Is violence normal ? In her 2024 Reith Lectures, Dr Gwen Adshead, addresses four questions that she has most commonly faced in her work as a therapist with violent perpetrators in secure psychiatric units and prisons: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025cmg.  It’s not surprising that I opened my first whodunit, Current of Death,  referencing Hannah Arendt.

‘… Death by natural causes – a heart attack – Giovani’s body was found after considerable exertion in a bedroom at the Club …’Alex Hornby was imagining it all, so there had to be more to it than that. She’d just read The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt.  It left her considering how easy it is to be deceived and to deceive oneself. She wanted to explore that theme in her latest book.’

Hannah Arendt described the ‘normality’ of Eichmann.

‘For when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III ‘to prove a villain.’ Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is ‘banal’ and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, this is still far from calling it commonplace… That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man—that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem.”

That’s why a normal village, like Kennington, where I live  is such a good location.

Geographical and historical reasons for the location of Current of Death 

My village is home to the most dangerous stretch of water in the county of Oxfordshire. Sandford Lasher is the name given to the weir just above the lock at Sandford-on-Thames, adjoining the island known as Fiddler’s Elbow. The calm surface of the water is deceptive, hiding strong currents below. One of many young victims was Peter Pan- well the inspiration for Peter Pan!  Michael Llewelyn Davies, the adopted son of J.M. Barrie drowned there in 1921.

Jerome K. Jerome in his classic Three Men in a Boat describes the spot as ‘a very good place to drown yourself in’ and comments that ‘the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board by young men now who wish to see if the place really IS dangerous.’ The obelisk is a memorial to drowned Christ Church students.  So the obvious destination for a fictional watery death!

Some locations in Current of Death

Sandford Lane leading from the industrial estate to the Thames often floods.

To reach the lock, I crossed the Pooh Sticks Bridge where the World Championship now takes place.

WITNESSES ? Cormorants on the cormorant tree not far from Sandford  Lasher.

  

One character lives on a house boat.

Alex and Kate meet in the Kings Arms and have a useful conversation with the volunteer lock keeper- a character inspired by John Argyle.

Proof Social Bakery which appears in  Current of Death and was  where I had a book signing event.

How can somewhere so peaceful and beautiful have a dark side?  15 years ago  a Kennington house was raided. It was being used as a cannabis factory. Here is a recent example in an unexpected place.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/27/there-are-worse-places-to-hide-armed-police-arrest-wanted-man-in-north-wales?

 Lovely feature in Round and About Magazine

The launch of Current of Death was fun –  discussion on Oxford Murder Capital of the World  with the help prolific crime writer Peter Tickler and Chris Andrews who has photographed Oxford for  forty years .