Crime Evening with Lotte Petri and Lone Theils

Both Lone Theils and Lotte Petri have set their crime novels in the regions where they grew up - Holstebro and Avnstrup near Roskilde respectively - giving their books a distinctive authenticity.

Lone Theils' protagonist Signe Brask is from Holstebro, and the West Jutland landscape and mentality are central to all three books. Theils has drawn on childhood memories and recent visits to the area, receiving help from local police and family members along the way.

Lotte Petri grew up in an official residence on the same grounds as Avnstrup Care Hospital - formerly called a psychiatric hospital, now Center Avnstrup under the Red Cross - where her father was chief medical officer. This has left clear marks on her authorship. In the BLOOD ANGEL series, the protagonist lives down by the fjord near Roskilde, and the first book, The Tooth Collector, takes the reader through the hospital's corridors and underground passages. The book opens with a skeletal corpse found in a ploughed field 50 metres from where Petri herself lived.