The Parish of Frayed Ends

A Timberdick Mystery

Matador Paperback ISBN: 978-1906221-799

This Information Pack includes:

Information about The Parish of Frayed Ends

Readers Guidance and Questions

Information about the Author

Information about other Books In the Series

About The Book

Timberdick knows that the local tallyman was only pretending to be dead in the water. And she believes that Widow McKinley died peacefully in her Curiosity Shop. But when the Chief Constable asks questions about a Superintendent who was buried two years ago, our street-wise detective finds that she is investigating three murders instead of one.

Christmas 1965 is a busy time for the cheapest call-girl on Goodladies Road. She has a new baby daughter and she’s looking after a wayward schoolboy. Then three suspects say that they were in bed with her favourite policeman on the night of the murder and Timbers can only see one way forward. She goes to Church and sets a date for the wedding.

Book Club Information and Library Pack - Page Two

Readers Guidance and Questions

Secrets from the Author’s Notebook

Until the last moment, the book was called A Clue of Old Widows. Would that have been a better title? How does The Parish of Frayed Ends reflect the content of the novel?

The original outline of the plot indicated that someone else killed Ben Beer. Who do you think?

The Characters

On the rooftops, Timbers takes young Stuart to task for looking at pin-ups. Do you think she wins the argument? What do her comments indicate about how she feels about herself?

Timbers comes across a variety of characters in the novel. What sort of people would you expect her to confide in?

Writing Style

The story is told from two viewpoints. What does that approach bring to the novel?
Did it get in the way of your enjoyment of the story?

In the first novel of the series, Timbers explains, ‘I got there by thinking, not by fingerprints.’ In The Parish of Frayed Ends, do you think it is clear how she deduced the solution to the mystery through clues and alibis?

Malcolm Noble used to be a policeman and now runs a bookshop with his wife. Are there any clues to this background in the novel? What else does his writing tell you about him?

The author is available for interviews and talks with interested groups.
For more information, contact Julia Fuller at Troubador Publishing by email at julia_fuller@troubador.co.uk or by phone on 07870 864779


Book Club Information and Library Pack - Page Three

Information about the Author

Malcolm Noble was born in Gedling, Nottingham in 1951 but spent his childhood in southern Hampshire, attending schools in Lee-on-Solent, Stubbington and Gosport. He spent some of his teenage years in Dorchester and Shropshire, where his father was stationed with the RAF. The family returned to Hampshire (Crookham Village) where Malcolm studied at Farnborough Technical College.

After working for a period in High Wycombe, Malcolm joined the Hampshire Police, serving in Ringwood and Portsmouth. He married a Portsmouth girl (from Paulsgrove) and they raised their family on the Isle of Wight and later in Wotton-Under-Edge and Rochester. They now run a second-hand bookshop, together, in Market Harborough.

The Timberdick Mysteries

Timberdick’s First Case
Timberdick worked the pavements of Goodladies Road, where the men had bad ideas and the women should have known better. When the local CID loses interest in the murder of a young prostitute, Timberdick takes the case on. It’s 1963 and Timberdick’s First Case challenges more than her powers of deduction. “Real people are murdered by family and friends,” says one of the girls. “We get killed by everyone else.”
Matador Paperback ISBN 978-1904744-337

Liking Good Jazz
The city back streets rock to Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry 45s, but the swinging sixties bring nothing but trouble for the cheapest callgirl on Goodladies Road. Searching for an abandoned infant, she learns that the father has been murdered, then someone tries to shoot her. Timbers takes us into the shadows and dark alleyways of her world, where shopkeepers and porters want to draw her into the murky sides of their lives. Seeking help from her friends, she soon learns that she can trust no-one. Before it's all over, she's sure of just one thing... no place rocks like the Hoboken Arms on a Tuesday night.
Matador Paperback ISBN 978-1904744-962

Piggy Tucker’s Poison
Timberdick is back! She's living in a church vestry and working nights in the Curiosity Shop when a stranger is murdered at the top of the stairs. Timberdick's girls are the likely suspects. Setting out to find the real killer, she is soon on the run herself from the Police and the pavements of Goodladies Road offer no hiding place.
It's 1965 and the world has gone crazy... her favourite policeman is moonlighting as a DJ on a pirate radio ship, and Bugger McKinley's ghost is loose on the town. Timbers is arrested, but she has no time to waste in a police cell -- she has a murder to solve and a bun in the oven.
Matador Paperback ISBN 978-1905237-180

The Case of the Dirty Verger
1947 brings no peace to Goodladies Road. Men without a war and girls without homes is a cocktail for murder. When Ned Machray, an out of work policeman, is dispatched to help an old soldier flee the country, he finds that the old tavern has been bombed, Ma Shipley is working her girls from a smutty tearoom, and the manor is controlled by an embittered Chief Inspector who works from the back of a taxi office. Before Ned can begin to sort things out, he has to referee a boxing match and face up to the ghost of Sweet Fanny Adams. Then a body is found beneath the railway arches... the Dirty Verger holds the key to the mystery, but who would deal with a man like that? Well, Timberdick might. A teenage runaway, who can't escape the lies and treachery of her childhood. "Every grown up comes with a cakeload of cruelty," she says, and the Case of the Dirty Verger is no different.
This Timberdick Mystery explores our protagonist's first nights on the Goodladies Road, and offers clues to many of the characters who have already appeared in her later murder cases.
Matador Paperback ISBN 978-1905886-319

The Parish of Frayed Ends
Timberdick knows that the local tallyman was only pretending to be dead in the water. And she believes that Widow McKinley died peacefully in her Curiosity Shop. But when the Chief Constable asks questions about a Superintendent who was buried two years ago, our street-wise detective finds that she is investigating three murders instead of one. Christmas 1965 is a busy time for the cheapest call-girl on Goodladies Road. She has a new baby daughter and she’s looking after a wayward schoolboy.Then three suspects say that they were in bed with her favourite policeman on the night of the murder and Timbers can see only one way forward. She goes to Church and sets a date for the wedding.
Matador Paperback ISBN 978-1906221-799