Watching the Dark (DCI Banks 20)

Travel Guide

Estonia

Moving the crime scene and background to Estonia is a fascinating asset to this novel. Estonia have to a small farm and the landscape of Yorkshire?

“When you grow up in a small country like Estonia, you soon realise that nobody from anywhere else is going to understand you unless you speak their language.”

This leads the team down a dark path looking for links to the Baltic Mafia

“Estonia is not a destination you understand, but it is a route”

DCI Skinner’s Guide to Yorkshire

Eastvale is modelled on North Yorkshire towns such as Ripon and Richmond. These have cobbled market squares, whilst others such as Thirsk have high streets. so Eastvale is rather like the first two. It’s considerably bigger than them both however as the rate at which DCI Banks finds dead bodies, there would be no one left in the town. Eastvale on a map is north of Ripon as DCI Banks often drives to and from Leeds

However, Eastvale does grow like anywhere else and many new areas are introduced as the novels progress

The surrounding countryside and villages are an amalgam of several dales, particularly Wensleydale and Swaledale. The author based Helmthorpe and Gratly on Hawes and Gayle and Lyndgarth on Reeth. Names and indeed locations have been changed.