John J. Delaney Interview Published on: 20, Nov 2023

I was born in Burton-on-Trent in England and had a happy childhood with two older sisters. I remember writing a long poem about a mouse when I was seven and that started my storytelling.

I was very lucky to be given a publishing deal for a boxed murder mystery party game in 1998 and a further nine games followed before they all moved online. I now was have over thirty downloadable games available on www.playmurdermystery.com

I mainly write early in the morning when the house is quiet. I also love writing on flights or while on holiday. I write with a pad and pencil so it is very portable. I only found time to write a full novel when I retired as an accountant in 2020.

I regard it all as writing, just with different formats/word counts. I love the writing process but I’m not so keen on the editing process and the marketing. Things tend to lead into other projects. I turned several of my murder mystery games into performance based staged versions. One of those was then turned into a pantomime. My first musical was taken on after listening to some songs on a song writing course in France and two more musicals followed.

I was inspired to write the first one after taking part in a murder mystery dinner party. The next morning I looked at a map of the Caribbean in the wall and came up with the name Barbie Doss. A host of island-based characters followed and the first game was written soon after. Many of the games have seasonal themes such as Christmas, New Years Eve and Halloween.

It has been great to sell many games in the USA and worldwide. The challenges mainly come from language use and the differences between English and American English with many discussions with editors where I was often guided on which language and themes might work well in the States. (although I steadfastly refused to use the word gotten!)

My wife won a successful bid in a charity auction for a masterclass with Wendy Holden (a best selling English author) and she asked me to send her the first three chapters of my book. That forced me into coming up with something and the story began. Readers can expect a pacey, page-turning adventure.

Jemma is a modern day version of the nineteenth century fossil hunter Mary Anning who found and identified many of the first ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. As far as I am aware there has never been a book where the main character is a female fossil hunter and I have been told by many readers that the story is completely original and unlike anything they have read before

I have visited Dorset many times and love fossil hunting on the beaches. I wanted a main character based on Mary Anning and Jurassic Jemma was born. I set it in a fictional seaside town that is loosely based on Lyme Regis/Charmouth

The story started out as the discovery of an incredible fossil and I developed the theme to add various thriller elements and built up the character relationships which will be further developed in the next instalment, Jurassic Jemma and the Mysteries of Time.

I was asked by a composer, Oliver Davis, to co-write an opera with him. As I had never written an opera it took a while to find a style of writing that he could work with when composing. I came up with a piece called Tir na Nog, based on the Irish myth. Due to the massive cost of staging a new opera it is unlikely that it will ever be performed but one of the arias, This Mortal Man, was featured on the composer’s CD. That gave me my first number 1 on the UK classical chart and number 18 on the US billboard chart.

I would just suggest that people go ahead and try whatever they feel like doing. The worst that can happen is that the works are never published but there will always be people willing to read what they have written. I sent my first murder mystery in to the publishing company as an unsolicited work and it just arrived as their previous writer was retiring. That piece of luck lead to ten published games, worldwide sales in excess of 100,000 units and gave me some credibility for my future writing projects.

I have just finished Jurassic Jemma and the Mysteries of Time and I may write a third Jurassic Jemma novel

I tend to concentrate on one project at a time although one of the musical that I co-wrote with a musician during lockdown has just had its world première in Leeds and may possibly be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe one day

Now that I have retired as a Chartered Accountant I write for enjoyment and will continue to do so. Other than planning a third Jurassic Jemma mystery and helping to develop the three musicals I have co-written I will just wait and see what takes my fancy. I enjoy talking to book clubs and book groups. I was told that the last talk I gave has inspired two of the members to start writing themselves which is fantastic. I have received some incredible support and mentoring from other authors so if I can pass on my enthusiasm to others that would be great.