About
It’s a strange thing, how the writing bug catches you. One small memory, tucked away from childhood, can spark a lifetime of stories.
I grew up in the early 1960s, part of a generation still living in the long shadow of war. The world around us was rebuilding, holding fast to what it could. On the edge of a London borough stood a small greengrocer’s shop that seemed untouched by time. Step inside, and the air was thick with the scent of apples and the earthiness of potatoes. It had a quiet magic of its own, a warmth no toy shop could match. My mother would stop there almost every afternoon, and I’d trail behind her, watching.
It was called Shirley’s Greengrocers, one shop away from the Brown Bear pub. It was tiny, cramped, and perfect. In winter, an old paraffin heater glowed in the corner, and a fat tabby cat made its throne on top of it. Somehow it never caught fire, though the faint smell of singed fur often mixed with that of cabbages.
That place never left me. Years later, when I began to write, the shop found its way onto the page and into my first novel, The Corpse Door. I always wondered what lay beyond its back room, what stories it might hide if only someone listened long enough.
Before Mabel Shirley ever took her first breath, there was Spud, a small mouse who found himself in that same shop, cared for by Ma Shirley. I wrote and illustrated it for children. Only one drawing survives now; the manuscript was lost in a house move long ago. Life, as it does, carried me forward — children, work, the quiet business of getting by.
In time I reached that point where you start to think about what you’ll leave behind. My imagination had never dimmed, but my skills in English were poor. I’d left school with one O-level in Art, and grammar wasn’t something I ever truly learned. I couldn’t type properly, and I barely knew how to build a website.
It took five long years of learning, failing, and trying again before the first book was finished. In those pages, the old shop lived again. Ma Shirley became Moll Shirley, and Mabel — once a quiet corner of the story — began to step forward.
There was something about her I couldn’t let go of. She was meant to stay in the background, yet she lingered, asking questions I couldn’t ignore. I found myself wondering what her life would become. The answer slipped into the epilogue of The Corpse Door, a late addition before publication — Mabel’s first whisper that she had more to say.
Her story should have begun in 1916, as the novel suggests, but it lacked the years that shaped her. Filling that gap became the seed of Undercurrent, her first collection of short stories. Through it, I built her world, gave her friends, and brought back an old companion — the cat who first warmed the shop’s paraffin glow.
This journey began as my health declined, but it opened a world of opportunity I never expected. It gave me purpose again — a way to keep creating into my autumn years and beyond. It’s brought me into contact with readers who love Mabel’s world as much as I do: people who want mystery and wonder without the blood and the lust.
By chance, or perhaps by fate, I’ve become a writer of cozy supernatural mysteries. And I’m deeply thankful for this final chance to tell my stories — before I, too, step beyond the veil.
Who is Richard Odell?
Richard Odell is a British author writing historical supernatural fiction shaped by documented folklore, historical events, unusual experiences and a strong sense of place.
RichardOdell.com brings together the Easterwich novels and Mabel Shirley mysteries with The Things We Left Behind, a collection of essays exploring folklore, psychogeography, intuition, atmosphere and the old knowledge that still survives.
How Does Richard Odell Turn Folklore and History into Fiction?
I am a writer of historical supernatural fiction, but I don’t follow the typical path. Instead of reading fiction, I spend my time digging through non-fiction research, old newspaper reports and documented folklore to find the spaces where history and the uncanny blur.
Many of the stories in the world of Easterwich begin with a real event. I research parapsychology, local legends and historical British traditions, and then I let the fiction take over. The result is a slow-burn, atmospheric mystery where the setting itself becomes a character.
The Roots of Easterwich: Key Influences
My biggest creative influence is Michael Bentine, particularly his brilliant concepts exploring the hidden doors of the mind, parapsychology and memory. His work taught me how to look at the ordinary world and see the surreal layers shifting just beneath the surface.
My storytelling is also deeply shaped by the folklore, ritual and unsettling sense of place found in The Wicker Man, the eerie, twist-driven tension of classic Tales of the Unexpected, and the methodical, historical intrigue of Sherlock Holmes cases.
Add a pinch of Douglas Adams and you see the whole picture.
What Is Richard Odell’s Fiction Similar To?
My fiction sits somewhere between historical mystery, supernatural fiction and traditional folklore. Rather than creating a separate fantasy world, I tend to begin with our own: real places, documented legends, historical events and experiences that resist easy explanation.
Readers familiar with the investigative structure of Sherlock Holmes, the unsettling turns of Tales of the Unexpected, and Michael Bentine’s fascination with parapsychology, memory and the hidden possibilities of the mind may recognise some of the territory. There is also an occasional touch of Douglas Adams in the way extraordinary events collide with very ordinary British life.
The Easterwich novels and Mabel Shirley mysteries are not pastiches of those works. They bring those influences together with historical research, British folklore, psychogeography and a recurring question that runs through much of my writing: what if some of the things our ancestors believed were not simply discarded because they were wrong, but because we stopped noticing them?
Ready to enter Mabel’s world?
Finding Mabel – A Novel by Rich Odell
In 1967, a serving police sergeant begins asking why an English coastal town was quietly removed from the map. Her questions awaken a long-dormant office within Whitehall, still loyal to the secret it was created to keep.
Finding Mabel unfolds through case notes, rediscovered documents, and lived memory.
Read Finding Mabel for free. Click the cover below to begin.
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