Scarborough author pens Whitby as location for latest book series
Monday 27th March
As you’ll guess from the covers and the titles, despite living down the coast, Mark decided to set his books in Whitby. We asked him why.
“I think Whitby has a much better ‘sense of place’ than Scarborough,” was the answer. “Captain Cook, fishing, Dracula, the Abbey, the Moors, fish and chips. You can reel off a dozen points that instantly strike a chord with readers.”
Mark started writing Salt in the Wounds at the beginning of lockdown when, in his own words, “I immediately lost a couple of clients in the day job and ran out of excuses not to write to novel.”
Salt in the Wounds tells the story of Michael Brady, formerly a high-flying detective in Manchester whose wife has been killed in a hit and run.
Now Brady is coming home to Whitby, the town where he grew up, determined to rebuild his life and be a good dad to his teenage daughter. But then his best friend is murdered: Brady is drawn into the investigation…
There are now four full-length books in the series with a fifth due out at the end of March.
We’ve read and loved all the books. They’re great stories with relatable characters who’ll quickly become old friends. All the books are set in and around Whitby, with plenty of local places getting a mention – and Mark tells us people are already visiting the town because of the books.
Being from Scarborough, we asked Mark how well he knew Whitby before he started writing. “I thought I knew the town really well,” he said. “But you don’t know a town at all until you start planning a murder. I make a research trip to Whitby about once a month. Somehow they all end the same way – with me ‘researching’ some fish and chips…
