I have just completed the iconic Coast to Coast walk across England, starting at the Irish Sea and ending 13 days later at the North Sea after crossing the hills of the Lakes District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire moors. I walked with a guided group, a change from my usual solitary expeditions, and was very pleased with that decision as it was a lovely little group led by an excellent guide.
Walking one day with my thoughts drifting to writing as is often the way, it occurred to me that a walking group would make a perfect setting for a traditional style murder mystery in which the drama unfolds in a closed community with a defined group of characters – an isolated manor house, an island or a monastery and so on.
Lost in my reverie, I decide to use the next ten days to write a murder mystery based on the group with whom I was walking; some would live, some would die, one would be a murderer and many would have dark secrets revealed. Just for fun.
I checked with the group and all were happy for me to do this; indeed, my writing the little story became an object of conversation each night as people tried to guess/learn what was happening and what was their individual fate! I read the story to the group on our last evening and received permission to put an expanded version on my blog and to use people’s names, except one or two cases where individuals preferred me to use fictional names.
So let the story of love and death, of secrets and raw human emotion begin in the coming days, one episode at a time…