Sense of place works its magic

[John Dean]

Some of you may know that I was one of four crime writers who appeared recently at an in-conversation event during the inaugural Kirkcudbright Fringe festival (along with Jackie Baldwin, Ann Bloxwich and fellow Book Folks author Ian Robinson).

To feed the conversation, each of us selected a facet of writing to talk about and I chose the way sense of place inspires authors.

To illustrate the point, I recounted the story behind one of the pivotal scenes in The Killing Line (The Book Folks).

I walk the dogs through a wood near my home and that includes the bottom path which runs along the base of a sheer, wooded rock face. One day, I was doing the walk when I suddenly had an image of a young man careering recklessly down the rock face, hurdling fallen tree stumps, grabbing frantically for trailing roots to slow his pace. A young man who was running for his life.

What I saw of him fascinated me and I knew immediately that I had to explore his personality in my writing. He’s an animalistic young man, lithe, sinewy, with dextrous fingers and darting eyes.

The vision of him I saw on my walk became a crucial scene in the novel, which is part of the DCI Jack Harris series. I instinctively knew that Harris was his pursuer.

The young man became a  central character in the book and his story drove the novel, which can be purchased in ebook and paperback format at

https://www.amazon.co.uk/KILLING-LINE-detective-difficult-Detective...