Liz Cruwys is an author whose crime fiction is set in the emerging years of the University, complete with inter-collegiate skulduggery, academic intrigue and worse.
For me, Cambridge is one of the most magical, magnificent and murderous places anywhere.
Liz Cruwys, author.
On a fine morning in 1996 Liz Cruwys, a marine biologist, cycled from the Scott Polar Research Institute to Heffers book shop on Trinity Street. There on a table in the crime fiction section lay a pile of freshly delivered copies of A Plague on Both Your Houses: the First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory, an author new to the genre.
Liz opened the top copy and flicked through the first few pages – a dedication to the author’s husband, a map of Cambridge and a plan of Michaelhouse circa 1348, followed by a prologue that sets the scene for the unfolding of clerical skulduggery and academic scheming. It was, she says, a “surreal feeling” because Susanna Gregory is a pseudonym – and the author of the book with the brightly coloured cover was none other than Liz herself.
A Plague on Both Your Houses unravels the story of a murder against a backdrop of the savage rivalry of medieval Cambridge, as college fellows jockey for position. In the background looms the ever-present threat of approaching plague. When it arrives, the Black Death brings desperation among the local population as resources dwindle, and town and gown rivalries intensify. Descriptions of the stench from the River Cam, filthy kitchens and piles of rubbish are stark reminders of Cambridge as a miserably cold town in the Fens.
The central character is Matthew Bartholomew, a physician and teacher of medicine at Michaelhouse, one of the earliest Cambridge colleges, which was eventually incorporated into Trinity College. With his pragmatism, Bartholomew is more modern in his methods than most of his peers in the book as he seeks to find a logical explanation for the spread of infection and a means of treating it – perhaps a pointer to some of the brilliant Cambridge minds to come.
Liz says she became fascinated by medieval history while “living among the wonderful medieval remains of Cambridge”. After school in Bristol, she earned her first two degrees at the University of Lancaster and the University of Durham. Her subsequent career as a police officer gave her an insight into human behaviour in all its guises, subterfuge and crime-solving.
In her late-20s she returned to academia, taking a PhD at Cambridge, and later becoming a Fellow and Tutor at Wolfson College. During her time in Cambridge, she conducted extensive fieldwork in both polar regions, while pursuing her love of medieval history and architecture in her free time. In constructing her plots, she combines historical research with a cracking good story.
Since the publication of A Plague on Both Your Houses, 15 further Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles have appeared. An interest in Restoration London prompted Liz to start another series, this one based around the character Thomas Chaloner. On top of that, she is author of books on British castles and cathedrals of the world. She says: “Each time I finish a book, I quickly plunge into the next one – and soon I scarcely remember what the last one was about.”
In 2006, Liz moved to Carmarthenshire in west Wales, where she has a large garden and engages in heated debate with other writers of crime fiction on matters of pithy historic detail, and works full time on her books. She still visits Cambridge, where she lived for 20 years, whenever she can. Sometimes she pops into the Michaelhouse Café, a flourishing reminder of one of Cambridge’s ‘lost’ colleges, imagining vespers being sung there by early college scholars as she sips her tea.