How important is location?

A long time ago, I picked Fairfield County, Connecticut as the setting for my Geneva Chase mystery series.  The primary reason was that I know the area, working at a newspaper there for eighteen years. I’m familiar with the roads, the towns, the time it takes to drive from place to place, the restaurants, the stores, and companies doing business there.

Full disclosure, I don’t live there anymore.  As many of you know, I live on the coast of North Carolina.  Someday I’ll set a story here, but for the time being, I’ll just enjoy the beaches, the fabulous food, and the lack of traffic (except for tourist season).

I picked Fairfield County for other reasons as well.  It’s a bedroom community near New York City and much of the area is extremely affluent.  You have pockets of wealth such as Greenwich, Westport, New Canaan, Easton, and Ridgefield.

Fairfield County is home to CEOs, movie stars, Broadway actors, best-selling authors, rock-stars, and famous athletes.  The attraction is its proximity to Manhattan.  It is also far enough away that paparazzi aren’t usually an annoying factor.

But when you have affluence, you often have crushing poverty.  One of the most economically challenged cities in Connecticut is Bridgeport in the southeast corner of the county.  That kind of extreme diversity in an area makes it attractive to me as a writer.

And you have some pretty gruesome crimes that take place—in real life.

Just this past January, the body of a twenty-four year old woman was found stuffed in a suitcase in Greenwich.  The cause of death for the bookstore clerk from New Rochelle (neighboring Westchester County…also affluent) was deemed “homicidal asphyxia”.  The ex-boyfriend of the young lady was arrested after using her ATM card.  He claimed that the young woman fell and hit her head during sex at her apartment.  He admits that he bound her hands and feet, placed tape over her mouth, shoved her into a suitcase and left her in a “forest”.

This kind of thing ain’t supposed to happen in Greenwich.

In December of 2011, a friend of mine was murdered in his jewelry shop in Westport. Yekutiel Zeevi (known to his friends as Kootie) was the owner of Y.Z. Jewelers.  It was a fascinating place that wasn’t always open to the public.  You had to get past his security system and be buzzed in.

When I first met him, he had a small, glittering pile of diamonds on a table in front of him and a jeweler’s loupe in his eye.  The first thing he did was ask if I smoked.  I did at the time.  Then he bummed a cigarette.  We became friends after that, even inviting me to go to Africa with him on a diamond buying trip.

I never took him up on the trip.

In December, 2011, Kootie and an associate met with a buyer who we later found out was a half million dollars in debt.  He shot and killed my friend, wounded the associate, and left with $300,000 in diamonds.

That kind of thing ain’t supposed to happen in Westport.

  The killer was captured in Spain, where while awaiting extradition to the United States, he took his own life.

On May 24 of this year, Jennifer Dulos of New Canaan, 50, mother of five, went missing. 

Her estranged husband, Fortis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, were arrested for tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution.  According to prosecutors, Jennifer’s blood mixed with her husband’s DNA was found on the faucet in the kitchen of her home.

Police continue to look for Jennifer Dulos…or her remains.

The point is that bad things can and do happen even in the best neighborhoods. That kind of juxtaposition makes for jarring news stories, but can make interesting fiction.

How did you pick the place where your books take place?