A neighbour said: ‘We didn’t want to scare you’ – how I became obsessed with the dark past of my Hollywood home

When I moved to LA, I discovered my house had been the scene of a notorious 1920s crime involving a leading lady, her vaudeville star husband and an actor with matinee idol looks ...

Even as a novice crime writer, I probably ought to have discovered the killing that took place in my own front room sooner than I did. After all, the coroner declared it the most brutal murder that has ever come under my notice" and the Los Angeles Times labelled my home the Hollywood House of Death".

Or perhaps I have that the wrong way round, and it was living here that turned me into a crime writer. Certainly, I had no such ambitions or qualifying expertise when I moved in: my previous book was a sci-fi comedy, and the protagonist of my crime novel is not a detective but an NHS junior doctor, the job I was doing when a screenplay I wrote first landed me some writing work in Los Angeles.