When I write mysteries, I find that setting has a lot to do with inspiration. The P-Town Murders wouldn’t be the same anywhere else, just as Death in Key West (Bradford’s second, as yet-unpublished volume) needs Florida’s coral key chain to bring all the right elements together for that story. Yesterday afternoon’s trip to the Dundas Valley conservation area yielded an idea for yet another novel. At a derelict resort in a place called Sulphur Springs, I felt the glimmerings of a story about an old woman returning to the scene of a murder many years after it had been committed. As with P-Town, it was a matter of stumbling across the right things at the right time: a small boy sitting in the ruins and telling his father ‘This is my home’ felt similar to the old woman in Provincetown who grabbed my arm as a car rushed past, telling me, ‘You’ve got to watch it around here, honey. They’ll mow you down like wheat!’ I feel that if I knuckled down I could write this one in two weeks, though it would have to come out under another name, or else it won’t have a chance at being published till 2015!
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