Frome author’s murder mysteries

A FROME man has co-authored a murder mystery book, which reveals a darker side to Jane Austen’s Bath. 

And the authors hope that their stories will soon be made into a TV series as well.

Frome resident David Lassman and his co-author Terence James have released ‘The Regency Detective’, and although it is set in Bath, Frome has a role to play as well.

Haunted by the brutal murder of his father, the central character Jack Swann turns his back on his privileged upbringing and chooses to fight crime as The Regency Detective.

David, who is a member of the Frome Scriptwriters Group and also teaches courses for Frome Community Education,  explains, “When you read the Jane Austen books set in Regency Bath – Northanger Abbey or Persuasion – or other novels set in the city at that time, they normally only focus on the glamorous and society orientated aspects which made Bath so fashionable and famous in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A darker side to the city existed though, a more sordid and dangerous side of the city that the guide books deliberately ignored, but which lay just beneath the surface of the genteel and elegant façade.

“We wanted to reflect this darker side in ‘The Regency Detective’ as well, and so the back story we have given Jack Swann, our main protagonist, means he can easily move between these two contrasting worlds.

“One of the main characters in the book lives in a manor house near Frome. The house had previously belonged to a family who had built their wealth on the local woollen industry, but had subsequently gone broke after war broke out with France (their main place of export). In the book, a gathering, with guest speaker, takes place at the house, which has a profound effect on one of the other main characters attending. Frome is to have an even bigger role in the next book of the series, which we are in the process of writing at present.”

Pictured: David Lassman (left) and Terence James