Profiles

It's the fantastic landscapes and scenery that novelist Minette Walters loves about her home county, and the contrasts within it which inspire her.

Talking to BBC South's Briony Leyland for South Today, she says: "The things I love about Dorset are totally encapsulated by what we can see now: the valleys, the hills - the fantastic harbour of Weymouth."

"If you write murder stories as I do, the idea of a taking a claustrophobic, isolated community and putting one bad apple into it, which makes the rest of the community turn on themselves, is incredibly good."

Minette lives and works in a manor house near Dorchester, and the sometimes dark and dangerous content of her novels contrasts hugely from the peaceful surroundings of her home.

"If you're in the middle of a horrible scene that you're writing in a murder story to be able to look up and look out onto a beautiful sight is great, it clears the mind.

"People come to the house and say, 'You're living in paradise', and that applies to the whole county.

"I think Dorset is a little of paradise in Britain."

• You can also listen to BBC Radio Solent's Charlie Crocker talk to Minette Walters: