Flowerscat asked Cari Hunter:

I enjoyed reading the investigative details in A Quiet Death - are you able to share some of the research that went into creating the book?

Cari Hunter Hiya, thanks for the Q!

I did all sorts of research for the book. A lot of my early reading was around the Rotherham cases of child sexual exploitation. It was a notorious criminal investigation over here in the UK - something that turned out to be the tip of a very large iceberg - and I knew I wanted to touch upon the issues related to race/racism and the police in 'A Quiet Death'. I also read around the work of Modern Slavery Human Trafficking Units (which became Russ' MST) and trafficking in general - how the gangs operate, who the typical victims are, etc (As ever, WikiP was invaluable! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_t...)

Other helpful bits and pieces included this document on so called "Honour killings" http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-con... and a few more dubious googles to find out which far right groups are currently operating in the UK!

I'm fortunate in that I work in an area with large Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities so I had my own experience to draw upon in describing houses and customs and problems that the police may encounter when trying to interview.

I also had to teach myself how to treat a massive bleed from an ulcer, and various gruesome details about decomposition and time of death.

Unfortunately, the case mentioned in the book about the young lass held in the cellar for years was a real one. I remembered reading about the trial some years ago and obviously, it bore some relevance to the events in the novel. http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.u...

Favourite research, as ever, was food-related. I was trying to choose something for the Pakistani mother-in-law to cook for Sanne and found lots of lovely options. I went with chai and bhajis in the end but I really was spoiled for choice :-)

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