Detective Shaw’s London: Holloway

Book locations, episode 3

On the edge of the Borough of Islington lies the district of Holloway, which is one of the most densely populated in London and home to a multicultural population. It is crossed by Holloway Road, which is part of A1, Britain’s longest numbered road (actually outside the city it becomes a motorway).

The district, which is mostly residential, has no particular tourist attractions, with the exception of the stadium of the Arsenal football team, the Emirates Stadium (in the first photo, where you can also find me, and in detail in the photos below, both taken in March 2011), which with its 60,000 seats is the third largest in London, after Wembley (I went there the following year for the Olympics) and that of Twickenham (where, however, rugby is played).

The Emirates Stadium is located exactly in Ashburton Grove, the name by which it was called before taking that of the sponsor (Emirate Airlines), in the same area where a scene from “The Mentor” narrated in Mina’s blog takes place.
During the scene, our favourite serial killer follows Christopher Garnish to the house where he is hiding, where she risks being seen by PC Mills (who in “Syndrome” we find out he was promoted to the rank of sergeant), also on the trail of the suspect in the murders. The characters arrive in the area, however, from Arsenal Tube station, which is in the adjacent Highbury district.

The house where Garnish is really exists. If you read its description in the book, after following the route taken from the station, and glance at Ashburton Grove with the street view on Google Maps, perhaps you might be able to spot it.

Holloway also returns in “Syndrome”, this time to show a scene where DCI George Jankowski meets a police informant. The detective in charge of the forensics team dealing with crimes taking place in Islington (a colleague of Eric’s in the same rank, Detective Chief Inspector) is near Holloway Road Tube station and follows the informant with his car into a side street.