Creating Valleys’ answer to Sherlock Holmes
Leslie Scase’s new detective novel, Fatal Solution, is a beautifully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the end, writes Jenny White
South Wales was unlike anywhere else in Britain. I don’t believe any other area had expanded so quickly with such a diverse influx of newcomers
I wrote the first three chapters of my first book and hesitantly passed them to my wife. Once I had the nod of approval, I knew it was worth pursuing Author Leslie Scase
IF YOU loved watching Ripper Street or are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Fatal Solution, the latest Inspector Chard novel from Leslie Scase, is the read you’ve been looking for.
Swapping London for Victorian Pontypridd, this gripping detective story is delightfully atmospheric and impeccably researched, bringing to life a place and time when social inequalities, exploitation, political tensions and the march of progress created a seething melting pot from which it’s easy to imagine dark crimes could emerge.
The story begins with the Albion Colliery Disaster, which provides a key thread in the storyline. Scase’s account humanises the devastation by relating it through the eyes of several key people involved; it’s a powerful shock of an opening.
“Writing this account was the greatest challenge of the book,” he says. “Having omitted mentioning it in the previous book, I wanted it to form part of the story; but dealing with the realities of such a tragedy was difficult. I hope I’ve done it justice and treated it with the sensitivity it deserves.”
As well as spending a lot of time researching this event by reading contemporary material, he has spent many hours researching the other details that bring the book to life, from delicious-sounding food to Pontypridd’s Victorian layout. A section at the back of the book gives more information on many of the historical details it includes.
“The amount of research has been considerable – clothing, hairstyles, in-season vegetables, structure of police forces, uniforms, the list goes on,” he says.
“My starting point was a wonderful book called Victorian Pontypridd by Don Powell, but then it was a case of reading archived contemporary newspapers, court cases, original
Ordnance Survey maps and then researching everything I could about the period in general. I’ve tried to keep everything as historically accurate as possible with the occasional tiny tweak of artistic licence.”
The social and political history of Victorian south Wales were central to Scase’s decision to set his Inspector Chard mysteries in Pontypridd.
“South Wales was unlike anywhere else in Britain,” he says. “I don’t believe any other area had expanded so quickly with such a diverse influx of newcomers. London, for example, had always been big, and the social structure there was well-defined. South Wales, on the other hand, was like a vast social experiment, developing its own identity.
“It was also a time of general social unrest as the country went through the long Depression, with trade unions and international socialists causing the authorities to tremble.
“At the same time there were still fortunes to be made for those fortunate enough to have money in the bank.
“South Wales was supplying a large percentage of the world’s primary industrial fuel and the Taff Vale Railway and Barry Railway Company controlled its distribution. They were great commercial rivals and around this fact I’ve created a host of fictional characters for the Fatal Solution storyline.”
Industrial espionage between the two companies becomes a key element of the story, but there are many more layers to this sophisticated, well-paced mystery. From the initial mysterious death of a man in a locked, burned-out workshop, the narrative pans outward to include the poisoning of two businessmen and the savage murder of a prostitute. As he struggles to unravel the clues, Chard finds his own life is in danger.
Scase builds the suspense beautifully, throwing in clues but keeping the reader guessing until the end.
“As a reader of mysteries, I like to see the options and clues and try to foresee the solution,” says Scase.
“Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m not; that doesn’t matter. What I don’t like as a reader is where the solution is too obvious. As a writer, I want to leave a subtle red herring here and there and ideally provide a twist that no-one is expecting, but which is believable.”
A key factor in this book’s success is Scase’s talent for creating immensely vivid, relatable characters, digging into the tensions between them and the psychology behind their actions. Chard is a thoroughly engaging and believable central figure, and someone I would love to see brought to life on screen.
Scase has clearly fallen for the character too.
“I really did enjoy expanding Inspector Chard’s character,” he says.
“I deliberately wanted him to be a bit of a mystery in the first book. This time the reader learns a bit more about his past and we see a love interest as part of the story.
“With a series, you can not only build on the character himself, but also the world around him.
“Some of my characters are based on an amalgamation of perhaps two or three people I’ve known from my past; but then as I’m writing, they seem to take on a life of their own. I then start to believe in them myself.”
His portrayal of Pontypridd is also based in personal experience. He was born in Treforest and attended Pontypridd Boys Grammar School. He went on to join the civil service and subsequently settled in Shropshire, though his work took him across the UK.
Eventually he had to retire from the civil service because of damage to his spine, which limits how long he can sit or stand, or how much he can carry.
“My work had been a big part of my life and I needed something else to focus on,” he says.
“I’d written the odd magazine article in the past so thought about trying my hand at writing. My wife and I read a lot of historic crime fiction and like to think we know what works and what doesn’t. I wrote the first three chapters of my first book and hesitantly passed them to my wife. Once I had the nod of approval, I knew it was worth pursuing.”
His first novel, Fortuna’s Deadly Shadow, was published by Gomer Press in 2019. He subsequently joined Seren Books, the publisher of Fatal Solution.
“Things are working well, with the paperback now available in the USA as well as the UK, and e-books published,” he says.
He has also become a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Crime Cymry writers’ collective.
When he set out to write Fortuna’s
Deadly Shadow, his choice of setting and era were inspired by his grandparents’ wedding photo hanging on the wall.
“They were married Pontypridd in 1898,” he says.
“I decided it would be interesting to write a whodunnit with a classic 1890s Sherlock Holmes/Whitechapel feel but set somewhere completely different. It was only when I started to research the town’s history and discovered a little-known train disaster that it all clicked into place and my first book, Fortuna’s Deadly Shadow, was written. The feedback I had from readers encouraged me to follow up with Fatal Solution, also set in Pontypridd. Although the second in a series, I ensured that it
can be read as an independent novel.”
Scase’s third book in the series is now written. It’s set mainly outside Wales as Chard’s secret past is finally revealed – but other regular characters are with him.
Scase is currently working on a fourth, set in South Wales and featuring an anarchist plot. In the meantime, he hopes Fatal Solution will keep readers entertained over the summer.
“My principal aim that they can lose themselves in enjoyable read,” he says.
“Some writers seem to say that they want to ‘reveal the angst’ or ‘tear at your soul’. I don’t.
“However, I would like to think it encourages people to get a feel for the period that wasn’t just about Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper; and perhaps take a fresh look at the history of their towns.”
is
SHE’S ridden through Cardiff plenty of times on her bike – but this time was going to be different and also scary as hell. Laura Poole was going to do it naked.
And just before the 29-year-old graphic designer set off on her journey, the nerves really kicked in – and she started shaking.
“Up until about two hours before I didn’t know that I was definitely going to do it,” she laughed.
“I thought, ‘Shall I do it?’. So I posted on my Instagram, which is full of self-love stuff, asking whether I should do it. And not a single person said no, so I decided to go.”
But her decision to don her birthday suit in the Welsh capital in full view of others was not the result of a dare from friends – or even a daft stunt.
Laura was one of hundreds of people taking part in this year’s World Naked Bike Ride.
The ride is part of the global World Naked Bike Ride protests, which take place in cities across the world every summer, including Madrid, Toronto and Mexico City.
It aims to highlight the vulnerability of cyclists to traffic in cities, with the human body presented as a contrast to high-powered vehicles, although the event has also become a way for people to express body positivity, champion environmental causes and more.
Participants are encouraged to “bare as you dare”, embracing whatever level of nudity they feel comfortable with.
Life coach Laura chose to take part to promote body positivity, which she does on her blog – www.loveyourdamnself.com – and Instagram.
She said: “I didn’t know that I was going to get naked – I thought that maybe I would keep my underwear on. To begin with, it was nerve-racking, so when I got there we were painting ourselves, but I was shaking so much that when I tried to paint my face it just went everywhere.
“We were about to set off, and I still had my underwear on, just the bottom half. And everybody in my view was naked. So I knew I had to do it.”
Laura attended the event alone, while many first-timers take along a friend for support.
But she said overall the experience was overwhelmingly positive.
“People were taking photos, people were waving. When we got going, I actually started to like it. Someone said after a while you’ll forget that you’re naked and I was definitely still aware that I was naked for the whole time.
“It was fun. It was exciting. We were all laughing and cheering when they saw us. Everybody was ringing their bells.
“There weren’t as many women as men and I kind of guessed that that was going to be the case. And lots of people were older than me as well, so I was one of the younger ones.
“I was 29 on Monday, two days after the event, and I thought, ‘What better way to celebrate my birthday than in my birthday suit?’.
“You can interpret the naked bike ride however you want. It’s about body positivity, saving the planet, watching out for bikes. The event doesn’t just mean one thing, it means many things.”
Laura, who has tried bungee jumping and even went travelling around Australia on her own, said the bike ride was by far the scariest thing she had ever done.
However, she said she enjoyed the experience and plans to return when the event comes back.
In the meantime, she hopes that her taking part will help raise awareness about self-love and empowerment as well as having the confidence to do things out of your comfort zone.
She said: “Sometimes we wait until we’re the perfect weight to do something. We say we can’t go on holiday or wear that bikini and, especially with the pandemic, there’s a lot of pressure.
“I want to create a community and a safe space for women, and I just want to promote body positivity and self-love in general. Sometimes I don’t feel great about myself, but I think, ‘You know what, I don’t care’.
“I’m still me, no matter what I look like.”