Meet the characters of A Killing at Smugglers Cove

Let me introduce you to four of the leading characters in A Killing at Smugglers Cove...

Thomas Woodmore

Iris Woodmore’s father, Thomas, is a journalist. During the Great War, he was in the Intelligence Corps and helped channel information to his news agency contacts in occupied territories.

When his commanding officer is killed, Thomas visits his widow, Katherine – and discovers she’s a childhood friend from Devon.

Katherine Keats

Katherine is half Dutch and, as a Flemish speaker, was called on by the government to gather intelligence from Belgian refugees housed in Devon in the war.

After her first husband’s death, she moves to London and later becomes engaged to Thomas Woodmore.

Emile Vandamme

In 1917, Iris met Emile, a young Belgian resistance fighter, when she served in a Voluntary Aid Detachment at Hither Green’s Park Fever Hospital. The hospital provided accommodation for Belgian refugees, and Emile arrived in search of his sister, who’d been sent to Devon. Through her family connections, Iris was able to reunite them.

In 1923, Iris travels to Devon for her father’s wedding and meets Emile again.

Agatha Challacombe

Aggy runs the Pier View boarding house in Teignmouth. I named her in homage to Agatha Christie.

In the First World War, Agatha Christie served in a Voluntary Aid Detachment in Torquay’s Town Hall Hospital. Her time in the pharmacy gave her a knowledge of poisons that would later feature in her crime novels.

The character of Hercule Poirot was inspired by the Belgian refugees she met at this time.

Agatha Christie in her nurse's uniform in Torquay during the First World War