Following the Detectives in Shropshire

Maxim Jakubowski’s book Following the Detectives should appear later this year, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve contributed a couple of essays to it. By coincidence, over the past two week-ends, I’ve revisited the scenes of crime fiction that I’ve discussed in Maxim’s book.

On the way down to the CWA conference in Abergavenny, we drove through Shropshire, one of the greenest and pleasantest of counties. Ellis Peters, a native Salopian, was passionate about Shropshire, and that passion accounts for a good deal of the success of her books, both those featuring Brother Cadfael, and the others, mainly featuring various members of the Felse family.

A writer of note who has lived in Shropshire for a number of years is Priscilla Masters, and she too has sometimes set her work in the county. Like Peters, Cilla Masters has an empathy with the English countryside that shines through in her writing.

The photos were taken in Bridgnorth, one of Shropshire’s attractive and historic towns. I was fascinated to learn that the wall of Bridgnorth’s ruined castle leans at n even more dizzying angle than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.