The ‘prototype detective’ returns in Cambridge author Susan Grossey’s latest crime novel
Cambridge-based author Susan Grossey is to publish the second in a series of five crime novels set in Cambridge in the 1820s featuring protagonist and ex-soldier Gregory Hardiman.
Titled Sizar, the book, the follow-up to last year’s Ostler, is due to be published tomorrow (Thursday, 5 December).
A sizar is a category of ‘charity’ student that the University of Cambridge used to allow to attend for reduced fees in exchange for doing menial tasks such as waiting at table in hall.
“They do still have them in Cambridge actually but it’s more of a ceremonial thing,” explains Susan, an alumna of New Hall – now Murray Edwards – College.
“Churchill College offers four sizarships worth about £200 a year… But in Gregory’s day, so 200 years ago, it was quite an important category of student, in that they were often among the brightest.
“I mean Isaac Newton was a sizar, for instance, so they were the really bright boys who someone supported.
“Often their local rector or someone would say ‘Look, this lad deserves a chance’ and if they were good enough, off they went.
“And they paid very minimal fees, sometimes as low as 15 shillings a quarter – which is about £45 in today’s money – and someone might well pay that for them.
“But they didn’t have very nice lodgings, obviously they weren’t given the best rooms in college, and they had to do things like waiting at table.
“In the olden olden days, a long time ago, it was grim – they weren’t given their own food, they had to eat scraps from other people’s plates.
“In Gregory’s day they were given their own food, but they ate after other people. They waited on table and then they ate afterwards, so you can imagine that there might have been a bit of resentment!”
The story sees Gregory Hardiman settling in to civilian life as an ostler and university constable in Cambridge, though when an undergraduate is found hanged in his rooms at the fictional St Clement’s College, the master asks Gregory to investigate.
A second death at the same college suggests something altogether more sinister, and Gregory sets out to discover whether a love of illegal gambling on horse races could lie at the heart of the tragedies.
“The main story of this one revolves around the fact that in 1826, the vice-chancellor decreed that members of the university were forbidden from going to, or even looking at, horse races,” observes Susan.
“He was concerned about the young men becoming addicted to gambling and being distracted from their studies – so of course the moment he said ‘You must never watch horse-racing ever again’, everyone decamped to Newmarket.
“So it’s all about the effect that that has, and how it could be incorporated within the studies that people are doing, because gambling is all about mathematics and Cambridge was the leading mathematical centre of the world at that point – so I’ve tried to draw the two together.”
Susan, who came up to Cambridge in 1984, graduated in 1988, and then returned to live permanently in 1992 (she’s been here ever since) says that Sizar can be enjoyed as a standalone novel, and that one doesn’t need to have read Ostler to be able to follow the plot.
“You can read it on its own,” she insists. “It depends on people’s tastes… I like series, I love getting into something and really digging around in it, but some people prefer a standalone story.
“So I’m careful to introduce the main characters each time – not in a repetitive, boring way for people who are going through the series but with enough background for new readers.
“But it does enrich it, I suppose, if you know a little bit about it – but I’m saving information so that people who read only book five (when it happens) will still get enough of Gregory that they feel they know him with just one book.”
Susan will be officially launching Sizar at Bodies in the Bookshop on Botolph Lane, Cambridge, tomorrow (5 December).
For more information, and to book a place at the free launch event, visit bodiesinthebookshop.co.uk/events/.
