On research with the Marine Police for THE RAT ISLAND MURDERS

I've been privileged to spend some time researching for my DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries with the Hampshire Police Marine Unit.  I have a great deal of admiration for the wonderful Hampshire Police Marine Unit.  They police one of the busiest stretches of water in Europe indeed in the World. And the marine unit features in many of my Detective Inspector Horton Solent Murder Mysteries.

Dave, Billy, and Tim at the helm, met me and my husband (the photographer) at Gunwharf Quays on a chilly, dull but thankfully relatively calm February morning.  Gunwharf Quays is renamed in the Horton novels as Oyster Quays, but it is here that Andy Horton is often met by Sergeant Dai Elkins and PC Phil Ripley of the fictional marine unit and taken out in to the Solent or into the harbour on the police launch or RIB in the pursuit of solving a crime.

We travelled up Portsmouth Harbour so that I could see many of the locations already used in the Horton novels, namely the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth International Port, Fountain Lake, Tipner, and Rat Island, or Burrow Island to give it its correct name, which is one of the locations used in guess what? Yes, THE RAT ISLAND MURDERS.

It was a fantastic morning. I gleaned so much from the guys and came away with my head spinning with so many more ideas for crime novels.

Portsmouth Harbour and the adjoining harbours of Chichester and Langstone, the Solent, the Isle of Wight and Southampton Water make such a thrilling backdrop for my crime novels, it’s a vibrant diverse area with plenty of action for both of my heroes DI Andy Horton and  my former Royal Marine Commando, Art Marvik in the mystery thrillers DEADLY WAVES and DANGEROUS CARGO.