They say the three most important things when buying real estate is location, location, location. This saying doesn’t just apply for real estate, but is true in fiction as well. Location can set the mood; impact the dialogue as well as the characters shared beliefs. It is vital in the world building, whether your fictional story takes place in a real town/village or at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Agatha Christie created the quaint English village of St. Mary Meade for her senior sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Miss Marple’s premise that people were the same enabled her to solve crime by making a comparison between the people she met and people with similar character traits from her small village.
Each of the locations for my three mystery series takes place in a city where I’ve lived and am intimately acquainted. The Mystery Bookshop Mystery series is set in the fictional town of North Harbor, Michigan which is based on the real city of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Benton Harbor is in Southwestern Michigan. It is on the Lake Michigan shoreline which is beautiful in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. The area is lush and produces a lot of fruit, and award winning wines.
The RJ Franklin Mystery series is set in the fictional town of St. Joseph, Indiana which is based on my hometown of South Bend, Indiana. South Bend is in the Northwestern corner of Indiana. The area is the home of one of my alma maters, the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish), and was the home of the Studebaker Automotive Company.
Lastly, the Dog Club Mystery series starts in the fictional town of Lighthouse Dunes, Indiana (Michigan City, Indiana) but moves to Chattanooga, TN. Chattanooga is in Eastern Tennessee on the Tennessee/Georgia border. The weather is moderate and the residents are friendly. Chattanooga is the home of the moon pie. However, as this series progresses, readers will have an opportunity to learn about various breeds and it will get more intertwined with a dog club, which will be based on my time competing in dog performance events with the wonderful people in ECHO Dog Club (www.echodogclub.org).
Each location is unique and I strive to bring some of the character from each into my books. Michigan and Indiana residents understand the concept of Lake Effect Snow while a light dusting of snow in Eastern Tennessee will result in school closures and a run at the grocery store on bread and milk. Hopefully, readers will recognize a familiar locale or identify a new area to explore while they sift through clues and figure out whodunit.