A MESSAGE FROM MICHAEL HAMBLING

Dorset is such a beautiful and varied county in terms of its landscapes. It’s green and rolling in parts but also has its share of desolate, windswept heathland features that clearly inspired Thomas Hardy. I live on the Dorset coast for a good proportion of each year, sharing it with Salisbury in neighbouring Wiltshire, a lovely cathedral city.

My latest novel, Shocking Crimes, is not based in the countryside, though. The large conurbation built around Bournemouth has a population of half a million, and that brings a fair share of social problems. Greed, drugs, alcohol abuse, intimidation and child exploitation. It is these that form the core of my latest story. All my stories, in fact. Problems that are familiar throughout the world in one form or another, although local cultural influences can play a part in how these evils show themselves. I suppose that the fact such unpleasant sides of human behaviour can show up even in such a beautiful area as Wessex makes them even more shocking and difficult to understand. But people are people, and deprivation is deprivation wherever it occurs.

I walk along the very hilly coast path in Dorset, admiring the stunning and incredibly varied scenery. I think, is this one of the best things that life can offer? Yet in a nearby village or town, hidden from public view, there will be violence, bullying, intimidation and other criminal goings-on. Human beings are such complex and unpredictable creatures, still evolving in behavioural terms. We’re full of petty prejudices, act far too rashly on occasions, and sometimes seem incapable of joined-up thinking.

Of course, all this creates ripe opportunities for crime writers like myself. The effects of petty jealousies and hot-tempered violence can show up anywhere. But they seem more incongruous in an area of stunning beauty like Dorset and its neighbouring counties. This disparity forms an ideal hook for authors to use. A group of ramblers, walking along the coast path, spot the body of a murder victim floating in the sea just off the Dancing Ledge beauty spot. In another story, a body is found in the dense undergrowth in the undercliff area, west of Lyme Regis. Someone is found washed up on the mud of Watchet’s harbour in North Somerset. The dead body of a homeless person is found in deep woodland near a Dorset nature reserve. It’s all a shock. It’s not what people expect when they visit a beauty spot or a picturesque coastal village. But such scenes draw readers into a story, exactly because these events are so incongruous. So I’ll continue to write about them!