Murder in a country town - could this be Thirsk?

For behind the conventional countrywoman image there lurks a murderous mind.

Meg Elizabeth Atkins makes no bones about the fact that likes to kill people off as she zooms around North Yorkshire in her bright red Jaguar - not literally, of course, but as a device for formulating plots for the crime novels which in turn help her pay to keep such a sporty car on the road. Her latest book, Death out of Season, was published last week.

Originally from Essex, Miss Atkins, now aged 69, grew up and worked in Manchester. She lived in many different places before settling in Sandhutton, near Thirsk. Her married name is Meg Atkins Moss.

In her long career as a writer, she has published several titles, including a number of non-fiction books, and her crime stories sell as far away as the US, Australia and South Africa.

Her husband, Percy, is a retired transport manager, who likes to quip that he's now a "domestic engineer".

Miss Atkins writes under her maiden name. "I didn't marry until I was 40, so my author's name was established. I am rather old fashioned so I added my husband's name to mine when we married," she said.

The blurb of her latest novel describes it as being set in an affluent market town "where deception, hatred and murder move beneath the surface of seemingly respectable society."

How intriguing. Could this be Thirsk and its inhabitants?

"Not really," she said, dispelling hopeful journalistic illusions. "It could be a market town anywhere, though people I know and meet and places where I live and have lived always crop up in my books.

"But people will never recognise themselves. They may think that they do, but I doubt it," she said.

It took a while to get her to agree to be interviewed. She is highly protective of her writing time and determined not to be disturbed, so her domestic engineer puts off callers when she is working, unless they are from the press or her agent.

"He is much better than the answer machine I had to rely on when he was working," she said.

She spends about half of each day writing, less if she fancies a break, which results in just one or two pages.

Her latest book is the second featuring Det Ch Insp Sheldon Hunter and it takes him back to an old, unsolved crime. It has been two years in the making. A third novel is scheduled for next year.

One of her non-fiction works, Kestrels in the Kitchen, was serialised by the BBC.

"Though I knew when I was aged nine that I was going to be a writer, it wasn't until much later that I had books published." First, she tried her hand as a stable girl - and still loves horses and has written books about showjumping - as a model and working on a market, then decided to train for a sensible job as a secretary. All this time, she was writing and honing her skill, and being influenced by different places and people.

"Every town or village has its own character and atmosphere, and I am fascinated by people's motivation. On the surface all may seem well in many people's lives, but when you start to scratch the surface, you find much more, and being a writer I can fantasise and make it all up to fit the part or place. That's the wonder of it," she said.

Miss Atkins is a member of the Crime Writers' Association and loves the whole business of crime writing. "I love a puzzle, the challenge of guessing whodunit,"

It is interesting to discover that, despite her insider's eye, of the thousands of crime novels she has read, she has only twice guessed the culprit.

Crime novels rank second best in sales after romantic novels, which are very lucrative, but she has never been tempted to take up this genre.

"Romantic novel writers burn themselves out as people want one easy to read book after another. I would rather spend longer putting together a mystery. I like to think people reading my books think that they can guess who the culprit is, but in the end be proved completely wrong."

She also teaches creative writing and runs writing groups.

Miss Atkins says she was "doing very well thank you" until a few years ago when cancer "knocked me off my perch".

"I was rather ill for a while and had to undergo a mastectomy. It took me a long time to pull round, but now I'm feeling much better though I can't walk miles or cycle miles as I used to, or garden the same."

Would she think of retirement? "Oh no, writers don't retire. They drop dead at the word processor," she said, laughing.

It takes her about three months to research and plan a plot for her novels before she starts writing.

"No matter how careful you are, you still get the odd things wrong and it is too late once it is in print. In my book Haunted Warwickshire, I had been told about one particular haunted aspect of the county which I included in the story.

"I opened my door one day to find this burly policeman on the other side who shouted at me that I had got the story wrong. A colleague of his had given me the story. After chatting for a bit, he settled down and asked me to sign a copy of the book and left happily, having got his point off his chest."

Even more rudimentary, in one book she had the famous Vale of the White Horse situated in the wrong county.

The task of getting police and crime facts correct is helped by having a serving police officer in the Crime Writers' Association. "I always check with him before writing certain aspects of crime and detection," she said.

A plot takes about three months to work out, and somewhere in her thoughts will be ideas about how to begin the story.

"After all the research, after all the plotting, when I actually get down to typing 'Chapter one, page 1', my hands are shaking after all the concerted effort of preparation," she said.

Her books are not explicit stories of violent crime. "My murders happen gently, off the page. They are more of a whodunit type."

When she finally completes the last page, she tends to feel bereft. "I have nowhere to go, nothing to do all of a sudden. Yes, I breathe a sigh of relief, but having lived with my characters for so long, I'm lost when they are gone."

She once met Dennis Wheatley at a Crime Writers' meeting and after asking what kind of people she wrote about, he offered her some advice.

" 'Don't write kitchen sink stories, he said. 'Write about rich people. You will enjoy it much more.' "

She took him up and finds she does enjoy fantasising about her characters. "I have truly enjoyed them much more. I enjoy their rich lives," she said.

Miss Atkins is a remarkable woman who, along with everything else, avidly reads every book she can find on Russian history. "I suppose my life is in contrast to most people's," she said.

"I spend my days trying to work out how to be devious and kill someone."