Cornwall

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1697" height="2560" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-scaled.jpeg" alt="Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams" class="wp-image-38913" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-scaled.jpeg 1697w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-530x800.jpeg 530w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-663x1000.jpeg 663w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-768x1158.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-1018x1536.jpeg 1018w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Elizabeth-George-Credit-Jennifer-Adams-6-1358x2048.jpeg 1358w" sizes="(max-width: 1697px) 100vw, 1697px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Elizabeth George &#8211; Credit Jennifer Adams</figcaption></figure>



Elizabeth George is the no. 1 New York Times, Times and Der Spiegel bestselling author of more than twenty British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. Her novels have been translated into thirty languages and featured on television by the BBC. A reboot is due this autumn on Britbox of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries series, starring Leo Suter as the eponymous lead and Sofia Barclay as DS Barbara Havers.



Elizabeth&#8217;s latest release is A Slowly Dying Cause, where&nbsp;Detectives Barbara Havers and Thomas Lynley return, focussing on a defunct copper mine, with the action set in Bodmin, Launceston and Mousehole.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
In Cornwall, a man suffers a violent death – and the killer may lurk within the community . . . Amid the beauty of Cornwall’s coastline, the death of a local man shatters the peace with its violence. The body of Michael Lobb was discovered in his family’s tin and pewter workshop, and Detective Inspector Beatrice Hannaford is brought in to investigate. Suspicion quickly develops when it emerges that a mining company had been trying to buy the man’s land, and Lobb was the only remaining obstacle to the deal going through. But every step of Bea’s investigation provokes more questions than answers, and the complexity of the case develops further as Lobb’s family life, rife with mistrust and deception, comes to light. With cryptic alibis and shifting motives, the tangled web of intrigue soon draws in her colleagues, Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers, who must search for a killer in a community that has very little trust in outsiders.
</blockquote>



 



We caught up with Elizabeth to find out where else in Cornwall features in her books, and where she enjoyed visiting to carry out research.



Over to you, Elizabeth. Where in Cornwall inspired A Slowly Dying Cause, and other novels?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-morwenstow">Morwenstow</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="685" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-1000x685.jpeg" alt="Morwenstow Hawkers Hut" class="wp-image-37076" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-1000x685.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-800x548.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-768x526.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-1536x1052.jpeg 1536w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/THE-SALT-PATH-Hawkers-hut-in-morwenstow-2048x1403.jpeg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Hawker&#8217;s Hut, Morwenstow, Near Bude, Cornwall</figcaption></figure>



I went to Morwenstow because I&#8217;d read about a hut on a ledge just below the Southwest Coast path. It sounded intriguing, so I drove to the little hamlet, parked by the church, and hiked in the bitter cold and wind through a paddock filled with cows to access the path. Not far from the paddock, I saw some roughly hewn steps leading to a lower path, and it was there that I found the hut. It was built from the remains of shipwrecks on the coast (I believe it&#8217;s called Hawker&#8217;s Hut), and when I went inside, I knew at once that I would use it. I didn&#8217;t know exactly how I would use it (that&#8217;s usually the case), but I knew that one way or another it would appear in my novel&nbsp;Careless in Red.&nbsp;And so it did.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-zennor">Zennor</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Zennor-Mermaids-chair-1-1000x667.jpeg" alt="Zennor church and Mermaid's chair inspired Elizabeth George when writing Lynley" class="wp-image-38911" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Zennor-Mermaids-chair-1-1000x667.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Zennor-Mermaids-chair-1-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Zennor-Mermaids-chair-1-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/10/Zennor-Mermaids-chair-1.jpeg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Zennor church and Mermaid&#8217;s chair</figcaption></figure>



My reason for visiting this village had to do with the church, for inside the church is an ancient carved bench that&#8217;s called the Mermaid&#8217;s Chair. Again, as above, I thought the Mermaid&#8217;s Chair could present possibilities in my novel. So I photographed it (as I&#8217;d done with Hawker&#8217;s Hut), I took notes, and I waited for the moment in the novel when the chair, the church, and Zennor itself could be featured. It happened when Lynley wanted to interview the police detective who had investigated the decades-old death of a boy called Jamie Parsons who was at the core of events in the novel&nbsp;Careless in Red.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mousehole">Mousehole</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/mousehole-1.jpeg" alt="mousehole" class="wp-image-26482" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/mousehole-1.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/mousehole-1-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/mousehole-1-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/mousehole-1-787x525.jpeg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Mousehole harbour, Cornwall</figcaption></figure>



I&#8217;d been to Mousehole prior to visiting it again for a potential location in my new novel&nbsp;A Slowly Dying Cause.&nbsp;Mousehole is wonderfully atmospheric with its narrow streets barely the width of a car, its fantastic granite cottages, and its exposure to the wind and the weather of Mount&#8217;s Bay. On fine summer days, it becomes a veritable forest of people. On the off-season, it&#8217;s a place of terrific atmosphere. I chose it as the location of a shop called Vintage Britannia, run by one of the significant characters in the novel. I had great fun with the shop as it took me back to my first trip to England in 1966, at the height of Swinging London when clothing featured designs by Mary Quant, British music had taken the western world by storm, vinyl boots were the rage. There are a number of scenes in&nbsp;A Slowly Dying Cause&nbsp;that take place in Mousehole, including the moment when Lynley sees his sergeant, Barbara Havers, clearly up to something with the woman he loves.&nbsp;



A Slowly Dying Cause, the brand-new Lynley novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Elizabeth George, is out now in hardback. 



All four episodes of the new Elizabeth George adaptation <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002hz9z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lynley</a> are now available on BBC iPlayer, starring Leo Suter.



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-in-the-mood-for-more">IN THE MOOD FOR MORE?</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/things-to-do/books-arts-culture/cornish-thrillers-for-halloween/"><a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/things-to-do/review-time-by-luxmuralis-truro-cathedral-cornwall/">First Look: Time by Luxmuralis at Truro Cathedral, Cornwall</a></a></li>



<li><a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/things-to-do/books-arts-culture/local-autumn-literary-festivals-and-events-books-cornwall/"><a href="https://muddystilettos.co.uk/things-to-do/books/10-joyful-reads-to-boost-your-mood/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Uplit and loving it! 10 joyful reads to boost your mood</a></a></li>



<li><a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/things-to-do/haunted-places-cornwall/"><a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/arts-culture/childrens-books-cornwall/">15 books for children with Cornish connections</a></a></li>
</ul>

My fave places: Elizabeth George, author & creator of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries series

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