James Braxton, much-loved face of Antiques Road Trip, has revealed that he turned to cosy crime writing after a theft from his garden.
He was appearing at Wigtown Book Festival to talk about Barty – A Tale of Stolen Bronze, which he said: “My wife describes my book as a mixture of Lovejoy and PG Wodehouse, with quite a lot of Keith Floyd poured in!
“It’s very gentle. It’s a story of friendship. It’s cozy crime, with no sharp knives, no lead piping, it’s all very gentle.”
The hugely popular antiques expert can currently be seen on BBC iplayer in the 29th series of the ever-popular show.
Explaining what started him writing James said: “It was accidental really, we had a statue pinched from our garden. Our daughter, Amelia came down for the weekend after its retrieval and said that “the story is so unbelievable you must write about it” and that was the push I needed.”
The festival also welcomed Dr Watson to Scotland’s National Book Town where he picked up a copy of Hound of the Baskervilles from The Open Book.
Each year the festival teams up with The Swallow Theatre, near Whithorn – Scotland’s smallest theatre.
This year the Swallow presented Tim Marriott (one of the stars of the Brittas Empire) in Watson: The Final Problem in which Sherlock Holmes’ faithful assistant sets the record straight about the great detective’s plunge to apparent death down a waterfall.
