Using Location. Or Not

By Vicki Delany

We’ve been talking a lot about location here at Type M lately.  I suspect that conversation was started when I discussed my recent trip to London to do on-the-spot research for the fifth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Book (as yet untitled).

My fellow typists talked about the importance of visiting a place to write about it. Which is something I think is important, and very much like to do.

When I travel people always ask me if I’m going to use that place in one of my future books.

I’m just back from three weeks in Malaysia, and I can guarantee you it will never appear in one of my books.  Not only did I not give my writing a single thought while I was there (unlike many writers who insist they are ‘always’ working, I can and do shut the whole thing down for weeks at a time when I’m on the road) I have no interest in setting a book in Malaysia, or many of the other places 

I’ve been recently.  For one thing, I have no contacts in the police, nor any way of getting any. And even a book about a tourist who runs into trouble in xx spot, needs to know something about how the policing works.  Cozy mysteries generally speaking stick mighty close to home.  Even the trip to London in book 5 required some devious plotting on my part to get the cast of regular characters to tag along.

But I had a great time in Malaysia.  It was like three vacations in one. The jungles and wildlife of Borneo, the cities and culture and food of the Peninsula, and then a beach holiday at the end on Langkawi.

Hope you enjoy a few pictures.

Me and a leaf

Into the jungle on Borneo

An Orangutan in the wild

Sometimes the accommodation was rustic

And sometimes it was not

It rained a bit

My order of an iced  coffee

Loved the town of Melaka

Dinner time

Street art in George Town