Scene of the Crime: A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction

Great writers of crime fiction not only create memorable detective heroes,hey also firmly establish them in a setting. The home counties town of "ing's Markham", for example, is the perfect "patch" for Ruth Rendell'snspector Wexford and Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael is as inseparable fromhe cloisters of medieval Shrewsbury as John Harvey's D.I. Resnick is fromhe mean streets of modern Nottingham.;Addicts of the British detective storyhould enjoy this gazetteer. With it in their hands they can navigate thetreets and alleyways of Edinburgh where Sherlock Holmes sprang to life inonan Doyle's imagination and where Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus now tracksown villainy (and a dram or two). They can explore the desolate coast ofast Anglia, a favoured venue for P.D. James' Adam Dagliesh and the home ofargery Allingham, who also set many of the adventures of her enigmaticlbert Campion amid the Essex marshlands. In Oxford, they can tread in theootsteps of Inspector Morse or pay homage at the site where, in "Gaudy Night" Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey embraced - at long last - his Harriet