Music plays a big part in the worlds I write. A song can place you in a particular street, decade or state of mind before a single word of a story is read. These playlists are the soundtracks I associate with the characters and places in my books - the music they would listen to, and the music that helps create their world.

 

DS Georgie Banks has the sound of modern London: sharp, independent and slightly unpredictable. Her Savoy Café playlist reflects Soho after dark, late-night streets, old London rubbing shoulders with the new, and the tougher edge that follows Georgie through her investigations.

 

DCI Jack Boulton belongs to a different London. Café Bleu, Golden Square, a silver Vespa, his old Volvo P1800 and a record collection with its roots firmly in British music. His playlist carries the atmosphere of the man himself - Mod influences, guitars, memories and the music that has stayed with him throughout his life.

 

Billy & the Battersea Boys is pure 1985. These are the songs Billy, Jack, Harry and Sam would have heard on the radio, recorded onto cassettes, played on a Walkman or argued about with their mates. Pop, SKa, New Wave, television themes and the unmistakable sound of growing up in Britain in the eighties. It’s Battersea Power Station, BMX bikes, Fulham on a Saturday, sleepovers, fish and chips and four thirteen-year-old mates with an adventure waiting around the corner.

 

Three worlds. Three playlists.
Three very different
sounds of London.