In the world of The Ghost Squad, named places like New Haven, Ferndale, Hot Springs, and, across the other side of the world,  the University of Grantfen, whilst all being imaginary, are inspired by real places around the world which I have visited or know. I thought readers might like to know a bit more about those inspirations behind the novel’s settings.

For example, the steam-wreathed town of Hot Springs, with its mud pools, was inspired by Rotorua, in the North Island of New Zealand, which I visited in 2016.  As well, an important inspiration for one of the revelations in the book also came from that same New Zealand visit: seeing, in Auckland Art Gallery, an extraordinary video installation by contemporary New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana, Tai Whetuki/House of Death Redux.

Meanwhile, New Haven was inspired in some ways by several small towns in both Australia and New Zealand, while some of the look of the landscape around the entrance to the base was partly inspired by the country around Lightning Ridge, also in Australia (see below).

The look of Bear’s cottage in the woods was inspired by Russian houses I saw on a visit to that country some years ago, while a reference to the Squadder Piper’s mother being from a family of pearl divers was inspired by a visit I made in 2018 to the town of Toba, in Japan, which is home to a famous guild of female pearl divers (see below).

The University of Grantfen, and the college of Gabrielhouse, in the epilogue, is based on colleges in the beautiful University of Cambridge in the UK, where Sophie spent a month in 2017. And Sutton Hoo, an ancient Anglo-Saxon burial site near Cambridge, also provided the inspiration for the title of Link’s short story, which is mentioned in the novel, and which is called The Ghost Ship. That’s because the big find at Sutton Hoo was of the very rich burial of a great Anglo-Saxon lord, maybe a king, who was buried in his magnificent ship, for him to set sail on a ghostly voyage into the afterlife.

(Note: All photos taken by Sophie Masson.)