The Otto Loser Mysteries

The Scarlet Godwins - Fifteen

Marley is feeling fobbed off. She accuses Otto of ignoring her, not writing back, and not coming to visit. When she’s satisfied she’s made her point, she takes up the story of meeting Charlottes’s family for the first time, and reveals an amorous secret while she’s at it. The person Otto is talking to in his thoughts has yet to make an appearance. It is clear that when this person did come into his life, everything changed. Being so skeptical, and with the restraints of legal aid, Otto asks himself, what exactly made him pursue Marley’s case? It may simply have been, he reflects, that because he’d entered a period of personal turbulence following the attack on him, he’d been more inclined to see reasons why the case needed to be investigated. But there were better reasons yet to come.

The Scarlet Godwins - Sixteen

Otto releases Marley from her vow. At this she goes into over-drive. In her sixteenth letter she uses every foul word she can think of. She explains that because her letters are being vetted she can’t write what she really wants to write. Otto simply has to visit. She tells him that she lied during her trial, so the jury wouldn’t know about the raging row she’d had with Charlotte, the day Charlotte died. As Otto recalls this, his thoughts turn again to Eve Gillian’s case, which was also about the difficulty of lying in court. But for a short conversation with Emilia Godwin, Otto would have closed Marley’s file then and there. He recalls it was at this point in his life, that person he’s been talking to in his head all along, gets in touch.

The Scarlet Godwins - Seventeen

In this rant of a letter, Marley, furious at Otto for challenging her credibility, remonstrates with him freely, before she discloses more scientific facts about her body, explains why she lied to the jury in her trial, and appears to deny that Julius Haft was of any consequence. Otto is thinking about his journey to London, on the pretext of investigating Marley’s case further, but in realty, in order to meet, for the first time in nearly two decades, his daughter, Izzy. His thoughts take him to Marley’s astonishing eighteenth letter, which introduced the poem Two Birds.

The Scarlet Godwins - Eighteen

Marley prepares for Otto’s first prison visit, something she found out about through a ‘little birdie’. The trouble with corresponding with your solicitor from a prison cell, she is ever at pains to point out, is that there are others snooping on your mail. In this important letter Marley recites the suggestive poem called Two Birds. Beyond that, she discloses that there is another all-revealing poem called Secret Scarlet. Meanwhile, Otto’s long walk has taken to him the wistful memories he has of meeting his daughter in London for the first time in nearly twenty-years.

The Scarlet Godwins - Nineteen

This is the first of Marley’s unsent letters, where the twisted truth begins to come out. It begins by telling Otto of his prison visits, as they had been foretold. On the first of these, Marley prophecies that she will be able to slip her unsent letter into his pocket. It is part of her prophecy that this unsent letter, full of revelations, will have Otto rushing back for his second coming. As he walks along a beach, Otto recalls how easily Izzy became involved in Marley’s case, and how he tried to resist her ideas about it.

The Scarlet Godwins - Twenty

Marley recounts the story of Otto’s first prison visit, with Izzy by his side, posing as his assistant. But Marley is too perceptive not to have noticed that there was more to her solicitor and his ‘assistant’ than met the eye. Very proud of herself she hints officially that she slipped her solicitor a secret nineteenth letter. Otto, thinking about all of this, still on his ramble, has left the beach, and is back in town. His reflections initially take him to the day before that first prison visit, which was the first full day he spent with his daughter. By then, Izzy had read the eighteen letters that Otto had received from Marley, which prompted a list of questions. She had begun to formulate a theory of her own.

The Scarlet Godwins - Twenty-One

This is the final episode of The Scarlet Godwins, and the second of Marley’s unsent letters. In it she is still waiting for Otto’s second coming. She had been expecting him to come back sooner. This twenty-first letter is Marley’s final revelation. She writes in it, that if Otto doesn’t visit her in prison again, he’ll never know what happened. But if he does come back, he will be sworn to secrecy. Otto is nearing the end of his long walk. The story of Izzy’s involvement in Marley’s case has come to its climax. It is a climax that did indeed provoke Otto into a second prison visit, this time without his daughter. It is during that visit that Marley passes Otto her second ‘unsent letter’. She recites the missing poem, Secret Scarlet, and tells Otto what really happened to her sister. Finally, the question of whether Otto should be sworn to secrecy is answered.

Anton's Bark - Trailer

This is a trailer for Anton’s Bark, the third and final audiobook in the Otto Loser Mysteries series. Anton’s Bark will be available to download from early January, 2022. The first two audiobooks, Something Borsuk Said and The Scarlet Godwins will continue to be available to download for free, wherever you get your podcasts. For further information please visit www.migrationbooks.com 

Anton‘s Bark - One

Welcome to the third series in the Otto Loser Mysteries podcast. This is the first Otto Loser Mystery to be told by Otto himself. From the outset Otto’s position is that he is able to speak independently, rather than as a character in a series of novels. The story he tells is called Anton’s Bark. It is about the obscure Austrian writer, Anton Matins, creator of the fictitious Otto. We learn that Anton has begun to write his third and final novel about Otto’s life. The writer is working as usual, at his regular table, in his favourite café. As he drafts Chapter One of Otto in Flames, Anton is struck by the vision of a beautiful muse, reading a book in his café. As she sits there, the muse grants the writer a single, extraordinary gift. It dawns on him, after a time, that everything he imagines comes true. It is the real Otto who recounts these events. He explains that he himself came into being, as a real person, through a dream Anton imagined him having.

Anton‘s Bark - Two

Otto in Flames is being read to us by the real Otto Loser. Chapter One is about the dream he is meant to have been born in. The action begins in the UK, during the early hours of 17 February, 2019. The fictional Otto is on his way to Vienna. He wants to be reunited with his estranged wife and children there. Because this is a story Anton is writing, it is something the real Otto can’t escape. But he can talk about it. Having read the first chapter, the real Otto describes Anton’s attempts to write Chapter Two. As the real Otto sees it, Anton believes Urania is sending him inspired messages about his third novel, which leads to the troubling question: Who is in charge of the writing, anyway? As well as observations about Anton’s predicament, trying to write  creatively in difficult circumstances, the real Otto mentions the writer’s long suffering wife, Oksana. Early in February 2019, shortly after Anton began drafting Otto in Flames, Oksana decided to paint a portrait of her husband, which would land the writer in the greatest quandary of his life.