Walk With Horton: Southsea Marina — Where DI Andy Horton Lives

If you've read my DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries, you'll know that Horton doesn't live in an ordinary house or flat.

He lives aboard his boat at Southsea Marina in Portsmouth.

And that makes Southsea Marina rather special to me. It isn't simply somewhere I've used as a setting for one particular murder investigation. It is part of Horton's everyday life.

A home on the water

Horton is a sailing detective, and living aboard his boat suits him.

The marina places him right beside the water and within easy reach of the Solent and the many coastal communities around Portsmouth and Hampshire where his investigations take him.

It also gives me another way of bringing the sea into the books.

The weather changes. So does the light. Boats come and go. The tide rises and falls. The marina can be busy one moment and remarkably quiet the next.All of those details can help create atmosphere in a crime novel.

And, of course, there's something rather useful about giving a detective a home surrounded by water.

You never quite know what might arrive by boat...

The real Southsea Marina

When you stand at Southsea Marina today, it is easy to see why the waterfront appeals to a crime writer.

There are boats, masts, pontoons and constantly changing views across the water. Beyond the marina lies the wider landscape of Portsmouth and the Solent.

It is a working, living environment rather than a backdrop that stays the same from one day to the next.

For a writer, that matters.

Real locations give a story a sense of place. They provide the details that can't always be invented: the sound of halyards against masts, the movement of boats on their moorings, the wind coming across the water, the smell of the sea and the way the landscape changes with the tide and weather.

Horton's home at Southsea Marina also helps define his character.

He is independent, practical and accustomed to life on the water. His boat gives him a degree of freedom — but it also means that the sea is never very far away.

From here, his investigations can take him around the Solent and along the Hampshire coast, into marinas, harbours, creeks and isolated coastal locations.

Many of those places are real. And that is one of the pleasures of writing the series. I can visit a location, look around, listen to the sounds of the water and ask myself the question that so often starts a crime novel:

What if?


And now you can see the real place behind the fictional detective.