Author Talk: Richard Hooton

The Margaret Code

The Margaret Code is described as a compulsive and charming crime novel where “Elizabeth Is Missing” meets “The List Of Suspicious Things” and “The Marlow Murder Club”.

It follows eighty-nine-year-old Margaret as she attempts to solve the murder of her best friend and neighbour, Barbara. She is convinced Barbara entrusted her with a secret before she died, a secret now buried in Margaret’s ailing memory. With the help of her grandson, James, Margaret sets out to recover her memory and investigate the crime. But soon strange things begin happening in her home. Her family are convinced Margaret’s illness is getting worse, but Margaret is sure somebody wants her out of the way.

Richard Hooton has won numerous prizes for his short fiction including winning contests run by the Hammond House International Literary Prize and Evesham Festival of Words, and being highly commended in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards and shortlisted in the Bridport Prize and Cambridge Prize. His debut novel, The Margaret Code, was published by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, on hardback, eBook and audio, in April 2025. It will be published on paperback in January 2026. The voice-led whodunnit is about an elderly woman whose failing memory holds the key to a crime investigation.

Richard was born and brought up in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and studied English Literature at the University of Wolverhampton before becoming a journalist and communications officer. He lives in Greater Manchester