Clearly Hardyment is a lover of crime fiction and is intrigued by the stories behind the novels that thrill us all.
I have always been fascinated by how crime writers set murder mysteries in the landscapes they love and how much you can feel the connection they have to the place they write about. Hardyment looks at the locations of some of the most memorable stories in the genre, favourites and one or two less well-known examples, to explore what attracted the writer, what they wanted us to see of their novel landscapes. As well as giving us walks that follow the novels.
Hardyment tells us something about the authors and their writing, particularly focusing on one novel. So we learn how the landscapes reveal things about the authors religious background, social class and indelible childhood memories. Opening with The Hound of the Baskervilles, Hardy explains how this is different to Conan Doyle’s other writing, how Sherlock Holmes made his comeback from his end at the Reichenbach Falls.

We learn about how Arthur Conan Doyle spent time visiting Dartmoor and the inspirations for the beast in the book. Locations traverse the UK, from the Isle of Skye to the isles of Scilly. Ever popular authors John Buchan, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers, and Geoffrey Household (a personal favourite), contemporary authors Ben Aaronovich, Martin Edwards and Peter May and some not so well known or remembered but no less interesting ECR Lorac and Gwen Moffat. There is plenty to find out here delivered in a very readable and entertaining form.

Novel Crime Scenes: Twenty Deadly Landscapes by Christina Hardyment is published by Bodleian Library Publishing on 16th April.