Palmers Green author Stephen Cox will be launching his third novel at two events this weekend. It marks a change of genre and a switch to self-publishing.
A spooky Victorian mystery
London 1881. Can two crooked women stop a murder?
Extravagant medium Mrs Ashton and her lover, blunt working-class Mrs Bradshaw, run a spiritualist scam. Mrs Ashton secretly reads minds.
Believing that Mrs Ashton is genuine, grieving Lady Violet craves the truth behind her mother’s untimely death. But Lady Violet’s powerful husband Sir Charles hates spiritualists. Has he killed before?
Uncovering this MP’s wicked crimes will put all three women in terrible danger…
To solve a shocking murder, look both sides of the grave.Stephen's third published novel, following Our Child of the Stars in 2019 and its 2022 follow-up, Our Child of Two Worlds, is a detective thriller: The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder. It will be launched on Saturday at the All Good Bookshop in Turnpike Lane.
Stephen has self-published his third novel to professional standards, having found agents and publishers "scared and skittish"
A second launch event is in Winchmore Hill on Sunday afternoon, at the Friends Meeting House (Stephen himself belongs to the Quaker community), and will take a somewhat different approach. While his audience indulges in free tea and cakes, and without becoming too serious, Stephen will address the important questions "Should 'good people' write 'bad people'?" and "Why would Quakers write detective stories?"
Why, indeed, is there such an obsession with the Victorians and with amateur sleuths? And what do we mean by "justice"?
Stephen believes our obsession with the Victorians as a golden age sometimes ignores its resonance with our own times – growing inequality, an out of touch establishment, obsession with class, race, gender roles, and celebrity, and big choices to make about the future.
So why, after two successful sci-fi novels, this switch to the detective story genre?
Stephen says: "The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder contains the strong characterisation, women protagonists, authentic period setting, and wide roaming imagination of my other works, Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds. So far people who loved the earlier books love this one too."
Will this be the start of another series?
"In the classic tradition, Mrs Ashton, Braddie and Maisie have further adventures ahead. Or indeed, books set in their lively earlier life."
Finally, why self-publish?
"Around me, dozens of writers more established and successful than me found their agents and publishers scared and skittish. I really believed in the book so I decided to self-publish. No AI was used, and the cover, editing, formatting and proofing was done to a professional standard."
The book launch events
Links
Supporting local authors has never been more important (Enfield Dispatch 2 September 2025)
