The Streets of ... Middlesbury ( a fictional town inhabited by Paul Gitsham's DCI Warren Jones)

I have lived in Middlesbury, the fictional town that DCI Warren Jones plies his trade in, since 2011. I say lived in, because in many ways that's how I feel about the place I have spent so many hours imagining.

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Setting my series in a fictionalised location was simple pragmatism – I can furnish Middlesbury with

whatever I need to tell my story. And so now, eight books in and counting, I have a big, old rambling town with its own character and its own stories to tell.

So, let me put on my red peaked cap, hoist my high-visibility umbrella, and take you on a guided tour of Middlesbury.

Middlesbury is a small, seeming genteel, market town in North Hertfordshire (its name is a not-so subtle pun on the middle England that it originally epitomised). As we discover in the first book, The Last Straw, Middlesbury would appear to be worlds away from the mean streets of Coventry, where Warren Jones started his career. But in short order we have a brutal murder at the University of Middle England – a far less prestigious institution than its more famous neighbour in Cambridge, but just as full of petty jealousies and murderous individuals (allegedly).

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Later books take us away from the wealthy, tree-lined streets where our first victim resides, to the far less salubrious Chequers Estate - with its crumbling sixties tower blocks named after 20^th Century Prime Ministers - and Troot Street, Middlesbury’s own red-light district.

Over the years, I’ve given Middlesbury three secondary schools, a cinema, both Islamic and Sikh community centres, numerous pubs (dodgy and not-so-dodgy), a plot-crucial Tesco, a homeless outreach centre, and the modern scourge of a bookmakers on every corner. But the jewel in its crown is Middlesbury Abbey, in many ways the star of Forgive Me Father.

I had tremendous fun designing this beautiful, ruined heritage site, taking inspiration in the form of architecture and history from sources all over the country, and gleefully mashing them together to form the perfect backdrop for

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the novel. To help keep things consistent, I even sketched my own plans!

But Warren isn’t confined to the town’s limits. Middlesbury CID is a ‘first-response’ investigative unit, tackling crime throughout the semi-rural area surrounding the town (a necessary artistic fudge, since all serious crime in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire is run out of one building No Smoke Without Fire, that I discovered that there is no such road as the A506 in real life – a useful discovery for later books, as it means I can have that road wind its way wherever I want it to!

in Welwyn Garden City). Its range encompasses tiny villages, wooded areas, and farmland, widening the scope of the stories I can tell. In fact, it was whilst I was figuring out where to dump a dead body during

And so above all else, that’s why I enjoy setting my books in a fictional place. Because not only is Middlesbury Warren’s town, it’s also my town.

Biography:

Paul Gitsham started his career as a biologist, working in Manchester and Toronto, before retraining as a science teacher. Along the way he had spells as the world’s most over-qualified receptionist and spent time working for a major UK bank, ensuring that terrorists, foreign dictators and other international ne’er do wells hadn’t embarrassed the institution by managing to deposit their ill-gotten gains in a Children’s Trust Fund.

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Paul is the author of the DCI Warren Jones series and is a member of the Crime Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers organisation. He lives with his fiancé in the East of England in a house with more
books than shelf space.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/dcijones

Twitter: @dcijoneswriter

Instagram: @paulgitsham

Website: www.paulgitsham.com

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/l/B00IQAFX0I