Books: Inspirations Crime Writer Lauren Henderson

The place

London in general and Camden Town in particular, my personal centre of the universe. I used to live on Pratt Street and it was pretty much paradise to hit the indie clubs - Silver at the Underworld on Saturday, Feet First at the Camden Palace on Tuesday - and stagger out with my head fizzing with noise at two in the morning, feet sore from pounding away at the floor, and be home passed out on my futon in five minutes.

The play

Racine for the sense of inexorable fate twisting tighter and tighter round the characters: a terrible, slow-building suspense. And Polygraphe or Tectonic Plates by Robert Lepage. He's a magician; and his productions are pure theatre.

The film

Vampire films, the twisted off-beat ones; Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark - Mid-West vampires and Adrian Pasdar, beautiful enough to be an inspiration in himself. And anything with the young Robert Mitchum.

The artwork

Tank Girl, the comic by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett NOT the film: when Time Out compared my sleuth Sam to Tank Girl it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Dali, Edward Hopper, Frida Kahlo: like other people's dreamscapes.

The music

Dark Gothy stuff with great lyrics. The first time I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, at a tiny indie club on Oxford Street, the dance floor was paralysed for a moment, then just exploded.

Lauren Henderson's `Freeze My Margarita' is published by Hutchinson at pounds 10.