Diana Norman obituary

The novelist Diana Norman, who has died aged 77, was best known for her historical crime series featuring the 12th-century medical examiner Adelia Aguilar, written under the pen name of Ariana Franklin. The first book in the series, Mistress of the Art of Death, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 and won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award in the UK, as well as prizes in the US and Sweden. Always modest, Norman confessed her astonishment at its reception, saying: "I'm not used to being feted, being married to a TV presenter, Barry Norman. I'm more accustomed to being trampled in the rush to get his autograph than being publicised myself. I'm not complaining, though."

Born Mary Diana Narracott, she grew up first in London and then in Devon, where her mother took her to escape the blitz. She left school aged 15, but with her keen intelligence and with journalism in her genes – her father had been a Times correspondent – the lack of formal education proved no barrier and by 17 she was back in London, working on a local newspaper in the East End.

Headhunted at 20 by the Daily Herald, Norman became the youngest reporter on Fleet Street, covering royal visits, donning camouflage to go on exercise with the Royal Marines, and missing her 21st birthday party because she was covering a murder on the south coast. When she protested about this to the news editor, she was told: "Many happy returns. Now get down to Southampton."

Strikingly attractive, stylish, vivacious, well-informed and enormous fun to be with, she married Barry Norman, a fellow journalist, in 1957. In spite of a somewhat shaky start, the union proved enduring and happy. After the birth of their two daughters, she turned from full-time journalism to writing fiction with, as she put it, "a child on either hip". While writing her early novels Norman was also for a number of years a magistrate at Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and, according to her husband, a "turbulent presence on the bench because she hated fining or imprisoning poor people".

Fitzempress' Law (1980), set in the reign of Henry II, was the first of 11 historical novels, covering periods from the 12th to the 18th century. They included three books set in the late-18th century against the backgrounds of the French revolution and the American war of independence; The Pirate Queen (1991), based on the life of the 16th-century Irish pirate Grace O'Malley; and The Vizard Mask (1994), set in Restoration London. Meticulously researched, but never dry or verbose, they are characterised by historical accuracy, intricate plotting, drama, passion, intrigue and humour. Norman also wrote a biography of the Irish revolutionary Constance Markievicz.

For her first novel written as Ariana Franklin, City of Shadows (2006), her subject was the plot to pass off a psychiatric patient, Anna Anderson, as the Romanov princess Anastasia. Then, returning to the 12th century, she followed up her first Aguilar book with two more, The Death Maze (2008) and Relics of the Dead (2009).

As with her previous novels, her crime fiction was distinguished by a seamless interweaving of real and fictitious characters as well as vivid, lavishly detailed descriptions of all aspects of medieval life, from banquets and ice-skating to limb amputation and religious bigotry. Explaining her working methods, she said: "The lovely thing about the 12th century is that you don't have to go too far to find wonderful plots. I always plot first. If you're writing thrillers which, of all the genres, have to be well-constructed and not streams of consciousness, you've got to know where you're going. I have the last line of the book in my head before I sit down to write and I stagger towards it like a drunk navigating furniture to get to the far side of the room."

She had a particular dislike of what she called "gadzooks" novels: "The characters sounded contemporary to each other, so why shouldn't they sound contemporary to us? On the other hand, you mustn't use slang because that can jar the reader into the present day. It's tricky."

It was a trick she perfected, drawing the reader, apparently effortlessly, into the world of the past. She cited her influences as Tolstoy, Dickens and Austen, as well as modern writers such as Raymond Chandler – whom, as a young journalist, she had interviewed – and John le Carré.

The Assassin's Prayer, the fourth book in the Aguilar series, was published last year, when she also won the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger in the Library award.

Norman is survived by her husband, their daughters, Samantha and Emma, and three grandsons.

Diana Norman, writer, born 25 August 1933; died 27 January 2011

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