Written on a sixty-year-old typewriter
First drafts are typed on my grandfather's Olivetti, then rewritten by hand. It is slow, and it keeps the sentences short.
The Porthcarrow mysteries
A harbour town of six hundred people and one secret per tide.
I'm Clara Whitlock, and I write crime novels set in Porthcarrow, an invented fishing town on the south coast of Cornwall. Detective Sergeant Mags Penrose solves murders there between lifeboat shouts and her mother's café shifts. The fourth book, The Low Water Ledger, is out this winter from Halyard Press.
Signed copies of The Low Water Ledger can be pre-ordered from the Porthcarrow bookshop.
The series so far
- Porthcarrow novels
- 4
- Languages in translation
- 11
- Crime fiction prizes shortlisted
- 2
- Readers who get the monthly letter
- 9k
What readers come back for
Each novel stands alone, but the town changes from book to book. Start anywhere; most people start with The Drowned Bell.
Independent bookshops first
Every launch tour starts in small shops, and each book carries a list of the booksellers who championed the last one.
Tides that set the clock
Every plot is timed to a real tide table. Readers have checked, and the bodies are always found at low water.
A town that ages
Children from book one are teenagers by book four, and the café has changed hands twice.
Mags Penrose
A detective with a lifeboat pager, a sharp tongue and a mother who knows every secret in town before she does.
Clues you can play fair with
Every clue Mags uses appears on the page before she does. Book clubs like to argue about chapter nineteen.
Where the books happen
Porthcarrow is invented, but it is stitched together from real harbours, lanes and weather along the Cornish coast.
Letters from Porthcarrow
One short letter a month: what Mags is up to, a page from the next draft and a bookshop worth visiting. New subscribers get the first chapter of The Low Water Ledger.
From readers and booksellers
“I read The Drowned Bell in one wet weekend and then drove to Cornwall looking for a town that does not exist.”
“Clara's books sell themselves once someone reads the first page aloud. We have hand-sold over four hundred copies.”
“Our book club has done all four. The arguments about who knew what, and when, last longer than the cake.”
Reader questions
Which book should I read first?
The Drowned Bell, if you like order. Any of them, if you do not; each mystery is solved by the last page.
Is Porthcarrow a real place?
No, though it borrows a harbour wall from one village and a pub from another. Locals enjoy guessing which.
Do you visit book clubs?
Yes, in person across the South West and by video anywhere. Requests go through the contact page.
Will there be a fifth book?
I am writing it now. Subscribers to the monthly letter hear the title first.
Running a festival or a library event?
I do readings, panels and writing workshops on crime fiction, small towns and the sea.
Invite me to your event
Give me the date, the place and roughly how many people. My agent or I will reply within a week.