Hannah Hendy – Six of One
This week, Hannah Hendy shares six influences that shaped her as a writer—from Chepstow to canteens, Agatha Raisin to Ethel Cain.
• One place –
A place that I think about most when writing is my hometown of Chepstow. I escaped in my twenties for a few years, though I didn’t go very far. I worked in Bath and Bristol where I did my cooking qualifications a million years before ever writing anything, but was lured back home somehow in my thirties. For most of my childhood we lived in a house on the street that leads down to Chepstow Castle, and I think it’s given me a very blasé attitude towards them. ‘A thousand-year-old door? Phft…mine is brand new and doesn’t even creak!’ Chepstow is still a relatively small place, where everyone knows everyone, and I think that rubs off on my books. There are certainly more ideas for characters when you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone you know.
• One book –
A book I used to go back to all the time is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. (I can hear you rolling your eyes from here!) I think a lot of overthinking and emotional teenage girls end up drawn to Plath’s writing at some point, me included. I first read it in my late teens, at that age where you’re supposed to be becoming someone, but you aren’t sure who that’s supposed to be. I empathised greatly with Ester Greenwood, her conundrums and her disillusionment with and dread at the world she was growing up in. Years later, I read the Bell Jar through the eyes of an adult, with more distance and compassion for Ester, but I also read it more critically. There are some historically problematic aspects of Plath’s work that I wasn’t as in touch with as a teenager. Still, I think there’s something powerful about a book that stays with you even as your relationship to it changes.
• One album –
An album I listen to all the time when I’m writing is Ethel Cain – Preachers Daughter, which is a concept album about the titular character, Ethel Cain. Most of the time I will start off with something a bit merrier or a classical playlist I made to write to, but alas, my brain yearns for an elaborately crafted pop album about a girl who is murdered and eaten. Maybe it’s a nice juxtaposition to the Dinner Ladies world, which while full of murder and pain, is still quite light. I think that’s why I like writing cosy crime so much, you can go to some quite dark places and explore them in an absurd and often humorous way.
• One TV series –
When we were doing fertility treatment and it wasn’t working, my wife and I binge-watched the entire Agatha Raisin TV series. It was the perfect distraction. It’s cosy, funny, and more than a little bit quirky. Readers of the Agatha Raisin books will know that they are quite different from the TV series.
TV Agatha, played by the fantastic Ashley Jensen, is definitely more likeable than book Agatha and that’s saying a lot since I absolutely love the sometimes prickly, self-assured Agatha from the books. The TV version feels more approachable, perhaps even a little more charming, and I think that’s part of what makes the series so watchable. The tone of the show is lighter and more comedic, which is a bit of a departure from the dry wit and darker humour found in M.C. Beaton’s novels.
Anyway, was there a better writer of what’s become known colloquially as Cosy Crime than M.C. Beaton? No, I don’t think so. And I’m very pleased that Rod Green has stepped into her shoes and is continuing her work! We met recently when he chaired a panel at the brilliant Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival that I was on with Mary Grand. He said that M. C. Beaton had taken him on as a sort of apprentice and taught him how to write her books, and I thought how brilliant that was. If anyone wants to write 55 more Dinner Ladies books after I’m dead, then please let me know.
• One writer –
A writer who made me really wish I was a writer is Anthony Bourdain and I was devastated to hear about his passing a few years ago. He writes in the same way that you would devour a good meal, I think. Years ago when I had first started a cooking apprenticeship, one of the more senior chefs suggested I read Bourdain’s first book, Kitchen Confidential. The 1980’s New York kitchens of Kitchen Confidential didn’t exist for me in quite the way that it did for him, but it was similar enough to my world to grasp my attention. The dark humour, the chaos of a busy service and the unspoken rules of the kitchen were all there. I only have a toe in the kitchen door now, as I just work the odd day as a self-employed chef alongside my writing, and Anthony Bourdain was the first writer who made me want to do both!
• One experience –
An experience that ultimately ended up with me writing the Dinner Lady Detectives books was a series of unplanned events that happened nearly ten years ago now. I was working nine million hours a week in a hotel and had a bit of a breakdown, decided to get a different job and ended up working in a canteen. At the time, it was very odd to me that a different sort of catering existed.
Before then I just assumed that all jobs finished late in the evening and started very early the next day and your manager would just write ‘AFD’ on your rota, (you can probably guess what that stands for, but to make it PG let’s call it ‘All Flipping Day’!). At the canteen, the hours were more regular, and I also noticed the dynamic was unlike what I was used to. Most of the kitchens I’d worked in before had been staffed by men, but the canteen was predominantly staffed by women.
Around the same time, my ex and I broke up, and I moved into a little house on my own. Suddenly, I found myself with lots of time to think in the evenings and, oddly, no one to blab on to. I ended up writing a lot. Nothing special, just little short stories and long meandering diary entries. One night, I jokingly mentioned the idea of a group of detectives called The Dinner Lady Detectives to my friend over WhatsApp and the name stuck! Years later I finished that book I’d started in that house and miraculously it was published.
Hannah Hendy writes The Dinner Lady Detectives, a cosy crime series published by Canelo Crime. The seventh Book in the series, A Curiously Convenient Demise, is due to be released on the 16th of October 2025.
Crime Cymru 