-sharp observation, humour and moments of real poignancy, this has the delicious sting after sting of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. Gay is a sparkling new talent."