The History behind the DCI Frank Merlin Books
I write a series about a police detective called Frank Merlin working in World War Two London. The sixth in the series, Death Of An Officer, is being published later this month. I am often asked where I get my story ideas from. The simple answer is: from history. I’m not saying that I just plagiarise historical events for my plots, but the fact is that historical events usually spark the ideas in my head which then develop into storylines.
I do a considerable amount of research for my Merlin books. After being engaged on my series for several years now, I have acquired a pretty substantial amount of knowledge about the war in general and about specific subjects like wartime crime. Every time I embark on a new book, however, and before writing a word, I spend three months researching in detail the exact period in which the book is to be set. I delve into history books, diaries, novels of the period, newspapers and magazines and wartime films. When I started writing, I used to do much of my research at Kensington Library and the Kew Public Records Office. However, since those early days, the internet has developed exponentially, and I can rely on my computer (iPad actually!) for most of what I need. If I want to know what the weather was like on a particular date, I can find out on the internet. If I want to know which RAF Squadrons were up in the air in on a particular day during the Battle of Britain, I can find out online. If I want to know who was performing at the London Palladium on a particular evening in 1943, my iPad can tell me. I still go to libraries but I do that more for a change of scene than anything else.
Anyway, it is during my three-month advance research process that, to date, I have always found the sparks of inspiration for my storylines. Let me explain how with reference to each of my books.
The Embassy Murders. With this, the first Merlin book, I wanted a setting close to the beginning of the war and picked January 1940, a month during the early period of the conflict known as The Phoney War as it was a time when little actual fighting was going on. As I researched the period, the one major issue which stood out for me was that of appeasement. At this time, a significant part of the British establishment felt the only way Britain could survive was if it could come to some sort of negotiated settlement with the Germans – in other words by appeasing Hitler. The American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy was a strong believer in appeasement. He did not think the British were up to defending themselves and would be best advised to go crawling to the German leader. It was this subject of appeasement which provided the necessary spark to my imagination. I decided to base the book in and around Kennedy’s American Embassy and to set my story among defeatist members of the establishment. The murders Merlin has to investigate in the book are pure inventions, but history had given me the foundations for the setting of my story.
In The Shadows Of The Blitz. The spark I needed for this book came to me one afternoon in Kensington Library. I had chosen to set my second book in September 1940, in the early days of the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz. I was however struggling to find a plot. I took a little break and started browsing an old history of the Spanish Civil War. I read a little about Russia’s involvement in that war and its provision of significant military support to the anti-Franco Republicans. Stalin had naturally sought recompense for giving this helping hand and, amongst other things, required the Republicans, at a time when they were in control of the Spanish Treasury, to make regular transfers of Spanish gold to Russia. I came across a footnote in the history referring to a 1936 shipment from Cartagena to Odessa in which some errors in the ship manifest suggested some of the gold might have gone missing. The book made no further reference to this shipment, but I had my spark. What if that had indeed happened, I thought to myself, and my imagination began to run. In the story the stolen gold somehow turns up in wartime London. Stalin discovers its location and gets people searching for it. Murder inevitably follows and Merlin is on the case.
The French Spy. This book is set in May 1941. I have always been fascinated by the story of Vichy France in World War Two and it was reading about Vichy which gave me the historical inspiration for the main storyline in this book. By May 1941, Charles De Gaulle had established a Free French Government in exile in London. Back in France, Germany had taken direct control of the northern part of the country, while allowing the rest a heavily-restricted independence under a puppet French Government in Vichy. The Vichy leader was the World War One hero Marshal Petain. De Gaulle and Petain loathed each other. Why not invent a fictional Vichy spy in De Gaulle’s London operation, I thought, and have Merlin investigate the violent consequences of this act of espionage? And that’s what I did.
A Death In Mayfair. While preparing for Merlin 4, to be set in December of 1941, I came across a British film history which informed me there were something like 16 active film studios in and around London during the war years. This struck me as a surprisingly large number and I realised I had the inspiration for my new plot. I invented a riverside studio and filled it with film characters, some of whom were partly modelled on real people. My studio boss was largely based on Alexander Korda of London Films while other characters were derived from stars like Rex Harrison and George Formby. In the book, a glamorous film actress falls to her death from a penthouse balcony in Mayfair, and Merlin seeks the answers to her death in movie land.
Dead In the Water. The art world provided the spark for this novel, which is set in the summer of 1942. I had been reading in my general research about the Nazi theft of artworks from Jewish families before the war. My opening scene depicts a Jewish banker and his wife and children being rounded up by the authorities in 1938 Vienna. He has a wonderful art collection which is confiscated by the Nazis. Three years later, some priceless art turns up in London in the possession of a Dutch businessman. Is there a connection? Murder ensues and Merlin follows the blood-soaked trail leading to the perpetrators.
Death Of An Officer. Set in May 1943, this, my new book, has several plot lines. One of these concerns gay night life in London. The spark for this came from my reading a recent biography of Louis Mountbatten in which it is alleged that Mountbatten was bisexual and liked to visit male brothels. This set me thinking about how rich gay people lived their lives in wartime London. Would there have been gay clubs? I did not know for a fact, but as it is known that there had been illicit gay clubs in London back in the eighteenth century London (called ‘molly houses’), why wouldn’t there have been such clubs in mid-20th century London I thought? So there was one spark of inspiration for the book. Another spark came to me when I happened to be reading about the battle for Indian independence. I discovered the fascinating historical character, Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was a leading Indian politician before the war and was close to Nehru and Gandhi. After the outbreak of war in 1939, however, he chose to follow a very different path than that pursued by his former colleagues. He decided that the only hope India had of gaining its independence was if Nazi Germany won the war. Accordingly he travelled to Germany and then Japan to seek support. In due course he established a significant armed force called the Indian National Army, which was trained by the Japanese and fought against the Allies in India and Malaysia. Bose died in an aeroplane crash in 1945 and never saw his long-hoped-for Indian Independence arrive. He remains a controversial figure in India, with many revering him for his patriotism. I decided I wanted Bose in my book and he is. I think it would be revealing a little too much of the book’s plot to reveal how, so I’ll leave it for readers to find out.
One question I’m often asked is how far in time I intend to take Merlin. When I started out it was my plan to take him through to the end of the war and that remains my intention. Some other authors who have created wartime detectives have extended their characters’ fictional existence beyond the war. Bernie Gunther, Philip Kerr’s marvellous German detective starts out as a pre-war copper in Berlin, goes through the war and then beyond in his adventures. Another favourite author of mine, John Lawton, likewise, gives his protagonist Inspector Troy a life beyond 1945. Merlin is only in his forties during the war years and could probably carry on detecting until the 1960s. Will he? I don’t know. First things first. I have to find that spark of inspiration again for Frank Merlin 7!
Mark Ellis is the bestselling writer of thrillers including the DCI Frank Merlin series, the latest of which is Death Of An Officer.