File Updated: 31/01/02

New Autobiography (G) Titles 2001
Gwen Moffat Space Below my Feet Pbk published September 2001 by Sigma at £9.95 ISBN: 1 85058 769 9

Moffat’s latest publication is her autobiography. As a grammar school girl her life was uneventful until World War Two when she did six years’ service in the Land Army and the ATS. She deserted from the Army when she met a climber, and her world became centred on mountains and steep rock. She lived rough, sleeping out, hitch-hiking from Britain to the Alps, all her possessions in a rucksack on her back, taking odd jobs to pay for food and a night’s bed in a barn when it rained. Tents were a luxury, so were boots. She climbed barefooted.
Respectability, money and a home of her own came with the guide’s certificates, and for twenty years she made her living at climbing (in the intervals between engagements writing - anything from features for a naturist magazine to BBC scripts) until, avid for new challenges, she turned to crime. The adventures continued but now they would furnish material for the mysteries. Of her autobiography The Observer said: "As a story of climbing and compulsive love of mountains Space Below my Feet is magnificent." And Edna O’Brien maintained that "not since I read Brave Cowboy have I been so enthralled by a book."
"As a story of climbing and compulsive love of mountains, Space Below my Feet is magnificent." The Observer
About The Author
Gwen Moffat’s day job was rock climbing and she broke moulds. As the first woman guide she carved a niche in the macho world of professional mountaineering; as a crime writer she specialises in wild country: from the Rockies and deserts of America to the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides.
She delights in research. For Grizzly Trail she worked cattle on a Montana ranch; for Last Chance Country (based on Death Valley) she rented a house in the Mojave Desert. Her main protagonist, Melinda Pink, follows her creator’s interests: surpassing her in some, falling short in others. Miss Pink is an intrepid rider but not much of a climber, she is a perceptive investigator and a large woman of imposing presence (Moffat is tiny, unobtrusive but as inquisitive as a cat). Both are ageing now, politically incorrect, and greatly concerned with injustice and abuse: towards animals, the environment and people. Such concerns surface in the mysteries - from traffic in endangered species in Rage to incest in The Lost Girls, and the media invasion of a remote crofting community in Quicksand.
Agent: Juliet Burton (020 8762 0148/fax 8743 8765)
e-mail: juliet.burton@virgin.net
Meet the Author in Washington DC
Gwen Moffat will be attending Bouchercon 2001 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City from October 31st to November 4th and would be happy to meet readers with common interests in wild places, crime, cats, and that formidable old bat Melinda Pink.
New Books by Gwen Moffat at Amazon.co.uk
Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Gwen Moffat at Alibris.com

---