Maria Malone

Born in the North-East of England, Maria Malone worked in print journalism and television news and features. She has written TV companion books, ghosted celebrity autobiographies, and is a former Yorkshire Press Awards Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year.

Malone's new Wren & Wilson mystery is Killing in the Countryside (UK title: Poison and Peacocks in the Dales).

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Coming up with the title is not my strongest point and my books have different titles in the UK and the US, which makes it even trickier. Left to my own devices, poison and/or peacocks would feature in the title, since they’re central to the story – how it begins, develops and ends. However, I appreciate the title has to work in its territory.

I was asked by the publisher to submit suggestions and among my offerings was A Poisonous Affair in the Countryside. Killing in the Countryside was their preference. It’s not easy, I think, to find something that captures the quirky, slightly eccentric British core of the book for American readers.

The fictional town of Heft is a strange little corner of the Yorkshire Dales, in the habit of wrong-footing the local law enforcement, Sergeant Ali Wren and her springer spaniel partner, Officer Wilson. I hope the character of the place and its people somehow comes across.

In its favour, the title is straightforward – I mean, there is killing and the book is set in the countryside...

What's in a name?

My main characters are Sergeant Ali Wren and her dog, Officer Wilson. The names are important to me, and I spent time thinking about what would work. As the book is part of a series, the names of the principals had to work well together, and I felt ‘A Wren and Wilson Mystery’ had something about it.

Anyone reading the books will be aware of the many bird references throughout. I love birds, at home in the north-east of England, our garden has so much bird life. If you ever feel low, I recommend sitting and watching birds. The wren is a tiny bird, not in the least showy, but it knows how to make itself heard – it has a striking call. Like the wren, Ali is good at finding a way of cutting through and being heard. Her name seems to suit her.

As for Wilson, he is named after a footballer, Callum Wilson, a one-time forward for Newcastle United, the team I support. Wilson is a significant name in the club’s history – fourteen Wilsons, more than any other surname, have featured since 1892. I hadn’t before encountered a dog named Wilson and it felt proper, distinguished, perfect for a heroic service animal.

I named my fictitious town Heft because it felt appropriate to Yorkshire and its character. Best of all, it allowed me to come up with a local bakery speciality – a pie called the Hooley Heft.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Very, is the short answer. My favourite novel in high school was The Catcher in the Rye, a recommendation from my English teacher, Mr Rigby, a man never seen without his head buried in a book, even when walking the corridors of the school, forcing students to press themselves against the wall to allow him to pass without having to watch where he was going. For a while, I was slightly obsessed with Holden Caulfield and the phonies. I was also very taken with Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s The Little Prince, an absolute classic. Probably my favourite book of all time.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

The beginning is much harder for me. I spend ages thinking about it and tweaking what I’ve written. The opening of the first Wren and Wilson novel, Death in the Countryside begins, ‘One of life’s little tricks, Ali suspected. You got the thing you wanted only to find it wasn’t quite what you were expecting.’ That felt just right for a police officer returning to her hometown with all kinds of preconceptions only to find the reality nothing like she’d imagined.

The ending seems to take care of itself. I don’t plot in any detail, rather I write and see where it takes me. Obviously, I’ve a rough sense of where the story is going but not how it will get there or how it’s going to end.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think, inevitably, there are elements of me in Ali. I lived and worked in Yorkshire for many years, so my experience of the region, the lovely countryside of the Dales is there. I wrote the first Wren and Wilson Mystery soon after moving back to my native north-east from Yorkshire and inevitably my feelings about coming home are an influence.

Ali’s relationship with Wilson stems from the one I had with my dog, Nell, a West Highland White Terrier. And the walks Ali does are rooted in ones I’ve done, some in Yorkshire, others in Northumberland and Cornwall.

Like Ali, I’m willing to work all hours to get the job done to the best of my ability. I’ll also go the extra mile. I love that Ali is prepared to deal with the ‘non-crimes’ in Heft to keep the peace and that when she investigates the disappearance of a woman whose husband is utterly inept on the domestic front she takes pity, cooking for him, even doing his ironing.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The starting point for Killing in the Countryside was the village in Cornwall where my sister Kathleen lives. Peacocks freely roam the streets there and often show up in her garden expecting to be fed (which they are). The birds are magnificent and loud and bossy. It’s breathtaking to be able to see them close up.

Driving through the village, it’s not unusual to find one or more of these extraordinary creatures strutting along the road. Really, they’re in charge. The book is dedicated to Kathleen with my gratitude.

My late parents, who loved reading and encouraged me to write, were an inspiration, a major influence. They still are.

Visit Maria Malone's website.

Writers Read: Maria Malone (August 2025).

Writers Read: Maria Malone.

--Marshal Zeringue