11th April 2025


Books


Author Profile


Mel Pennant


The solicitor and playwright draws on Afro-Caribbean traditions and the strength of community for her Birmingham-set cosy-crime debut. Lauren Brown reports


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Imprint Baskerville Publication 12th June 2025 Formats HB (9781399814379, £16.99); EB (9781399814409, £16.99) Rights sold North American (Knopf US) Editor Jade Chandler Agent Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary


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t the heart of practicing solicitor and playwright Mel Pennant’s debut crime novel A Murder for Miss Hortense, and of the Afro-Caribbean community in


the invented Birmingham suburb of Bigglesweigh, is a Pardner network – a special community of Black investors in which members pool their funds and take turns making withdrawals, a practice that has roots in the Windrush generation. “The Pardner is a really common tool in the


Afro-Caribbean community,” Pennant explains. “If you speak to anyone from the Afro-Caribbean community of a certain age and you say ‘Pardner’, they will know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s amazing, and I don’t think we, the next generation, have fully realised the importance of it.” What inspired Pennant was that, while “it’s a really simple idea of people


Books Author Profile


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