Like most writers, I receive emails from readers. Often they are comments about a particular book. Others write with suggestions and ideas for books. Still a few are people who seek advice about writing crime fiction.

I received an email from a reader who wrote:

“I’m working on a crime novel and recently completed my first draft. My dilemma is that I have no idea which city to set it in. The story’s current setting in Los Angeles, but I’m thinking of changing and starting over. Conventional wisdom and research into past bestseller lists suggests setting the story in either the U.S. or a European capital city and have it involve western characters and values. But the recent shift of power and money to Asia, particularly China, and the fast-growing sales of novels in countries like China and India, is changing everything. Not to mention the huge tourism numbers in places like Thailand and Malaysia nowadays.

So I’m thinking of doing the opposite of most and setting my novels in Asia and finding a niche market there like you do, Christopher. ‘The fishing is best where the fewest go’, as my grandfather used to say. For example, I’m thinking of the capitals of Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia or Malaysia as a setting as no other western author is writing crime fiction there, to the best of my knowledge.

What do you think? Does the rise of China and Asia mean that it’s better for new authors to write stories set in Asia? And which city in S.E Asia do you think would be a good place to write crime fiction?”

I have been thinking over the best way to reply. In the past, when I’ve spoken before various groups about the Vincent Calvino series, I tell the story of how almost twenty years ago when after Spirit House had been published that my literary agent at the time wrote (we didn’t have email then) about a US publisher who liked the novel and wondered if I could change the setting from Bangkok to Boston. I wrote her back, “Is it okay if I leave everything else the same?” Apparently the answer was ‘no’ as the publisher failed to press ahead.

If you examine the authors who write on this blog, you’ll find a common thread. We all have lived for many years or spent many years in the culture and place where we set our fiction. I think of Matt Rees’s Omar Yussef mysteries, Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri’s mysteries, Barbara Nadel’s Inspector Ikman’s mysteries, Quentin Bate’s Iceland mysteries, Margie Orford’s South African mysteries, and Conor Fitzgerald’s Commissioner Alec Blume series set in Italy—the common thread is each of these writers has been immersed in the culture, the history, the language and the psychology of the place where they’ve set their fiction.

It would be difficult to imagine substituting another city or country in books written by my colleagues on this blog. The reality is that their finely developed characters and actions of the police, courts and other parts of the criminal justice system wouldn’t connect with the underlying values, morals, sentiments, or experience of the people who live, work, and are the victims of crimes in another place.

My advice is not to write the novel first and then decide which city is ‘hot’ or ‘trendy’ and rewrite the book, setting it in that place. The book I’d recommend you read is David Hume’s An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. No, it’s not a crime novel. No, it’s not on The New York Times bestseller’s list. It is out of copyright. You can download it free from the Internet. I urge you to do so. What Hume teaches is the way to understanding is in experience and observation. The testimony of men and women, the reports of witnesses and spectators, and we apply our observations to the veracity of human testimony. It is one of the best guides to interpreting your world, and any new world you wish to move to.

After you finish with Hume, go to Peter Rozovsky’s Detectives Beyond Borders and work your way through the excellent archives, and discover first hand the crime writers who are setting novels in foreign cities. You will learn a lot about how these authors have successfully used a foreign country in a crime novel.

There are no shortcuts. No writing course, no how-to book, no mystery or crime convention that can deliver the material that you will require to set the second draft of your crime novel in a foreign culture.

There are a couple of things that may be helpful and that you might want to keep in mind. Without the experience of ‘place’ no matter how much you try to evolve the character and the crime, your efforts will likely fail. You will have wasted your time and your creative effort will have hit a brick wall. It’s not because you don’t have talent or can’t write; it will be because you aren’t able to deliver a meaningful sense of what it is to experience the place where your novel is set.

Our blog is written by crime writers who have done a reality check on their own work and the books written by others. Each of us (I am presuming to speak for the others and welcome them to jump in on the comments) writes from our personal experience of the place where we’ve placed our series. In my view, a writer who hasn’t spent a significant time in a place won’t be able to hide the ignorance and no amount of time on Google, YouTube, or GoogleMaps will substitute for your actual experience in the place where your book is set.

Our readers buy our books because they have faith that we can deliver a sense of ‘place’ that can’t be found elsewhere. Not in magazines, newspapers, blogs, articles by the bushel basket on the Internet. If there is a secret to why our books have a following, it is a combination of our experience of place, our passion for the culture, language and people, and our attention to the telling details that deliver a deeper understanding of why things are the way they are in a foreign city.

The authors of this blog aren’t tourists who’ve visited a place for a couple of weeks, made some notes, returned “home” and worked them into a second draft of a book that was written before we left. We speak the language of our respective cities. We dream in that language. That’s not to say, everyone who picks up a novel cares about whether the novel has any connection with the reality of a city, and peppering the story with second-hand information wouldn’t be enough to satisfy many readers. In that case, I’d ask if you’d be proud to have your name on the cover of such a passing off?

You might say, “I am not writing for people who know these cities well. I writing a great story and exotic locations will add an element to the atmosphere. And Asia is hot, and people like exotic cities.”

My reply would be, “There’s a place for all kinds of stories and ways of telling a story. One factor to keep in mind: an author’s credibility as a storyteller depends on whether the world he or she is creating is solely a product of imagination, or whether he or she is asking the reader to believe the ‘place’ is a real, authentic place. If it is the former, then write that second draft as science fiction or fantasy. If it is the latter, find a city where you have the passion for the food, people, weather, culture and history. Move there. Live there for a year or two. Learn the language. Experience the culture. Then take out that first draft and see how much of it makes sense when set in this new place that you live.”

By the way, best of luck on that “fishing trip.” You have a chance to catch a trophy fish once you learn from the locals who live in that Asian city the art of baiting the hook.

Murders happen everywhere people live. No country is spared. For those left behind, a murder is a tragedy and one that remains in their memories for a lifetime. The reality is most murders are domestic affairs. They often occur in the country where the killer and victim were born, educated, worked, and played. The killer and victim often shared in a common culture and language. They likely watched the same TV shows and movies. They recognized the same celebrities who outside that culture moved anonymously among others who did not recognize them. In other words, they consider themselves as belonging to the same ‘tribe.’

When the murder victim dies violently in a foreign place and the killer or killers are natives to that foreign land, the killing ignites the interest of the media. Ever since Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice we have the suspicion that someone murdered in a foreign country is something we ought to pay special attention to the tribal affiliations of the victim and killer. Though, in Death in Venice the killer was cholera, and not someone with a knife or gun. The point is death on holiday attracts attention.

First, we all take or dream of taking holidays to foreign lands. The attraction of such a holiday is to sit on a pristine white sand beach with tall drink with one of those little umbrellas. This is a time to sit back and relax, enjoy the breeze off the sea. If someone just like you—a respectable, hardworking middle-class person—opens a newspaper and reads about someone who resembles the details of your own life who was found with a knife in his back, you take that death more personally. That could have been you on the beach in France, Italy, Greece, Thailand or India. The kind of places you may have been to or intend to visit.

Second, like Mann’s Death in Venice foretells, the police and government officials in countries, which promote the ‘tourist dream holiday’ may be less than forthcoming when a foreigner is violently assaulted or killed. Such governments have a conflict of interest. They wish to be seen as a country that administers a system of criminal justice that is worthy of respect internationally. No country’s police force or judicial system is happy to suddenly have an international spotlight placed on an investigation into the death or severe beating of a foreigner. The relevant embassy makes phone calls to important officials, the victim’s relatives and local MPs to make certain that the embassy follows up on request for information and evidence. Journalists from the victim’s country show up and ask questions. Internet social sites buzz with fear and loathing.

In May, tourists arrivals were up 66% compared with a year ago, and Thailand has the greatest gain in tourists of any country in Southeast Asia. John Koldowski, PATA’s managing director of strategic intelligence said, “In May, more than 1.3 million foreign tourists visited the kingdom, compared with 826,000 a year ago.”

It all threatens to go slightly out of control. Not to mention that the government of the place where the murder takes place has other worries. Their officials (like in Death in Venice) worry about a dip in the tourist numbers and the impact that would have on jobs, hotel vacancies, along with the general knock on effect as less revenue circulates in the holiday centers. Tourist centers are full of voters. The heat from abroad is hot but never so hot as the blast of heat that comes from disgruntled voters.

I raise the issue as resort centers such as Pattaya and Phuket have recently been in the news for locales where foreigners have been mugged, raped, assaulted or murdered. The foreign press doesn’t always distinguish between the case of the tourists and expats.  Perhaps they shouldn’t. Though a case can be made that an expat who lives in another country (as opposed to someone visiting on a short holiday) ought to have better information and more experience with local people, customs, and culture and are able to steer clear of trouble with greater ease. Anyone who has known a cross-section of expats will find a number who go out of their way to expose themselves to risk of assault or murder because of their own involvement in criminal activity. In such a case, the heat dies down as the murder victim tumbles from the innocent mirror image of you going on that holiday to Thailand to someone likely involved in criminal activity. Of course tourists get themselves into trouble, too.

A local newspaper in Phuket reported the death of a Russian with Swedish nationality whose throat had been cut in front of his luxury condo, provides a roundup of recent murders of foreigners:

“On March 15, Phuket and Phi Phi resident Italian Luciano Butti was allegedly murdered by Thais at the behest of his partner, Denis Cavatassi, who is now in Phuket Prison awaiting trial.

”On August 14 last year, Englishman Lee Aldhouse allegedly knifed to death American Dashawn Longfellow in southern Phuket. Aldhouse is currently being held in Britain, awaiting the outcome of an extradition hearing.

”A Thai man who killed German expat resident Wolf-Dieter Kesselheim outside a 7-Eleven store on January 27 last year was caught and tried and sentenced to 13 years and four months jail on December 16.

”The previous year, a Canadian property developer was shot dead outside his Phuket house and a Scotsman was battered to death in his Phuket City apartment in the same week.”

The pressure of bad publicity is deflected when the suspected killers are themselves foreigners.  There’s evidence that Swedish man killed in Phuket on Monday was murdered by two Swedish nationals who have been arrested by the authorities in connection with the killing, according to news accounts.

In other words, if someone is killed in an exotic land by someone from their own country, it has a different emotional impact on potential tourists considering their holiday plans It seems that the real fear isn’t just being murdered by being killed by a foreigner in a distant land. Being killed by your own citizen seems business as usual. Being killed by someone else’s nationals, well, that is bad for business. Especially if they are locals as these are the happy people in the travel brochure who convinced you that this holiday location was an ideal place to relax (as opposed to getting yourself killed). Why we mentally categories the killings on whether they are within the tribe or by someone outside the tribe is one of those evolutionary questions scientist may figure out one day. Until then, tourists continue to have a greater reaction and feel more fear when the killing of a foreigner, especially a tourist, in a foreign land by a local.

The tragedies that governments are more likely to avoid calling attention to often involve issues of lack of training, inattentiveness, shoddy maintenance, lax health standards, lack of control on how food or domestic animals are brought to market, and generally reckless behavior. These categories cover the ferryboats that sink, the planes that crash, the trains that derail, car crashes, epidemics, virus infections, extreme weather and pollution related diseases.

Unlike a murder, death from these non-murder type causes also make the headlines around the world and, if the scale is sufficient, will also disturb the tourism business. When the tsunami struck Thailand in 2005 thousands of people were killed. Thousands of foreign tourists were killed by that tsunami but the tourism business did not spend years in decline as a consequence.

The reason the tsunami, far more powerful and damaging, than an isolated murder, is less disruptive is simple. Foreigners don’t blame the locals for the death of their loved ones, especially if as a result of natural disasters. If anything, the foreigners felt admiration for the efforts launched by the Thai government to recover bodies, inform loved ones, and provide information and comfort to the survivors. But one murder is enough to cause a potential tourist to sit back and have that moment of doubt.

Should I change that trip to Thailand or Mexico or Sri Lanka because I read a tourist was shot and the police and government don’t seem all that keen on doing anything about it? What hardly matters is whether the police or local officials are working around the clock on the case, it is the perception that someone from their country has been murdered and the police haven’t arrested anyone.

Putting international pressure on local police in exotic location can also backfire. They pick out a scapegoat and pin the murder on him or her. The suspect is videoed re-enacting the crime. It all looks so real. But real or not, it will have the desired effect—it reassures the foreigners about the efficiency and diligence of the authorities to deal with such cases. That gives a feeling of deterrence, and that is enough to erase that tiny bit of doubt about your holiday plans. What is good for your psyche isn’t necessarily good for the poor cut out who is frog marched off to prison.

Next time you read about a tourist murdered in a remote, exotic place, ask yourself not whether I should cancel my holiday to that place but whether, on balance, I am genuinely at any greater risk of being murdered on holiday than I am in being killed in a car crash on the way to the airport. If you do the math, in most places the most dangerous part of your holiday will be on the road to and from your airport. Also, if you run the math on the relationship between murder victim and killer, in the majority of cases they know each other. They are members of the same tribe. On that next holiday, it would be wise to watch the road to the airport carefully, and when you check into that hotel in an exotic land, keep an eye on members of your fellow tribe. Because statistically that’s where your greatest danger of being murdered lies.