The Silent Killer Settings with Trevor Wood

Submitted: 17th July 2024

The Silent Killer with Trevor Wood

Trevor Wood puts Newcastle on the map in his latest book and shows us around The Silent Killer sites… Care to join?

The Silent Killer Trevor Wood

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

After escaping to the stunning Northumberland countryside for my last book, You Can Run, it was great to return to the world I know best, inner-city Newcastle, for The Silent Killer.

Trevor Wood

The Silent Killer is the first in a new police procedural series featuring DCI Jack Parker, a senior cop who discovers that he is in the first stages of Early Onset Dementia.

Ouseburn, where the famous Seven Stories is located

Newcastle is a fabulous, vibrant city, especially around the East End, where I have lived for the last thirty years. In recent times the place has been completely rejuvenated, particularly around the area where the Ouseburn flows down to the River Tyne, with umpteen restaurants, bars and artists’ studios popping up in all kinds of previously unused locations, many of which feature in The Silent Killer.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

The Old Coal Yard

With the exception of a quick visit to a murder scene in Wallsend, very close to Segedenum, where you can see remains of the Roman Fort which marked the end of Hadrian’s Wall, all the action in the book is set in the East End of Newcastle. Jack meets an informant in The Old Coal Yard, a lively and very friendly brewery taproom found just off the end of Byker Bridge, in the shadow of the famous Byker Wall. To my mind it’s reminiscent of the famous ruin bars found in Budapest.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

Aidan’s Kitchen

Later in the book he takes his son to Aidan’s Kitchen, a great brunch place in Sandyford, for a heart to heart and attempts to reconcile with his estranged wife in Heaton Perk, a cracking independent coffee shop in which, in the real world, you can nearly always find a writer or two tapping away at a keyboard.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

Victorian Pavilion and Terrace in Heaton Park

Sadly, it’s not all cool cafes and brewery bars. Like every other UK city in recent years after 14 years of Tory austerity, Newcastle has also suffered from a lack of investment, with the huge cuts in government funding for inner city councils having a devastating effect. The once-beautiful bowling green that used to sit proudly in front of the splendid Victorian Pavilion and Terrace in Heaton Park, where Jack meets a grieving father, is now sadly overgrown – though in the book two elderly men still try to hurl their bowls around as if green is still as pristine as it once was. Sometimes rose-coloured spectacles are necessary to get you through the day.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

Northern Sinfonia old rehearsal rooms

There’s an old music centre very close to my house which used to be a rehearsal space for the Northern Sinfonia. My daughter and several of her friends used to go there for after-school music lessons. Like so many other great resources that have disappeared, it’s now being marketed as a potential site for new apartments though to date there have been no takers. At a million quid I’m not surprised as it’s fallen into disuse, practically derelict, the previously well-used car park overgrown, an eyesore, even.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

Jesmond Vale

It’s on my jogging route and I’ve long thought it would be a great location for all kinds of shenanigans so while I was writing The Silent Killer it seemed the natural home for a couple of scenes, a knowing nod to a famous movie and one of the book’s climactic moments. I have friends who set their books in Bologna, Venice and even The Maldives, writers who travel far and wide for their research. I go to the bottom of the street.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

Two by Two

There’s a similar building not far from the Old Coal Yard, on the other side of Byker Wall, which I regularly pass when nipping out for a pint or two at a second great brewery bar, the Two by Two taproom. The collapsed roof and shattered windows have been calling to me for years and in The Silent Killer I finally found a way to use it – the perfect place to kill someone with little chance of being disturbed.

Map of locations in The Silent Killer

This may well be the shortest Book Trail you’ll ever find and it’s certainly not the most exotic but if you keep your eyes peeled as you walk around you may make it part of one of the best pub crawls in the world.

Thanks Trevor! A great insight into your new thriller . You have definatly put the East End of Newcastle on the BookTrail map!