How to kill people

by Carola Dunn

One of the difficulties in writing a long series is trying to find new ways to kill people. I'm not really keen on incredibly complicated devices such as some Golden Age authors used--carefully aimed rifles that were fired by invisible twine when the victim opened the garden gate, or when a candle burning down set the twine on fire, for instance.

Yet I don't want to repeat myself too much. By the time you get to the twenty-first book in a series, it's a real problem.

Let me see--I've had drowning, shooting, ye olde blunt instrument to the head, poison, prehistoric stone knife, dagger in the back, ceremonial halberd, thumbs to the carotid arteries, smothering with a pillow, blowing up with coal-gas, breathing coal-gas, breathing nitrous oxide, crushed by a stone angel, strangling with a stocking, chucking overboard, fall from a cliff...

[No, Daisy did NOT push him over!]

You see the trouble? I just may have to add "run over by a tram" to the list. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea!

Just looked up the relevant city and this is what I found: 

"City chaos

Despite Council promises, from June 1903 until the opening day, havoc had reigned.

Tram in Broad Street copyright L Oppitz

All the main streets in the city centre were dug up for the removal of the old lines used by the former horse-drawn tramcars and for the installation of wider lines and overhead power cables for the new electric trams.

The city was cast into total chaos and the whole operation led to what became known locally and nationally as "The Tramway Siege of Worcester 1903-4".
Citizens had to get around the central area entirely on foot to shop or to do their business, some pushing prams or other makeshift two-wheeled trolleys to carry their goods.
The Council remained optimistic claiming: "What is in view is cheapness - a welcome penny fare to each boundary of the city, a more frequent service, and trams to and fro on every route every ten minutes’.

1904 tram - copyright Leslie Oppitz

All cars were fitted with slipper brakes because of gradients in Rainbow Hill and London Road."

The trams ran until 1928--the year after my book takes place, when they were replaced by buses.

Yes indeed, I think someone's going to get run over by a tram...

Friends of Daisy: can you remember any methods of murder I've forgotten?


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