But you’re here to understand how James got his name. James’s mother, Emmanuelle Lalonde, is a French model who moved to New York to pursue her dream. James’s father is a man she met while living in New York. They married and soon had a child, James. Together, they chose a name that would work in English and French.

Emmanuelle Lalonde, James’s mother, is a French model who moved to New York to pursue her dream. As a child, she dreamed of walking the runway after seeing photographs of models in the French Vogue. She loved fashion, and often got in trouble at school for the way she styled her clothes. James’s father is a man she met while living in New York. They married and soon had a child, James. Together, they chose a name that would work in English and French.

However, three years after his birth, their relationship fell apart. Fearing losing custody of her child, Emmanuelle took three-year-old James back to Poitiers to live with her parents, Dr Francois Lalonde and Dr Valerie Lalonde. Upon arrival, she changed his last name on his birth certificate to match hers. Soon after moving to France, Emmanuelle left just before James turned four, and they never heard from her again.

Eventually, James makes a few discoveries in relation to his parentage. The arc of the series follows James’s search into his mother’s death and makes discoveries along the way. So, yes, this answer is vague, but I want to avoid spoiling the James Lalonde amateur sleuth mysteries for you.

I promise to reveal more information about James and his past in future books. And, I’m not talking hypothetically. His search starts in Duplicity, which is book two.

Swearing and the use of similar words are somewhat cultural and, at the same time, change between generations. So, what is deemed appropriate for one generation may be seen as inappropriate for another, and it’s also personal.

What does this have to do with James and how he swears in my books?

When I create characters and write their dialogue, I need to consider a few things: who they were raised by and how, education, life experiences, influences, hobbies, and friends. James was raised by his grandparents, Valerie and Francois, who were born in 1943 and 1945 and are considered to be a part of the “Silent Generation.” While they are highly educated, they retain some of their traditional views. His grandparents, if they were real people, would have strong opinions of words like Putain, Bite, Bordel, or Putain de bordel de merde— they see these words as vulgar.

Notice how I omitted merde. This word is considered different for that generation and many other French people; it’s almost a throwaway phrase. In the same way, putain has become like this for younger people in 2024.

The characters Valerie and Francois are very loosely inspired by my husband’s parents who are technically boomers and they hold similar views. While James is in one part loosely inspired by my husband, with a dash of my personality that accidentally made its way into his point of view, and a final part that’s pure fiction. But, his use of the word merde is very much inspired by real events.

The Inspiration for James’s Love of Merde

Early one morning, back when I had just started dating my now husband, I was woken to the sound of my husband rummaging through a wardrobe box in desperate search of his snow socks, saying, merde, merde, merde, over and over again. This moment stuck with me mainly because I thought it was funny. During this point in my life, I was also creating or remoulding the character, James Lalonde, which I borrowed from another book that I wrote the previous year that I won’t be publishing. This is why I had the epiphany: “What if James could be French.”

He’s Not Just French

But he’s not just French—he was born in New York to a French woman and an unknown man, raised by his grandparents in Poitiers, France, but left in 2005 to attend university in the United Kingdom. The events in the James Lalonde Amateur Sleuth Mystery series are set in 2015. So, at this stage, he’s been living in the United Kingdom for ten years. So, he’s a mixture of a few cultures at this stage. James is not just French; he’s a French ex-pat who has been living in England for a decade surrounded by Brits. He hasn’t surrounded himself with French people, much in the same way I haven’t surrounded myself with Australians while living in London. When you live in a foreign country for this long you do adopt things from the new to you culture that you’re living in. It’s inevitable.

Let’s Talk Stereotypes

Also, I don’t want to be culturally insensitive. I don’t want to call him Jean-Pierre-Baptise Lalonde, make him speak English half-heartedly, say all the French swear words, and sigh in that exasperated way you only see on that side of the channel. These are stereotypes and are pretty offensive to French people. I wouldn’t like to read a book featuring an Australian protagonist who swears like a sailor and says “g’day mate” and “strewth” all the time—I wouldn’t read past the first chapter. 

On top of this, I write in English, and I don’t want to overuse French in my novels. It would be out of character for James to swear in his head in English because French is his first language because this is his natural default.

Every now and then, I get comments in reviews about James not being French or not using enough French swear words, and it drives me bananas. Thank you for reading my rant.

Hopping off my soap box for now.

No, it’s a fictional newspaper.

At the time of writing Suspicion, no such newspaper existed. And, any similarities to current newspapers in Northampton are purely coincidental. However, I took inspiration for the layout of the building of the Northampton Tribune from the newsroom of the New York Times to help me write the newsroom scenes in Suspicion.

Sort of.

In Suspicion, the Northampton Museum of Anthropology (aka the NMA) is housed in the Northampton Guildhall.

But the museum itself was inspired by the museum of archaeology and anthropology, which is in Cambridge, United Kingdom. So it’s a real place that you can visit. Admission is free, and it’s open from Tuesday through to Sunday. Check out the museum’s website for more details.

Sorry, it’s not a real coffee house.

It’s perfectly fine to read Suspicion, then go back and read The Candidate, The Locked Room, The Lawn and then Duplicity.

But if you’re looking to read the books according to a timeline order, this is for you.

1. The Candidate (the first book in the Rookie Reporter mystery series)
2. The Locked Room
3. The Lawn
4. Suspicion
5. Duplicity

Eleven short stories and novels will eventually be published between The Candidate and The Locked Room. These books are the Rookie Reporter series and feature the highlight reel from James’s first year as a journalist. But you don’t have to wait for these to be published. The books still make sense if you read them in the order they were published.

If you’re looking for a more up-to-date explanation of the reading order, then check out this blog post.