Setting is very important to me as a writer. When I was researching Die With Me, the first book in the Mark Tartaglia series, I discovered that two of the Met Police’s West London homicide squads are based in Barnes. It’s a place I know well from childhood and it has a lot to offer as a location for a story. For those that aren’t familiar with it, Barnes is a semi-rural backwater in the heart of west London. It nestles in a tight loop of the Thames, boasting a Common, a village green and duck pond, together with a wetland bird sanctuary. Even though it’s located not far from the centre of the city, it seems far removed from the buzz of London life. Lined with little independent shops, coffee bars and great pubs, the village high street wouldn’t look out of place in the Home Counties and it’s a well-heeled, middle-class part of town, with little crime and no murders, as far as I know.