Sheila Quigley is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of thrillers.

Career

Sheila Quigley became a national news story when Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

 acquired her first novel, Run For Home, with major coverage throughout the press and television. A documentary about Sheila and the making of Run for Home was broadcast on BBC1. Her latest novel, Thorn in My Side, is to be published by Burgess Books on September 30th, 2010.

Sheila lived on the Homelands Estate in Houghton-le-Spring

Houghton-le-Spring

Houghton-le-Spring is part of the City of Sunderland in the county of Tyne and Wear, North East England that has its recorded origins in Norman times. It is situated almost equidistant between the cathedral city of Durham 7 miles to the south-west and the centre of the City of Sunderland about 6...

 near Sunderland, opposite a field which became the fictional location of the council housing estate in her Seahills books.

Homicide in Houghton

As part of the Houghton Feast celebrations, each October Sheila and local historian Paul Lanagan lead an investigation which visits the fictional murder scenes from Sheila’s novels. The tours typically depart from Houghton library, trail across the town, and return to the library where attendees are treated to a sneak preview of Sheila's next novel. The 2008 tour had a bumper crowd in attendance and was the most successful to date. The 2011 tour takes place on Saturday October 15th 2011 at 2:00pm.

External links

• Fictional Seahills estate, setting for the novels.
• Homicide in Houghton-le-Spring Exclusive murder tour with Sheila Quigley
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/3004139.stm