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I live in lower Bucks County, and work in Trenton, so I'll have to check out these books!
I laughed at Signs when the people lived out on farms and had to call the "Sheriff." Suddenly they were in Iowa or something! We have lovely farms, but they are all like 5 minutes away from shopping centers and housing developments. And while we have a county Sheriff, I think they handle things like auctioning off the houses of tax-evaders, and issuing carry permits, and they leave the law enforcement activities to the local police departments.
Yeah, they definitely tried to make it more "small town" than "sprawling suburbs".
Everything T. Jefferson Parker writes about Orange County, CA. I know most of his locations like the back of my hand. He's also a family friend. (Totally great guy!)
Brian Freeman has some of his books set in my hometown. I see he also has one set in a small town my hubby and I have always talked about moving to as well. Will have to try to find that one.
Yes, about a serial killer. "The Body Dump." Nonfiction. Not such a great book but a must read for me since I was born there.
Also the Tawana Brawley Case was written about in a book. I read it years ago but I don't remember the name. That was a good book.
I've read a few novels set in and around my home town of Montpelier, Vermont.
Heron Island, by my neighbor R.A. Harold, is a mystery set in the early years of the Teddy Roosevelt administration, both at a summer camp in the Champlain Islands, New York City, and the anarchist environment of early twentieth century Barre. It obviously wasn't set in the present, but the research on the old days in Barre and Montpelier seemed true to what I know.
I've also read a number of the Liam Dutra mysteries by Kevin MacNeil Brown. They're set in a recognizable modern-day Montpelier. Brown doesn't slavishly follow every business name and address, especially for the neighboring towns, but he certainly captures the atmosphere of life in the smallest capital city in the country.
Dorothea Benton Frank is a fictional writer with her novels being based in the Charleston SC area. She is from Sullivan's Island, so her stories are beach based. I'm from Charleston, so when I get my hands on her books, I feel at home. She uses specific landmarks, street names and cuisines which is neat.
I like Pat Conroy for similar reasons too..
I love her books ... I can smell the salt water ... watch the sunsets when I read them. She has a gift describing all the beautiful place in the Low Country.
My 'home town' was suburban St Louis - definitely not a small town, that. But I did start reading Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books simply because they were set there, and I could just imagine how some of my relatives would have reacted if they'd ever read them. And while I began reading them out of pettiness, I very much came to enjoy both the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series.
There's also a mystery writer, John Lutz, who wrote a book called Night Lines - there was a whole series about the detective involved, and I enjoyed all of those, too. Was kind of neat, the detective driving around neighborhoods and on streets I was familiar with, mentioning places and malls that I'd been to.
Yes, about a serial killer. "The Body Dump." Nonfiction. Not such a great book but a must read for me since I was born there.
Also the Tawana Brawley Case was written about in a book. I read it years ago but I don't remember the name. That was a good book.
It's probably one of these two:
Outrage: The Story behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax
Unholy Alliances: Working The Tawana Brawley Story
I read the first one. It was written in 1990 ( 21 years ago).
Unholy Alliances: Working The Tawana Brawley Story
I read the first one. It was written in 1990 ( 21 years ago).
It was Outrage. Thanks! I read it about 8 years ago. I was a child when the whole thing happened.
I do remember that I didn't like the way the book described the Wappingers Falls area. I remember it acting like we were all a bunch of hill billy hicks or something. We are an hour and 15min north of New York City. It was a good book thou.
I might re read it. I have got to have it somewhere.....
Mine is also about a serial killer. Imagine my surprise as a teenager when I picked up a book about the Zodiac Killer and found out he'd started out in my home town of Vallejo, CA.
I think there are a couple more that have Vallejo and the surrounding areas as a setting, but that's the one that stands out.
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