Conan Doyle; Ruth Rendell; Steig Larson; Iain Rankin; Joel Goldman

What do these people have in common?

They are people to whom I most aspire when writing, and reflect probably the best crime writers I would like to be compared to in the longer term.

People love heroes...whether they are Footballers, Rugby stars, Musicians,  Film stars, and we grow up wishing to be them or like them.

I am presently trying to read as much as I can about why they wrote and why they still write, and where they gain their inspiration.

Joel Goldman makes an astute point on his website about using his awareness of modern life and what goes on around him, to identify new ideas.

This is great for modern novels.

Conan Doyle (and Charles Dickens for that matter) provide a great backdrop for converting new to old, and include some great villains and details the lives they would have lead.

My primary inspiration was literally walking through the old streets of Leicester, and exploring the alleyways and passages, and visualising what it would have looked like in the mid to late 19th century.

This was a great and valuable way of passing the quiet small hours of a night shift!

Laws and powers were so primitive, that they allow for historical novels to develop characters who would be learning "on the hoof" and who would be most influential in how I would police Leicester during the period 1976 to 2006 when I retired.

My writing has involved a mix of personal observation and experience, wanderings, and catalysts in old and new "crime writers"...