DON’T tell, don’t tell, don’t tell. An urgent voice (perhaps the butler) forbids me whenever I want to write about favourite villains. You see, all my best-loved baddies are in whodunits. Describing them would spoil everything for some reader who is midway through the book.

Okay, so the fiends remain incognito, but there is no barrier to mentioning location, or what one might term ‘the butchers block’. The place of the grisly doing can be as compelling as the doer. The locale sells books also. While romance may waft a reader to Venice, Paris or Rome, the whodunit lurks in more innocent places. Often, a peaceful scenario contrasts dramatically with the dastardly bloodletting, a formula begun by Agatha Christie and still widely popular.

American writers seem to ignore this element of the chiller. They do most of their killings in the city where, let’s face it, most real murders actually occur. It is a handy marketing device, too, because readers drool over tales disrupting their familiar daily pattern, and there are more readers in cities than anywhere else. A notable exception to the city crime scene is Jonathon King. He prefers the primeval Everglades (Blue Edge of Midnight series).

The English like their mayhem in a friendly village where, in the words of Ann Morven, "evil will out, no matter the why or the what or the when or the where. Or the who." Sherlock Holmes said something similar when investigating a big-house mystery: "Dear old homesteads always fill me with horror."

A nasty in the placid village of Maggots Wallop comes close to ending Ann Morven’s bumbling sleuth (The Killing of Hamlet). But all’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare would say. Yes, the Bard’s in this whodunit too, but being 400 years dead removes him from suspicion. How about a creepy old castle? Instant suspense! Ann Morven’s butler is a sinister cliche in The Seventh Petal, set in the Scottish Highlands. The secret baddy couldn’t possibly be him. Or could it? Don’t tell, don’t tell!

A Sussex market town accommodates Ruth Rendell’s detective, Inspector Wexford. Sharing this preference for the rural scene are Anthea Fraser and Gerald Hammond, but the other Fraser, Antonia, places crimebuster Jemima Shore in London.

Historical locations boast a big following. There’s no end to the appeal of the ancients, whether in Egypt, Rome or Greece and, of course, in the British Isles or particular parts of the realm. The historical research introduces intriguing detail and often an unusual motive for murder. A few authors in this specialist genre whose names leap to mind: Paul Doherty, Ellis Peters, Robert Gulik, Bernard Knigtht, Edward Marston, Kate Kingsbury, Christian Jacq, Alanna Knight . . . there are so many! The best listing I could find is at Gaslight Books, http://www.gaslightbooks.com.au/checklists/histmyst.htm

Perhaps a crime fiction coup, serving both marketing and place appeal, is the gentrified world of Jane Austen as borrowed by author PD James. Death Comes to Pemberley revisits Darcy and Elizabeth six years after their marriage. And whodunit? Don’t tell, don’t tell!

Going by the above authors, and twisting the wellknown real estate boast, I’d reckon that location is only almost everything. The villain beats all, yet remains in the shadows. Don’t tell.

Happy reading! from Cathy Macleod at Booktaste, week ending 21 October 2011.