When I first began shaping Shadows at Bramblewick, I knew the heart of the story wouldn’t be the mystery alone — it would be Mary Collins, a young woman stepping into a new life just as the world around her shifts beneath her feet. She isn’t a detective by trade. She isn’t trained. She isn’t even looking for trouble when she arrives at Bramblewick Farm.
But she is observant. She is thoughtful. And she is quietly, instinctively brave.
Those qualities didn’t appear out of nowhere. They grew from the life she lived long before the Women’s Land Army letter arrived.
Mary grew up in a small London flat with a father who served in the police. He wasn’t a man of grand speeches or stern lectures — he taught by example. He showed her how to look closely, how to listen, how to notice the things other people overlooked.
He also gave her his favourite book: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Not as a relic, but as a companion.
Mary didn’t read Holmes for the thrill of the chase. She read him for the method. The quiet logic. The way a single overlooked detail could shift the entire truth.
Her father would say:
“Mary Watson never ran from anything — and neither will you.”
Shadows of Bramblewick
Those words stayed with her long after he was gone.
When the body is found on the edge of the Bramblewick fields, Mary doesn’t become a detective — she simply becomes herself.
Her strengths are subtle:
- She notices what doesn’t fit
- She listens before she speaks
- She trusts her instincts
- She understands people — their fears, their pride, their secrets
- And she has a quiet moral compass that won’t let her look away
She isn’t trying to impress Sergeant Henshaw. She isn’t trying to be heroic. She’s simply following the threads because she can’t bear to leave them tangled.
That’s what makes her compelling. That’s what makes her dangerous to the truth. And that’s what makes her perfect for this story
Since Mary grew up on Sherlock Holmes, it feels only right to end with a small mystery of our own.
Here’s a riddle from the Detective’s Tea Room — see if you can solve it:
I have no body, but I come alive with wind.
I speak without a mouth and hear without ears.
What am I?
Pop your answer in the comments — or keep it to yourself and feel quietly triumphant. Mary would approve either way.