I am delighted to have MJ with a guest post todayĀ ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
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Genre:Ā Quirky historical mystery
Publication Date: August 25, 2025
Estimated Page Count: 234
Standalone third book in the Erdington Mysteries
Purchase link: https://amzn.to/4oL1yNJ
Inspiration for The Secret Sauce
Having written the first two books in the 1940s historical mystery series, the Erdington Mystery series in 2021 and created some delightful quirky āhooksā for my readers, I struggled to find that special something for the next book. There are any number of āthingsā associated with Erdington I could have used, Castle Bromwich Aerodrome, the Dunlop factory, even a factory for Wolseley cars (amongst many others) and certainly some breweries. Still, none of them felt āquite right,ā for my return to the 1940s. Another problem was that Iād thought of a fabulous title for the third book, The Body in the Beans, only to discover that HP Sauce, whose iconic sign I was often driven past as a child, didnāt actually make beans at the time. This somewhat stumped me until I eventually reasoned my way past it.
So, The Secret Sauce, readers might not be surprised to discover, was inspired by the HP Sauce factory in Aston, Birmingham, which was demolished in 2007, but had been a firm fixture of the local skyline for a long time.
What is HP Sauce
HP Sauce is a brown, fruity sauce, with a fascinating history, and, I believe, a recipe that is still a āsecret.ā HP stands for Houses of Parliament, which explains why thereās an image of the building on the sauce label. For my recreation, Iāve renamed it BB Sauce. HP Sauce started life at the end of the nineteenth century, and through fair means or foul, ended up in the hands of the owners of the Midlands Vinegar Company. It survived the uncertainties of both world wars, although sourcing the ingredients was often challenging. The True Story of HP Sauce, produced in 1985, states that advertising for HP Sauce was stopped during the Second World War because it was so difficult to get a bottle. There was also a bomb shelter beneath the factory during the war. Fans of the sauce will know production has now moved to the Netherlands.
The tragedy at RAF Fauld
But, of course, while I had my āhookā, I still needed to make my mystery period specific, and so I also had to look for more details, and they were surprisingly diverse. I canāt explain all of them without spoiling the ending of the story, but I will mention that while conducting an āon this day in historyā search on the web, I discovered something else Iād never heard of, the 27th November 1944 explosion close to RAF Fauld, Burton upon Trent. This tragedy, said to be the largest non-nuclear explosion in the world to this day, resulted in a high number of casualties and has still never been fully explained. A memorial to those who perished now exists at the National Arboretum, and I visited it recently.
Book blurb:
Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, OāRourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce ā a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant OāRourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and OāRourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and OāRourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
Purchase Link
Author Bio ā Iām an author of historical fiction and non-fiction (Early English (Saxon), Vikings and the British Isles as a whole before the Norman Conquest, as well as five twentieth-century mysteries), born in the old Mercian kingdom at some point since the end of 1066. Historical mysteries allow me to use such modern inventions as the telephone and the car, which is very exciting when I spend so much of my time worrying about feeding the horses my warriors usually ride.
I was raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a very young age it housed the bones of long-dead kings of Mercia, itās little wonder my curiosity in the early English ran riot. I can only blame my parents!
I like to write. Youāve been warned!
Social Media Links ā https://linktr.ee/MJPorterauthor
