Jason Beech asked Janet Roger:

I love the 40s London setting in Shamus Dust. What drew you to the city and the period?

Janet Roger Well, thank you so much for asking Jason.

Let me start with the City. Shamus Dust is set there at Christmas 1947, when - as it still is - the City of London was financial heart of the capital, often simply known as the Square Mile. Think of it as London’s Wall Street. In fact, it genuinely is, even now, the more or less single square mile contained inside the arc of London’s ancient Roman walls, with the Thames running along its southern boundary.

What drew me, was living and working there for a long time. You can walk the whole City very easily, and if you do that you inevitably get up close to its geography and history.

As for period, those early years of Cold War fascinate me in general. But in the City something very special happens. It had taken a hammering in the London blitz. Hundreds of its acres - some of the most valuable real estate on the planet - were flattened rubble. Which made it archaeologists’ dreamland. For a few short years, digging in those blitz sites gave them unimagined access to the two-thousand years old Roman city right beneath their feet. They wasted no time. Before reconstruction got seriously under way they’d made monumental discoveries: a Roman temple, a Roman fortress on the line of the wall, even the foundations of an arena - a Roman coliseum, no less. And there was the puzzle. The discovery of the temple and the fortress made instant splash headlines. Yet London’s very own Roman coliseum - yes, there really is one - got overlooked. Seriously, it completely escaped notice for the next almost forty years. Which started me wondering what the story was…

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