How celebrity chef Rosemary Shrager is turning her hand to crime writing

The last few years have been particularly hard for Shrager whose husband died from Covid at the beginning of the pandemic. “We were no longer living together but we were still best friends – he was the love of my life. He got Parkinsons and went into hospital and caught it,” she says. “We couldn’t understand why he was struggling so much with his breathing because it was all still very early on. He was isolated and it was all very difficult. He died and we had his funeral a week before the first lockdown.

“But he would have wanted me to carry on and that’s really one of the reasons I got on and wrote the book. I needed to keep busy. It might sound crazy but it was the right time.”

A lot of her television work had just come to a halt, so she decided to hold her own online cook-alongs and masterclasses. “Every Saturday people would tune in with their families. I did it for free and it meant they could come along, learn to cook something and then sit down as a family. Lockdown was so difficult for everybody. I just tried to keep really busy and writing was part of that and I actually found it great fun.”

Shrager, 71, says she is a fan of murder mysteries both in book form (Agatha Christie) and on television (Vera). So she set about what she describes as her “cosy crime” novel, The Last Supper, based in no small part on herself and those close to her – and of course food. “She’s me,” she says of the personality of her main protagonist, Prudence. “And my assistant is my granddaughter Suki – in fact there are lots of people I know in the book.”

Prudence is a former chef who is now spending her retirement as a private cook, driving around the British countryside in her campervan, staying in fabulous places and solving the inevitable country house murder mystery. And the first of these adventures, The Last Supper, is set at Fairleigh Manor in the Cotswolds, where murder is very much on the menu.

“Prudence had to have a great character. She’s quite fierce – I’m not that fierce. She’s very direct, which I suppose is a bit me. She believes solving a murder is like following a recipe – it’s about finding the missing ingredient.”

Shrager is appearing at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate later this month where she will be talking about The Last Supper. “I am really looking forward to it. I adore Yorkshire. My family come from Yorkshire and I love the people. I’m going to visit the Ivy and the Orchid – I need my Yorkshire fix.”

She has nearly finished her second book featuring Prudence Bulstrode and her campervan which this time is set in Yorkshire. “It’s set just outside Masham where I lived for more than ten years when I was at Swinton Park Cookery School and I just love the place. It’s quite funny and is out next year. Somebody gets murdered – it’s very exciting.” For many years she also ran cookery demonstrations at the Great Yorkshire Show and says she is sad not to have been asked this year. “I can’t say how gutted I am. I have done it for ten years. Hopefully I will be back next year.”

The third in her series of crime novels will be set in Cornwall and cooking remains a thread throughout. “She never wants to give up cooking,” says Shrager, who has the same mindset. She likes writing but will never step away from the stove.

Shrager is one of Britain’s national treasures. She began her cookery career working for Pierre Koffmann at Chelsea’s La Tante Claire, gradually discovering her passion for teaching, and a cookery school off the Scottish coast followed.

In 2003 she moved to Swinton Park, where her courses for home cooks were a sell-out for over a decade. She has starred on numerous television programmes such as the cult series Ladette to Lady, Rosemary: Queen of the Kitchen, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!, The Real Marigold Hotel, The Big Family Cooking Showdown and most recently, Cooking with the Stars, as well as being the resident chef on The Alan Titchmarsh Show.

“I am always looking ahead, thinking about what’s happening over the next two years. It’s in my DNA. I don’t think of the moment, I can’t stop thinking about what comes next.”

Despite her confidence she says she was nervous about her debut novel coming out. “You do worry about whether people are going to take you seriously.” Shrager needn’t have worried as the reviews for The Last Supper have been extremely positive including support from the likes of Miriam Margolyes, who said: “A great yarn – Shrager knows her food and she’s cooked up a storm... Rosie can write and Prudence Bulstrode is here to stay.”

“Think bolshy Mrs Beeton meets Miss Marple, our rambunctious heroine, Prudence, hilariously stomps her way through a riotous and unpredictable plot. Witty, warm and so enjoyable,” said Jo Brand.

And Alan Titchmarsh added: “True to form, this recipe is a real killer!”

Shrager comes from a line of strong women. Her great-grandmother got a degree from Cambridge University but never received it because at the time they didn’t actually give women degrees.

“I would love to go to Cambridge and get her degree for her,” she says. “She had chutzpah and I got that from her I think. I know I have a big personality and I am very direct but I am always truthful and I think people can see that.”

Shrager doesn’t really do social media and so tries not to be affected by what people say about her if it is negative. “I would hate to be a young person setting out today. I suppose I do put myself out there but I try not to comment on anything that is too sensitive or would cause people any upset.”

She says she initially declined doing Ladette to Lady as she felt she wasn’t in a position to tell people how to live their lives, but in the end she agreed.

Rosemary Shrager will appear at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on July 23. Her novel The Last Supper (Constable) is out now. Harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime-writing-festival