I’m a writer and travel blogger. I was going to say that I am the creator of the Polynesia Henman Mystery Series, but that isn’t the whole truth. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, this is the true story behind the creation of Polynesia Henman, investigator extraordinaire
When my son, Sam, was eleven he wrote a murder mystery novel for a competition at school. The heroine was a wonderful character called Polynesia Henman; an eleven-year-old who was clever, resourceful and not afraid to be different … and of course she solved the murder.
The book was handwritten, in pencil, with minimal punctuation and some very approximate spelling. Sadly it didn’t win the prize and so Sam brought it home and dumped it on the table, muttering darkly about biased judges.
The book was left, forgotten in a cupboard, as Sam grew up, but nearly twenty years later I came across it during a clear out. Sam’s wife, Alice, volunteered to edit, punctuate and type up the original and she designed a cover and gave us all a copy for Christmas.
Rereading the story after so many years, I began to wonder what Polynesia – by this time a woman of thirty – would be up to now and how her life would have panned out. Murder at the Herald was the result of my pondering. And then this year I pondered some more and Murder in the Spotlight is a continuation of Polynesia’s story.
So Polynesia Henman is a very special character. Her story spans twenty-five years and two generations of murder mystery writers … so far!