A Very Vexing Murder

Alumna’s début deals delightful detective twist on Austen in cosy crime series

Double alumna Lucy Andrew has a double celebration as she debuts with her page-turning Regency cosy crime romp.

In her first novel A Very Vexing Murder, she reimagines Harriet Smith from Jane Austen’s Emma as a skilled con artist turned detective.

The English literature academic turned writer is no stranger to crime fiction. Specialising across multiple genres from young adult and crime fiction to graphic novels and fan studies, she is a regularly contributor to podcasts, radio and television, including Murder Maps to Rippercast: The Jack the Ripper Podcast.

Runner-up in the A M Heath Crime Writing Prize this year, her playful creation has quite caught the imagination in the publishing world.

In the past 12 months, A Very Vexing Murder placed as a finalist at Pitch Perfect 2023 at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival, highly commended in the Spread the Word Case Closed First Chapter competition and been shortlisted in the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize (Crime and Thriller category).

Lucy said: "I’m delighted to be working with Sarah and Corvus on my novel. Their enthusiasm for the project and for Jane Austen blew me away and they will be the perfect home for Harriet’s investigations."

Delighted at the signing, Corvus publishing director Sarah Hodgson added:

"I haven’t had this much fun with a novel in ages! While fans of Austen will delight in the clever interweaving of the plot with the events of Emma, Lucy has done an outstanding job of ensuring that A Very Vexing Murder works brilliantly as a crime novel in its own right. I couldn’t be happier that she has chosen Corvus as the home for these wonderfully witty tales."

Creative writer and academic Dr Lucy Andrew (BA 2007 & PhD 2017, English Literature) teaches and researches crime fiction, children’s and YA fiction and creative writing. Book two in the series will see heroine Harriet Smith solve another murder in the Jane Austen universe.