Let me tell you, in case you don’t know, Georgian-era Bath is a very cozy crime kinda city. It’s well-healed, full of tea shops and cake dispensaries of various types. The people are gentle and polite, the furthest thing from murderers and serial killers you could imagine, and yet…. An overdose of Georgian architecture and, of course those that visit to take the waters. For Jane Austen it was an escape from the social whirl of London to the social whirl of Bath. It’s hard to imagine a gritty noir set in Bath amid the tweeds and Land Rovers, the welly boots and the homemade Victoria sponge. It’s solid cozy country.
Let’s start with a few older books. Christopher Lee (who died in 2001) was a British writer, historian and broadcaster who also found time to write the Bath Detective thriller trilogy. The book, starting with The Bath Detective (which is still in print) feature the eccentric, quietly spoken Inspector James Boswell Hodge Leonard, with his bicycle and his tweeds. When the grisly corpse of a Roma traveller is found outside a Roman bath, Leonard disturbs the social calm of Bath. The cast includes Hilary, a former adult film star and Norma, a painter of controversial nudes. The Bath Detective is what they term an oldie and a goody.
Laura Purcell’s The Shape of Darkness (2021) is a contemporary historical fiction set in Victorian Bath. Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business in Bath afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another. Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…
The Golden Age is ideally suited to Bath. Peter Lovesey’s Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of Bath Police is a golden age-style detective, a devotee of old-fashioned gumshooing. He’s a little out of shape and has no interest in fancy technology—he’s only just been pursuaded to get a cell phone and has no patience for computer nonsense—but none of this stops him from solving case after case. Amazingly there are 22 (yes 22!!) books in the series from The Last Detective (2012) where a woman’s naked body is found floating in the weeds of a lake near Bath to Against the Grain (2024), which actually takes place in nearby Somerset (slightly to the west of Bath). Along the way Diamond solves cases involving Japanese tourists, escaped prisoners, and a multitude of dead bodies across Bath. The entirety of the series provides a great snapshot of Bath’s high society and low society.
Another contemporary Golden Age pastiche is Claire Hutton’s The Sign of Death (2021). We’re in Bath, 1891. James Harding was a businessman, well-to-do, probable scoundrel and a bad drinker. So when Harding is believed to have drunkenly fallen to his death into the icy River Avon, Lord William Wethington is immediately suspicious. Finding Lord William’s name on a letter in the victim’s pocket, the local constabulary summons William to identify the victim. Police detectives learn that William had been one of Harding’s business clients–and undoubtedly not the only client the dead man had cheated.
So much for old Bath. Let’s have a few contemporary crime takes on the town. Margaret Duffy had a career in the Civil Service and then the UK Ministry of Defence in Bath. The city is a setting for many of her novels. She now lives near bath in a house overlooking the River Avon. Bath features in her Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley mystery series, which roams around the UK but regularly returns to Bath. Book 8 of the 22 (a 22-book series again!!) Dead Trouble (2004) is set in Bath. Book ten Tainted Ground (2024) returns to Bath for a horrific murder in the surrounding supposedly idyllic countryside. Much of the rest of the series also takes place in Bath.
Joseph M Dayle’s A Murder in Bath (2020) starts with a body found hanging beneath a bridge in the middle of Bath. Inspector Naish is assigned to investigate. As his investigation develops it becomes evident that this first death is closely linked to a more complicated, violent and sinister criminal enterprise with connections beyond Bath.
Kate Hardy’s Georgina Drake series bounces round the UK. Georgina Drake trades London for the tranquil countryside. In book five of the series, The Body at the Roman Baths (2025) Georgina is spending time outside Bath but becomes embroiled in murders among archaeologists.
Sharon Lynn writes the Cotswold Crimes series (near Bath and, like Bath, has a very low crime rate for the record). Death Takes a Bath starts with Maddie McGuire lands an archaeology internship at the Roman Baths.Her tentative friendship with young constable Edward Bailey and the beauty of the Bath Abbey are no comfort as her aristocratic coworker Simon Pacock sabotages her every move. And the danger only increases when she discovers a dead body. Books two and three move into the Cotswolds and away from Bath.
And finally, Peter Helton’s Chris Honeysett series. Chris Honeysett lives in Bath enjoying life as a painter, supplemented by his work as a gourmet cook. He also runs an amateur investigative company on the side, taking small cases where he can. The work of his investigative company, Aqua, is also shared by his housemate Annis Jordan, another artist, and Tim, a whizz on the computer. There’s seven books in the series, from Headcase (2005) when Honeysett’s investigation into an art theft yields unexpected results when an old friend is found murdered and he finds himself fingered for the crime through to Lock 13 (2018). The books all take place in and around Bath.
Several of the above writers try and tell is Bath might be dangerous. It’s a tribute to their writing skills because, honestly, Bath is one of the safest places you can ever go…. but you never know!!
