0:00:12 > 0:00:16When you think of East Anglia, there are the huge skies,
0:00:16 > 0:00:18the wind sweeping through these flat landscapes
0:00:18 > 0:00:20and also the constant battle
0:00:20 > 0:00:25as the sometimes menacing sea tries to reclaim the land.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38This part of the country can seem remote and mysterious.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42There are isolated communities, sometimes with dark secrets.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Many of our top crime writers have chosen it
0:00:49 > 0:00:51as the backdrop for their stories.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Authors like PD James, Ruth Rendell and Dorothy L Sayers
0:00:55 > 0:00:57have set some of their most popular work here.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03I'll be trying to discover why this beautiful,
0:01:03 > 0:01:05but sometimes bleak landscape,
0:01:05 > 0:01:09has come to inspire quite so many of our crime writers
0:01:09 > 0:01:12and how in turn their books have helped shaped
0:01:12 > 0:01:14our image of this place.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25That's not a real crime scene, by the way,
0:01:25 > 0:01:27just a bit of dramatic licence.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31For an area which in real life has a very low crime rate,
0:01:31 > 0:01:34an extraordinary number of fictional corpses
0:01:34 > 0:01:36have washed up on these shores.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40Our journey spans more than 80 years
0:01:40 > 0:01:43and starts in the flat fenlands of the 1930s.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Crime writer Dorothy L Sayers grew up
0:01:48 > 0:01:52in the tiny Fenland village of Bluntisham-cum-Earith.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55It was the remote communities and landscape around her
0:01:55 > 0:01:58which inspired some of her classic 1930s mysteries,
0:01:58 > 0:02:00including probably her best known,
0:02:00 > 0:02:03The Nine Tailors.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14I've always had a bit of crush
0:02:14 > 0:02:17on Dorothy L Sayers' suave, aristocratic detective,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19Lord Peter Wimsey.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23In The Nine Tailors, after a car accident in a ditch,
0:02:23 > 0:02:26he finds himself in a remote fenland village.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29This is a story of an unsolved crime
0:02:29 > 0:02:33and its violent unravelling, two decades later.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39"Mile after mile, the flat road reeled away behind them.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42"Here a windmill, there a solitary farmhouse,
0:02:42 > 0:02:46"there a row of poplars strung along the edge of a reed-grown dyke
0:02:46 > 0:02:50"and as they went, the land flattened more and more,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53"if a flatter flatness were possible."
0:02:58 > 0:02:59CHURCH BELLS RING
0:02:59 > 0:03:03This church in Terrington St Clement was the inspiration
0:03:03 > 0:03:06for the fictional one Sayers used in The Nine Tailors.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10The mystery involves the theft of a valuable emerald necklace.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13A central part of the plot involves bell-ringing.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17A secret message and clue to the identity of the murderer
0:03:17 > 0:03:19is hidden among the bells.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30Nearly 60 years after Sayers' death,
0:03:30 > 0:03:34the author has a very active appreciation society.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38They regularly meet and visit locations featured in her books.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Why do you think The Nine Tailors has remained so popular?
0:03:48 > 0:03:51I think it's a very well-written book.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55I know that sounds obvious, but I think it's very well written.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59I think it evokes this landscape
0:03:59 > 0:04:02that we are in part of at the moment, brilliantly.
0:04:02 > 0:04:08And that anybody reading it would, I think, really enjoy it.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10It's a fascinating story as well.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14It's a bit different from many just ordinary murder stories.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17What is it, do you think, about this landscape
0:04:17 > 0:04:19that made Dorothy L Sayers think
0:04:19 > 0:04:22it would be a great place to set a murder mystery?
0:04:22 > 0:04:24I think that there is a sense of landscape,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26sometimes about desolation,
0:04:26 > 0:04:30of alienation, of sadness
0:04:30 > 0:04:32that maybe inspired her.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35I don't know. That's what I think anyway.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40And we get a very good idea of the Fens from the beginning of the book.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44Yes, and hearing about the drive through the countryside
0:04:44 > 0:04:48and taking things a little too quickly for safety.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50It's all those kinds of things,
0:04:50 > 0:04:52that you feel she really knew the roads,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54she knew where they were going,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57she had an idea of the sorts of things that can happen
0:04:57 > 0:05:00and yet somehow she keeps you on the edge of your seat,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03wanting to know what's going to happen next.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11I really love the way that Dorothy L Sayers just immersed herself
0:05:11 > 0:05:14in this landscape and she writes in painstaking detail
0:05:14 > 0:05:17about how the fens themselves were created.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20Centuries ago, this land was drained,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23which means that some of it is still below sea level,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26as you can see right down there, and in fact,
0:05:26 > 0:05:31if there weren't miles and miles of flood banks and drainage pumps,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35an awful lot of what you see around me would be under water.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40The dramatic climax of The Nine Tailors features a massive flood
0:05:40 > 0:05:44as the drainage system is overpowered by a storm.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Just a few years after Sayers wrote the book,
0:05:55 > 0:05:57life would tragically mimic art.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00In 1953, a huge tidal surge
0:06:00 > 0:06:03left much of this part of the country under water
0:06:03 > 0:06:06and more than 100 people died.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12"Another thunderous crash brought down the weir across the 30-foot
0:06:12 > 0:06:15"in a deluge of tossing timbers.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18"Beams and barges were whirled together like straws
0:06:18 > 0:06:21"and a great spout of water raged over the bank
0:06:21 > 0:06:24"and flung itself across the road."
0:06:29 > 0:06:34The fenland that Sayers portrays so accurately is still recognisable.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38Today, it's the responsibility of the Environment Agency
0:06:38 > 0:06:41to manage this man-made landscape.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47The birds and the wild flowers here are just fantastic.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49And it's so strange to think
0:06:49 > 0:06:52that this landscape was all created by mankind.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00500 years ago, what would this place have looked like?
0:07:00 > 0:07:05The area we're in now would have been under water continuously.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08We wouldn't have the banks and the wildlife we see here today.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10So it would be part of the sea?
0:07:10 > 0:07:14Yes, the sea would have come in quite a distance inland,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18probably past here and also we would have been inundated
0:07:18 > 0:07:20every time it rained as well,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23so it would have been sitting in a basin continuously.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30The constant threat of flooding adds tension throughout the book.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Sayers give the landscape of the Fens its own personality.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41"In its own limited, austere and almost grudging fashion,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44"the fen acknowledged the return of the sun.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47"The floods withdrew from the pasture,
0:07:47 > 0:07:50"the wheat lifted its pale green spears
0:07:50 > 0:07:53"more sturdily from the black soil."
0:07:54 > 0:07:57The most successful crime novelists recognise
0:07:57 > 0:08:01that landscape and location are key in any successful book,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05perhaps more so in crime fiction than any other genre.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10This is the University of East Anglia,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13home to the world-renowned creative-writing department,
0:08:13 > 0:08:18where the crime authors of tomorrow are learning their craft.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Had, for instance, Dorothy L Sayers
0:08:21 > 0:08:24not have been born in the Fens,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27had her father not been a rural rector,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30had, say, she been born in London or Edinburgh,
0:08:30 > 0:08:32what might have happened?
0:08:32 > 0:08:37I would suspect she would have still written those sorts of crime novels,
0:08:37 > 0:08:40but with completely different settings.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43I think, in crime, it's because the setting is intrinsically linked,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45because it determines what the crime is
0:08:45 > 0:08:47and also, who's going to investigate it,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49whether there is a detective
0:08:49 > 0:08:52or whether it's a kind of murder
0:08:52 > 0:08:55or just a petty theft, you know, kind of family drama.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59So it doesn't matter how civilised, how ordered the place is,
0:08:59 > 0:09:03I mean, a crime will change the setting in itself.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05Of all literary genres,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09setting, landscape, environment
0:09:09 > 0:09:13are the most important within the crime genre.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18Why? Because they determine the mood, the tone of a novel.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22Many writers, many critics, think of setting, landscape,
0:09:22 > 0:09:27environment in relation to the genre as being another character.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29It is as important as that.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32Indeed, in many ways it is more important than the character,
0:09:32 > 0:09:37it is the most determining, controlling factor within the genre.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41Henry Sutton not only teaches creative writing,
0:09:41 > 0:09:45he's also a successful crime writer himself.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47And, like Dorothy L Sayers,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51he chooses to set his stories in the place where he grew up.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57"Murder comes in all shapes and sizes.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59"Over the years, I've incorporated
0:09:59 > 0:10:02"many other areas of criminal behaviour, too.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04"Racketeering, blackmail, extortion,
0:10:04 > 0:10:07"fraud, arson, theft, kidnapping and so on,
0:10:07 > 0:10:13"but there always has to be a murder or a suspicious death."
0:10:16 > 0:10:18My Criminal World is set
0:10:18 > 0:10:21in the fictional seaside town of Kingsmouth.
0:10:21 > 0:10:22In reality, it's based on
0:10:22 > 0:10:25the Norfolk holiday resort of Great Yarmouth.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32It's about an author who's busy writing a crime story
0:10:32 > 0:10:34while his own life is in crisis.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36It's a book within a book
0:10:36 > 0:10:39and of course, there's a nasty murder or two.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43When you're walking around places,
0:10:43 > 0:10:45do you find you get ideas for books?
0:10:46 > 0:10:51Most definitely, but what I suppose really, er...
0:10:51 > 0:10:55spurs an idea is something visual rather than actually...
0:10:55 > 0:10:58You know, if I'm sort of static, looking out at something.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01So the spot we're in now, for instance,
0:11:01 > 0:11:04I came upon it from my car which I'd parked over there,
0:11:04 > 0:11:08and I looked out towards the dunes and then the sea
0:11:08 > 0:11:10and then obviously the wind farm
0:11:10 > 0:11:13and one way or another, my mind, you know, I was thinking,
0:11:13 > 0:11:16this is possibly the prettiest bit,
0:11:16 > 0:11:21the most wild, untamed part of Great Yarmouth, these lovely dunes here.
0:11:21 > 0:11:23There's lovely wild flowers everywhere, actually.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26Thick marram grass. And I thought, what can I do with it?
0:11:26 > 0:11:29This is an area that's been designated
0:11:29 > 0:11:31of outstanding natural beauty,
0:11:31 > 0:11:35so, to me, I thought the most dramatic thing I can do about it
0:11:35 > 0:11:37is put in, right in the centre here,
0:11:37 > 0:11:42perhaps over there, a badly mutilated, naked corpse.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44SHE LAUGHS
0:11:44 > 0:11:46You see, that's not what I would do
0:11:46 > 0:11:48when I come to an area of natural beauty!
0:11:48 > 0:11:51- No.- But that's the crime writer's mind, isn't it?- Well...
0:11:51 > 0:11:56It's about being dramatic, I think, and it's also about using extremes.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59- So you have the contrast.- You have the contrast, and somewhere like
0:11:59 > 0:12:03Great Yarmouth, I think, is a place that's absolutely full of extremes.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06And you look at this place and you think, why isn't it
0:12:06 > 0:12:10one of the most extraordinary resorts in the east coast?
0:12:10 > 0:12:12Why is it so deprived?
0:12:12 > 0:12:13Which actually, it is.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16And then you move a bit closer into town
0:12:16 > 0:12:19and you get to see more and more deprivation.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21You know, why has that happened?
0:12:21 > 0:12:23And for me, as a writer,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26I find it absolutely fascinating, this contrast,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30and in a way that's what I have always been actually taken with.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35"A minute or so on and Jones had cleared the dunes
0:12:35 > 0:12:37"and was out on the pebbly beach,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41"having reached the high-tide mark, a thick line of drying seaweed
0:12:41 > 0:12:43"and stonewashed plastic rubbish.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47"There was a faint smell of rotting fish and tar."
0:12:53 > 0:12:56Why is it you think that East Anglia has become
0:12:56 > 0:12:58a kind of mecca for crime writers?
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Just look at the sky, look at the sea,
0:13:00 > 0:13:04um...it's almost hard to see where they meet, isn't it?
0:13:04 > 0:13:08It's pretty oppressive, or can be.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14It's lonely, it's isolating,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17it's also thought-provoking.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21It's simply dramatic, I think, as a setting.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24And I suppose, in a way, it's slightly similar
0:13:24 > 0:13:28to the kind of landscapes we see in Scandinavian crime programmes
0:13:28 > 0:13:30and read about in novels.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32Yeah. You know, just a short way across the North Sea,
0:13:32 > 0:13:36they are our kindred crime spirits, there's no doubt about that.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41This, to me, feels like Henning Mankell, it feels like...
0:13:41 > 0:13:43or even The Bridge, The Killing.
0:13:43 > 0:13:49There is a real closeness, the kindred sense of crime space.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57"Glancing up at the massive chimney of the redundant power station,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00"clouds bunching, gulls swirling,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02"he'd grown to like this town,
0:14:02 > 0:14:04"like the way it was sandwiched
0:14:04 > 0:14:07"between a wide, fast-flowing river and the sea,
0:14:07 > 0:14:09"how it was out on a limb,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12"vulnerable, helpless.
0:14:12 > 0:14:13"Hopeless."
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Whether it's the coastal town or fenland village,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24it's the isolation and edginess we keep coming back to
0:14:24 > 0:14:27and that's something author PD James played with brilliantly.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32Her famous fictional character was the detective Adam Dalgliesh.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Several of his investigations took place
0:14:34 > 0:14:37just a short boat ride from Great Yarmouth.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43For most of us, this would be just a lovely day out at sea.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46But in the dark imagination of PD James,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49a boat like this becomes the final resting place
0:14:49 > 0:14:52for a corpse with its hands cut off.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55She loved the isolation of this place
0:14:55 > 0:14:59and you can see just how precarious the coastline is,
0:14:59 > 0:15:01the way the sea erodes it.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05And it's almost as if the land and the sea are fused into one.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09It's a liminal landscape, the perfect setting for a mystery.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16Storms are common here.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20It's not unusual for homes to be swept into the sea.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23This natural erosion
0:15:23 > 0:15:26and its impact on the lives of people who live here,
0:15:26 > 0:15:30feature heavily in PD James's book Unnatural Causes.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35"It was hard to believe, thought Dalgliesh,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37"that one was looking at a battlefield
0:15:37 > 0:15:39"where for nearly nine centuries
0:15:39 > 0:15:42"that land had waged its losing fight against the sea.
0:15:42 > 0:15:43"Hard to realise
0:15:43 > 0:15:47"that under that deceptive calm of veined water
0:15:47 > 0:15:50"lay the nine drowned churches of old Dunwich."
0:15:54 > 0:15:56Dunwich was a real place
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and what's left of it lies just a few feet below this very water.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04800 years ago, it was the capital of East Anglia
0:16:04 > 0:16:06and an international port,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09at its height, rivalling 14th-century London.
0:16:09 > 0:16:13But violent storms and erosion have swept it all away.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Not so far from here is the area of Minsmere,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21which you may know from Spring Watch
0:16:21 > 0:16:24as an extremely peaceful wildlife reserve.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26Not in the imagination of PD James.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29She changed the name to Monksmere Head
0:16:29 > 0:16:31and a murderer's on the loose
0:16:31 > 0:16:34amongst the small community of writers which live there.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39The setting for me is tremendously important.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42And nearly always the book begins with a setting.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49WH Auden said that it should be the great, good place.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52He wanted contrast between the setting and the murder
0:16:52 > 0:16:55and he said it should shock in the same way
0:16:55 > 0:16:58as when a dog makes a mess on the drawing-room carpet.
0:16:58 > 0:16:59That was the words he used.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04Nothing on this coast is static
0:17:04 > 0:17:08and James uses this to create a sense of foreboding.
0:17:09 > 0:17:15Sometimes, the drowned graveyards yield up bones onto the beach,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18a macabre idea which rather appealed to PD James.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22The closed, remote communities you get in this part of the world
0:17:22 > 0:17:25provided rich material for many of her books.
0:17:25 > 0:17:30The wild coast of Suffolk was the perfect setting.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35"Here was nothing but sea, sky and marshland,
0:17:35 > 0:17:39"an empty beach with little to mark the miles of outspate shingle
0:17:39 > 0:17:43"but the occasional tangle of tar-splotched driftwood
0:17:43 > 0:17:46"and the rusting spikes of old fortifications."
0:17:50 > 0:17:54PD James loved this area and had a home just a few miles away.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58As you might imagine, her stories are of particular interest
0:17:58 > 0:18:00to people who live around here.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03These women are all members of a local book club.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10So, how well do you think PD James described this landscape,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13this part of the world, which you must know very well?
0:18:13 > 0:18:17It's... Part of the description of the atmosphere is very good,
0:18:17 > 0:18:19but the actual locations aren't necessarily the same
0:18:19 > 0:18:22and maybe it's because there's a lot of erosion around here
0:18:22 > 0:18:25and a lot of the cliffs have actually fallen into the sea!
0:18:25 > 0:18:28So things which might have been the headland
0:18:28 > 0:18:29perhaps aren't the headland any more.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Why do you think so many crime writers have been attracted
0:18:32 > 0:18:34to this part of the world?
0:18:34 > 0:18:38I think we're lucky, actually, for having such a lot of variety.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42In just this strip of coast, we've got marshes,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45we've got clifftop, heath,
0:18:45 > 0:18:50we've got the bird reserve, we've got the forests,
0:18:50 > 0:18:53it's just amazing in terms of the difference.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55And there are lots of places
0:18:55 > 0:18:58where one could actually do a murder and hide somebody!
0:18:58 > 0:19:03And I like the way that the sea is giving up its secrets as well,
0:19:03 > 0:19:06so the corpse washes up in the boat
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and then bones wash up here as well, don't they?
0:19:09 > 0:19:12Well, frequently. Almost, if you kept looking at this cliff
0:19:12 > 0:19:14and came down after another storm,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18it's not unknown to find an arm bone sticking out or whatever.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21And the lady in the museum said she had an old man who came in
0:19:21 > 0:19:25who said, when they were boys, if they found a skull,
0:19:25 > 0:19:26they used it as a football!
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Which is absolutely horrendous!
0:19:28 > 0:19:33I'm beginning to understand why this is such a macabre part of the world,
0:19:33 > 0:19:37- using skulls as footballs! - I know, horrid, isn't it?
0:19:40 > 0:19:42"Dalgliesh loved this emptiness,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45"this fusion of sea and sky.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48"But today, the place held no peace for him.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51"He saw it suddenly with new eyes.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55"A shore alien, eerie, utterly desolate."
0:20:03 > 0:20:06PD James couldn't resist tapping into the dark underbelly
0:20:06 > 0:20:10beneath the sunny, idyllic veneer of the Suffolk coastline.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13She died in 2014.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16But the murderous character of the East Anglian landscape
0:20:16 > 0:20:17is being kept alive
0:20:17 > 0:20:21by two of today's most successful crime writers.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24- What's your name?- Judy.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26Judy. So, with a Y?
0:20:26 > 0:20:28It's the Felixstowe Book Festival
0:20:28 > 0:20:31and a husband and wife crime-writing team are here
0:20:31 > 0:20:34to talk about and sign their new book.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36The couple, who live in Suffolk,
0:20:36 > 0:20:38have co-written more than 20 bestsellers
0:20:38 > 0:20:41under the pen name Nicci French.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43I think Saturday is quite...
0:20:43 > 0:20:45There's a kind of darkness.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47You have to feel the storm is gathering, really.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52One of their most successful books is Losing You.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55The story is set among an isolated community
0:20:55 > 0:20:58living on a fictional island called Sandling.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02In reality, it's actually Mersea Island, off the Essex coast.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09"Here on Sandling Island, it was all horizon.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12"The level land, the mudflats,
0:21:12 > 0:21:15"the miles of marshes, the saltings,
0:21:15 > 0:21:18"the grey, wrinkled sea."
0:21:19 > 0:21:22The first book we wrote that was based in Suffolk
0:21:22 > 0:21:24was before we actually moved here.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26And maybe was one of the reasons we came here,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28because we explored it for this book
0:21:28 > 0:21:30and got to know it and then came here.
0:21:30 > 0:21:31But it's certainly true
0:21:31 > 0:21:35there are certain books we've written which are so located
0:21:35 > 0:21:38in a particular environment, the coastal Suffolk,
0:21:38 > 0:21:40the kind of mud flats.
0:21:40 > 0:21:45Birds crying out and shingle and grey seas.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48There are certain thrillers we write
0:21:48 > 0:21:51which need a kind of haunted, empty landscape.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54I think there's something about
0:21:54 > 0:21:57living, looking out to sea, rather than back inland,
0:21:57 > 0:22:01so people who live looking away from where they're living,
0:22:01 > 0:22:03kind of people who live on the edge.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06And also, it feels it's full of forgotten places.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11That feels quite a kind of fruitful area for crime fiction.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15And also, you know, the areas that we have placed books around here,
0:22:15 > 0:22:19it's not golden beaches and blue skies and tourists.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23It's like the kind of...a lot of it's unpicturesque, deserted...
0:22:23 > 0:22:27- Bleak, desolate. - The wind blowing in.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33In the story, the Landry family are about to go on holiday
0:22:33 > 0:22:36when teenage daughter Charlie goes missing.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38Told over a period of just a day,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40it's about mum Nina's frantic search
0:22:40 > 0:22:43to discover what's happened to her daughter.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45Once again, it's the edginess
0:22:45 > 0:22:48of this flat, watery landscape that creates tension.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57"The last time I'd walked past the hulks, it had been in early October.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01"I remembered it clearly. The tide had been low then,
0:23:01 > 0:23:04"the hulks lay in a massed huddle on the mud.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07"There had been dozens of noisy, cheerful gulls
0:23:07 > 0:23:09"perched on the smashed decks.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11"Now, the tide was high
0:23:11 > 0:23:15"and vicious little waves riffled round the hulls."
0:23:19 > 0:23:23For ages, we had an idea of writing a book
0:23:23 > 0:23:26about a mother losing her daughter,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29a kind of basic story of a parent's worst nightmare.
0:23:29 > 0:23:31But we couldn't think of how to turn it
0:23:31 > 0:23:34into a really different kind of thriller
0:23:34 > 0:23:37until we came to Mersea Island.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39I remember when we walked around here,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42it just felt unbelievably perfect
0:23:42 > 0:23:46because it's this contained island,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50which is part of Britain, but it's cut off once a day.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52The tide comes over the causeway.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56- We set it on the shortest day of the year.- Shortest day of the year.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59So we had this sense that the tide was rising,
0:23:59 > 0:24:01the island was getting cut off,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04darkness was closing in and then we wrote a book
0:24:04 > 0:24:07that actually is in real time and that has no chapters either,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10so it's this sense of absolute claustrophobia,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12everything closing down.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15And once we had all of that, then we could write.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17- Yeah.- Then we could write a book.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21So it's the landscape made the thriller.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24It was the landscape that turned... that gave us the plot almost.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27And when we saw these sort of whatever they are,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31kind of hulks, houseboats, we knew they would play an important part
0:24:31 > 0:24:34in the story and we actually shifted them to another part of the island
0:24:34 > 0:24:38that's a little bit more desolate, using our creative licence
0:24:38 > 0:24:40and we knew that Nina, our heroine,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43was going to find something really nasty inside one of them.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50"I used to love Sandling Island at night.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55"The silence, the slap and murmur of water, the smell of salt and mud,
0:24:55 > 0:24:59"the chime of halyards and the forlorn cry of birds.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01"Now, it terrified me."
0:25:05 > 0:25:08Throughout their book, the couple take inspiration
0:25:08 > 0:25:11from what they observed walking around Mersea island.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16Sometimes, the most unlikely things are used in a very dramatic way,
0:25:16 > 0:25:19as mum Nina continues searching for her daughter.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21I think it was about halfway through the book
0:25:21 > 0:25:24we had this crucial scene at the beach hut.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28And what we really wanted to do was take the idea of Nina
0:25:28 > 0:25:33being full of rising wildness and breaking lots of boundaries.
0:25:33 > 0:25:38So we took these rather pretty little domestic spaces
0:25:38 > 0:25:42in a public place and we have her smashing into them with a mallet.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45She does them one by one, at night-time,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48just going through, splintering open the doors.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51One of the great things about writing a book rather than making a film,
0:25:51 > 0:25:54is you're free just to find this lovely landmark here
0:25:54 > 0:25:58and just smash them, one after another, which I think would be
0:25:58 > 0:26:01a bit of a problem if you were actually going to film it.
0:26:01 > 0:26:06But it was...rather satisfying as she broke taboo after taboo.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10And there's this sense that behind these lovely little English doors,
0:26:10 > 0:26:15- there might be a dead body or someone kept captive.- Yes, yes.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21Something else the Frenches spotted while exploring Mersea Island
0:26:21 > 0:26:24was this derelict Second World War observation post.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28It became the setting for the book's dramatic ending.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30The character Nina finally discovers
0:26:30 > 0:26:33what's happened to her kidnapped daughter.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40I remember we came on this beach on the day where the story was set.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44We had this sense that if the tide was rising
0:26:44 > 0:26:47and the island was getting cut off and time was running out,
0:26:47 > 0:26:50we had to end it at a place
0:26:50 > 0:26:52where it mattered that the tide was rising,
0:26:52 > 0:26:54where it was just kind of crucial
0:26:54 > 0:26:58that every inch the water crept up was an inch more dangerous.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Also, I think one of the problems we faced is,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04on a kind of really little island and someone has disappeared,
0:27:04 > 0:27:07where can you actually hide someone
0:27:07 > 0:27:10on a little island by the sea, on the beach?
0:27:10 > 0:27:13It may even have been this particular lump of concrete,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16- which I think is the remains of a... - There are pillboxes all the way
0:27:16 > 0:27:20around the island, so we probably envisaged a more intact pillbox,
0:27:20 > 0:27:22- but then placed it here. - And that seemed perfect.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Inside a pillbox, with the tide coming up,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27gradually filling with water.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29That just felt like the kind of...
0:27:29 > 0:27:31And that was a total example, I think,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35of how the story and place and character play off each other.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41"A boggy path that led to the treacherous marshes
0:27:41 > 0:27:45"and borrow dykes. To the left, the road ran along the low,
0:27:45 > 0:27:51"subsiding cliffs, then turned inland again, away from the cliffs,
0:27:51 > 0:27:54"the dykes, the land that slid and melted
0:27:54 > 0:27:59"into silted mud and salty water and back towards the causeway."
0:28:05 > 0:28:07For me, the power of all the stories
0:28:07 > 0:28:10we've explored, is that they're rooted in real places.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14The most successful crime writers know how to use the extremes
0:28:14 > 0:28:18and play with the contrast between beauty and desolation
0:28:18 > 0:28:19to make it work for them.
0:28:19 > 0:28:24The land of East Anglia itself becomes a player in the drama.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29You've heard about our crime novels,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31but what are the books that you'd like to recommend?
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Do share your suggestions using the hashtag #lovetoread
0:28:35 > 0:28:39and you can see what other books people are talking about.