Why a Booktrail?
2000s: The ninth in the Simon Serrailler series
The Comforts of Home
What you need to know before your trail
Recovering on a remote Scottish island, his peace doesn’t last long. He is pulled in to a murder inquiry by the overstretched local police. A newcomer, popular with the islanders, has died in perplexing circumstances. The community’s reactions are complicated and fragile.
It’s good to be back on the job. And when Simon returns to Lafferton, an arsonist is on the rampage and a woman whose daughter disappeared some years before is haunting the police station seeking closure. She will not let it rest, and Simon is called in to do a cold-case review.
At home, Simon is starting to get used to having a new brother-in-law – in the form of his Chief Constable Kieron Bright. His sister Cat has embarked on a new way of practising medicine, and his nephew Sam is trying to work out what to do with his life. And then their tricky father, Richard, turns up again like a bad penny.
Locations
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BookTrail Travel to Taransay
This little island sits in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland and is a small, quaint place far away from Lafferton. Simon Serrailler hopes to relax here, but he’s soon disabused of that notion!
In reality, it is a lovely calm place. Uninhabited since 1974, except for holidaymakers, Taransay is the largest island of Scotland that lacks a permanent population.
BookTrail Travel to Lafferton
Map of Lafferton from the book
BookTrail Travel To Exeter
BookTrail Travel to Salisbury
Lafferton is a fictional cathedral town somewhere in Southern England.
On Susan Hill’s Website she says of Lafferton “I am often asked if it is based on a real place. No, but if you think of places like Exeter or Salisbury you are on the right lines.”
There is a map in each of the books and together with the descriptions in the story, you get a good sense of time and place.
From The Various Haunts of Men:
“It was small, but not too small, had wide, leafy avenues and some pretty Victorian terraces and, in the Cathedral Close, fine Georgian houses. The Cathedral itself was magnificent . . . and there were quality shops, pleasant cafes.”
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Comforts of Home
Destination: England, “Lafferton”, Exeter, Salisbury, Taransay Author/guide: Susan Hill Departure Time: 2000s
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