Discover Five Detectives in a Nice Location novels

The detective in a nice location

A very popular and growing section of the crime-solving genre of books in Britain is currently that of the ‘detective in a nice location’. Not that the idea of solving a crime in a scenic setting is a particularly new one. In 1902 Arthur Conan Doyle had his detective Sherlock Holmes visit the rugged and remote Dartmoor (Devonshire, Southern England) to solve the case of the Hounds of the Baskervilles. Agatha Christie set a number of her very popular murder mysteries in exotic locations too, most notably Egypt (a part of the world she visited with her husband who was an archeologist) and on the luxurious Orient Express Train as it traveled across Europe.

(What's your favourite detective and location? let me know below.)

Visiting distant places such as the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe or the Middle East would, in earlier times, have been vastly beyond the means of the majority of the British book buying public. Therefore authors who were able to create, either through first-hand travel experience or through having a extraordinarily vivid imagination, a wonderfully evocative backdrop against which the mystery could unfold, produced the first, winning combination of a good whodunit story and a travel guide.

The expanding variety of detectives and their locations featured in these ‘detective in a nice location’ books, along with their buoyant book sales, prove this combination of mystery and travel is still irresistible to many modern readers. Although, and possibly because, large numbers of people now travel widely all over the globe, there remains considerable interest in accounts of exotic and interesting locations. Add to this a good mystery to solve, and it can be a big world-shattering problem or just a little local issue, and the books offer readers the opportunity, not only to live through the action, but to experience the place where it all happens too.

Television and film versions of popular detectives, such as Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple, are well known to popularize story locations, turning them into ‘must visit’ holiday destinations. This is not surprising as places, that are after all chosen to feature in the books because of their natural beauty or historical interest, are lifted out of the black and white pages of the books and displayed to their very best advantage in glorious colour on the screen.

The tourist trails around some of the world’s most wonderful cities are further testament to the inter-play between the public and successful mystery novels set in great locations. Novels such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Italy) and Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series (Oxford, England) being good examples of ‘detective in a nice location’ books offering travel inspiration.

The following is a list of five series of books that feature a ‘detective in a nice location’ and also offer an interestingly eclectic selection of locations.

Colin Cotterill’s series of Dr Siri the Coroner books

Colin Cotterill’s series of Dr Siri books are set in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos (South East Asia), where the magnificent natural landscape provides an atmospheric backdrop for solving murder mysteries under communist rule.

The setting is 1976 Laos, the Royal family has been removed, the professional classes have fled across the border and the communists have taken power. Dr Siri Paiboun is 72 years old and has spent the last 40 years of his life as a surgeon to the communist forces fighting in the jungles of Laos. He therefore dreams only of retirement. This is not to be, however, and his dreams are thwarted when the ruling communists appoint him as the national coroner.

Unable to refuse a job offer from the communists in power, despite his lack of relevant experience or training and it being against his wishes, Dr Siri sets about resolving the cause of death of various characters. This is no easy task for Dr Siri and

his two trusty mortuary assistants, a nurse and a Down’s Syndrome man, because in the post-Vietnam war era the autopsy room is devoid of medical equipment and forensic evidence is taken by bicycle to the school laboratory for rudimentary testing by the chemistry teacher.

Luckily, along with gaining a new job as coroner, Dr Siri also discovers a talent for communicating with his ancient spirits. In a culture where the old habits and traditions of centuries past lie just beneath the new surface of the communist system, extra help from whatever source can and does prove useful. A wryly subversive and mildly cantankerous rebel, Dr Siri uses all the resources at his disposal to cleverly outwit the clunky communist machinery and solve his cases.

Colin Cotterill has a deceptively easy and amusing style, even when describing horrific injuries or difficult periods of history in this war damaged part of the world. The landscapes are convincingly drawn and his characters, particularly Dr Siri and his loyal helpers, are warmly described and sympathetically developed. Colin Cotterill’s illuminating writing reflects the fact that he has lived and worked extensively in South East Asia.

Diane Wei Liang’s novels The Eye of Jade and the Paper Butterfly

Diane Wei Liang has written two fictional novels - The Eye of Jade and the Paper Butterfly - set in contemporary Beijing (China). They feature the life and exploits of a progressive young woman called Mei, who has survived difficult political and physical conditions in childhood to become a determined and ambitious private investigator.

The stories revolve around Mei’s professional and domestic life in the modern city of Beijing. A thoroughly independent, single woman, Mei earns a living as a private investigator – an illegal profession in China - and has managed to obtain the rare luxury of a car to help her in her work. She also has a male secretary called Gupin and a sister Lu who is a TV star married to a wealthy businessman. Family drama and the relationships between characters are an important part of the stories, as Mei seeks out the truth behind the mysteries she is engaged to solve.

Rural china also features in the stories, through Mei’s recollections of childhood and as a result of her investigations. In Diane Wei Liang’s book the Paper Butterfly, there are vivid descriptions of the landscapes and privations encountered on the arduous journey of a man making his way back to the city of Beijing from a rural labour camp.

The author Diane Wei Liang’s writing of life in the new city china along side the old ways of rural china, displays an understanding of a country and its’ systems that can only be gained from personal experience. Diane Wei Liang spent part of her childhood with her parents in a labour camp in remote rural china, as did her protagonist Mei, and then moved to Beijing, again like Mei, with her mother when her parents were forced apart to work in different cities. She is a survivor of the Student Democracy Movement protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and moved to the West to work and write.

Alexander McCall Smith’s series of Mma Ramotswe No.1 Ladies Detective Agency stories

Alexander McCall Smith’s series of Mma Ramotswe stories is set in the town of Gaborone in modern Botswana (Africa). (He has also written The Sunday Philosophy Club series of books.) Mma Precious Ramotswe is the founder of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, the first investigation agency run by women. With the help of Grace Makutsi, secretary and now assistant detective, Mma Ramotswe employs a gentle mixture of female intuition and common sense to solve the problems and mysteries brought to her.

The crimes and mysteries that Mma Ramotswe solves are of a more minor, everyday, nature than those found in the genre of ‘hard-boiled’ detective novels. She tends to be employed to sort out of the ethical and moral dilemmas faced by characters in a variety of communities. Mma Ramotswe’s life has been rich with experiences and her world encompasses both the built-up Botswana with its towns, hospitals, schools and businesses and the sweeping rural landscape of open skies and traditional cattle farms and villages.

Mma Ramotswe is very much a person of her time and place in a successful African country, noting the increasingly urbanized landscape and social changes of a developing nation. She mourns that traditional ways of speech and community-minded behaviour are unfamiliar to those crossing the borders into Botswana and are ignored by the young people of Botswana who prefer the popular trends of far away places. The spectre of the terrible illness that touches Africa is also never far from the stories.

Alexander McCall Smith’s writing uses the character of Mma Ramotswe to gently explore all the viewpoints of the difficulties in life the characters experience, such as poverty, abuse, mental illness, and the loss of a child. As might be expected from an author such as Alexander McCall Smith, who has personal experience of medical law and bioethical matters, there is real empathy and understanding generated for the plight of the characters and the actions they subsequently take.

M C Beaton’s series of Agatha Raisin books

M C Beaton’s very successful Agatha Raisin series of books is set in the quaintly scenic villages and prosperous market towns of the Cotswolds, a range of low hills in part of South West England famous for its wool industry in historic times.

Agatha Raisin, despite an inauspicious start in life, is a wealthy middle-aged Public Relations guru, who retires to a rose-covered cottage in the village of Carsely (in the Cotswolds) only to find her new found rural life in chaos after she cheats at a village quiche baking competition by passing off store-bought quiche as her own, leading to the death of the judge by poisoned quiche. Keen to improve her standing with the members of the village community, Agatha Raisin sets about proving her innocence and finding the culprit for the murder. Following her success in solving this murder mystery, Agatha Raisin finds herself solving other local crimes and eventually sets up her own detective agency.

M C Beaton’s ever expanding series of books follows the mystery solving adventures of Agatha Raisin, whose somewhat dubious morals and truculent nature often lead to an amusing journey of mayhem through the idyllic English countryside. Populated with quirky characters such as Agatha Raisin’s friends the policeman Bill Wong and Mrs Bloxby the vicar’s wife, and the object of her desire James Lacey with whom she has an on-and-off romantic relationship, these books provide comic crime capers in an unashamedly rosy English setting.

Anne Zouroudi’s series featuring Hermes Diaktoros

Anne Zouroudi’s series of books features the modern day Greek detective Hermes Diaktoros as he unravels mysteries in vividly described backdrops of Greek hillsides, coastline, rural villages and ancient ruins.

Each book is an investigative mix of serious crime rooted in one of the vices or deadly sins and smaller problems arising from the relationships between characters in the community affected by the crime. This provides Greek detective Hermes Diaktoros of Athens with ample opportunity to rove the fabulous Greek countryside quizzing suspects and delivering his brand of wisdom and justice.

There is something mysterious about Hermes Diaktoros. He acts for the ‘authorities’ (although these are never specified), is interested in justice not courts and trials, and has employers in Athens with wide-ranging interests. The Greek detective has an uncanny habit of turning up at the very time and place a major crime occurs, and displays a talent for predicting, possibly even determining, people’s future using an ancient gold ring.

Hermes Diaktoros has a strong whiff of the supernatural about him. Despite his portly figure, Hermes Diaktoros is very fleet of foot in his pristine white tennis shoes, running from place to place over tricky terrain to dispense advice and save situations. Similarly, in spite of his seemingly youthful appearance, Hermes has grown up children and grandchildren, and a father who grows marvelous apples in his orchard. Just like his namesake Hermes from the Greek myths in fact!

Anne Zouroudi’s descriptions of the beautiful locations, undoubtedly gained from having lived in Greece, and her smooth storylines featuring the charmingly unusual protagonist Hermes Diaktoros of Athens, combine to create enjoyable mysteries set in very well observed Greek landscapes.