Mollie Furst
The writing partnership of Barbara Whitfield & Paul Tosio
And The home of The Eccentrics
a cosy crime series
Who We Are
PAUL TOSIO is a psychologist, currently living on the magnificent shores of Cape Town’s ‘False Bay’ where he is owned by two Rhodesian Ridgebacks. He travels extensively, working as a guest speaker in countries as varied as Swaziland and Switzerland, Brazil and Botswana, and the UAE and UK.
Paul holds degrees in English Literature, Drama and Psychology (Rhodes and Oxford)and has worked as an academic editor for various Master’s and PhD projects. Much though he loves academics, literature is a deeper love – and he has written and read voraciously from a young age. “If I wauz a King” (stet) was arguably his debut work, completed at age 5. It remains, as of the time of writing this, unpublished. During CBC’s selective course in writing a novel, he finished his debut solo novel False Bay, which is one of four books he has now completed. A founding member of Oxford University’s Playwriting and Dramaturgy Society, stage plays Paul has written and co-written have been performed in Cape Town and the UK, and a film script he co-wrote was optioned by Stanley Road Productions. He has worked as an actor in both the UK and South Africa, receiving such plaudits as being described as “Worth the price of admission alone”. He hastens to add that the ticket in question was rather reasonable – but is pleased to know he’s at least as valuable astwo pints of lager and a packet of crisps.
BARBARA WHITFIELD is a writer and wanderer. She has co-written several comedies (produced in Oxford, Edinburgh and Cape Town) and a screenplay. Her debut novel, The Rest is Silence, was short-listed for the Jenny Brown Associates’ ‘Debut Writers Over 50 Award’, while the short story, Spreye, won the Two Lit Chicks’ inaugural flash fiction award.
Over the last two years, she has developed the practice of taking poems for long walks. You can read about her process in the journal of the Work that Reconnects – https://journal.workthatreconnects.org/2023/09/02/on-taking-a-poem-for-a-walk/ Or follow her poetic preambulations on Instagram.
Over a long working life, she has variously stuffed envelopes, sold fish (to George Best and Michael Caine), books and coffee (to nobody famous), carried out research for the OED and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and edited non-fiction. She has a doctorate in Spanish Art History and is an expert on 16th- and 17th-century Spanish gynaecological treatises and materia medica. She lives on a smallholding between the hills and the sea in West Wales.
MEET THE ECCENTRICS
The Eccentrics series offers a blend of crime, humour, and friendship, set amid the pubs and colleges of Oxford. The series centres on a group of female academics with a love of puzzles and puns – identified by all but themselves as ‘The Eccentrics’. Weekly, over a few pints at the historic Turf Tavern, they engage in discussions ranging from the historical evolution of handkerchiefs (thanks Louis XVI) to the theoretical possibility of achieving inebriation through quantum entanglement. The group comprises Dr Thalia Wainscott, an Art Historian with a taste for Marmite and a distaste for Picasso; Rev Dr Uma Singh, a Neuroscientist whose affections and aversions are known to none but herself; Lavinia Lewis, a Celtic studies enthusiast who adores poetry and abhors speaking quietly; Deirdre Doyle, an open book about everything but her secret stand-up career; and Knuckles the mutt, who has a talent for breaking and entry and peeing on the legs of wrong uns.
Across the six-book series, they collaborate to unravel mysteries as varied as art thefts, student abductions, prostitution rings run by college deans, and even the peculiar case of an academic meeting his untimely end by falling upwards. Throughout, the group navigate friendships, demanding heads of college, the unwanted attentions of ex-lovers, and current matters of the heart.
The Eccentrics series is a must-read for fans who enjoy the works of Alexander McCall Smith, Robert Thorogood, and M C Beaton.
Mollie Furst is delighted to be represented by Lisa Highton at Jenny Brown Associates
Mollie Furst 