International Crime Writer Roots for Fictional Detective’s Home Patch for UK City of Culture 2013

The city where crime writer, Pauline Rowson has set her popular crime novels, featuring the contemporary fictional detective, Inspector Andy Horton, Portsmouth, England, has reached the finals of the bid for the UK's City of Culture 2013.

The nearby cities of Chichester and Southampton are also on the list of 14 final hopefuls, where Pauline Rowson's heroes in her stand alone crime thriller novels, In Cold Daylight and In For the Kill are featured.

Author of five Horton novels and two thrillers, Pauline Rowson says, 'I was raised in Portsmouth and the city is the primary setting for my contemporary marine mystery crime novels so I'm obviously going to be biased in rooting for it. Portsmouth, and the Solent area, is a vibrant place and full of contrasts, with a great historic legacy and literary tradition, and ideal for being chosen as the City of Culture.'

The other cities competing for the title are Barnsley, Birmingham, Carlisle, Chichester, Hull, Ipswich and the Haven Gateway, Norwich, Southampton and Sheffield. The county of Cornwall is also in the running, along with Derry, Southend, Durham and Swansea.

An advisory panel will meet to consider the bids in February and will make its recommendation to Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw. Mersey Television founder Phil Redmond will chair the panel, which includes the former controller of BBC Northern Ireland, Anna Carragher, and Culture Show presenter Lauren Laverne. The winner will be announced in summer next year. 

Pauline Rowson, whose books are published in both the UK and the USA and are sold Worldwide, adds, 'Portsmouth is a busy commercial and ferry port with a fishing fleet and a prominent naval base. It boasts centuries of history and a great literary tradition with Charles Dickens having been born in Portsmouth in 1812 and his birthplace preserved as a museum. And then there is the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the World's most famous private detective, Sherlock Holmes.  Doyle lived in Portsmouth, penning his first and second Sherlock Holmes novels in the city.
 
'Portsmouth is a multi-cultural city on the waterfront, a rich source of material for my marine mystery crime novels. It would be great for Portsmouth to win the bid or a south coast city.'

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