Breaker

Dorset: county of southwestern England, bordered to the south by the seas of the English Channel, to the east by the county of Hampshire, and to the west by the county of Devon. Some 100 miles southwest of London, Dorset's total area, mainly rural, is approximately 1,000 square miles. Urban development along the coastline is centered on the seaside resorts of Bournemouth and Poole, and farther to the west on Weymouth and Portland. West Dorset (main town-Dorchester) has been immortalized as Wessex in the writings of Thomas Hardy and was the scene of the Tolpuddle martyrs' historic stand for organized labor in the nineteenth century. The Isle of Purbeck, a small peninsula to the southwest of Poole (main town-Swanage) is an isolated area of great beauty, home to Purbeck marble and the magnificent medieval ruins of Corfe Castle.

While Scotland Yard still maintains links between British law-enforcement agencies and Interpol, its responsibilities are now limited to metropolitan London. In the forty-six counties of England, the responsibility for serious cases is borne by county constabulary headquarters, and it is these areas of excellence which take the lead in provincial murders. It should always be remembered that nowhere in England is very far from anywhere else-for example, Lymington, in Hampshire, is only thirty-odd miles from Poole, in Dorset-however, local knowledge is always invaluable, and in this story I have given a starring role to Police Constable Ingram, a uniformed constable in a tiny police station on the Isle of Purbeck, who may-or may not?- know what he's talking about. Dorset Constabulary HQ (familiarly known as Winfrith) is located equidistantly between Poole and Dorchester, and is home to my fictional heavyweights, Detective Superintendent Carpenter and Detective Inspector Galbraith.

-Minette Walters