Novel of a road trip through France to CARTAGENA
Talking Location With.. Lou Gilmond: Westminster, London
5th August 2025
#TalkingLocationWith …. Lou Gilmond, author of Divinity Games: WESTMINSTER
There’s something timeless about the Westminster area of London – the white stucco townhouses of Belgravia, the lions of Trafalgar Square, the gentlemen’s outfitters and clubs of St James’s and the long stretch of Piccadilly, where Mrs Dalloway stared into the window of Hatchards and dreamed her dreams.
I lived and worked in London for many years, and even now when I return, I find myself drawn there to browse books at Hatchards, buy tea at Fortnum & Mason and to gaze on life at the National Gallery.
From there, as you push down towards the river, you come to Whitehall, the seat of the British Government, where you find the Treasury, the old War Office, 10 Downing Street and, at the far end, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
It is here that the thrillers I write are set. The characters are as quintessentially British as the stone buildings around them: scheming politicians, crafty civil servants, socially awkward advisors and well-connected lobby hacks.
Adrift in this melting pot of sleaze and one-upmanship are two lone MPs with their constituents’ interests at heart: Harry Colbey, his eyes now turned to retirement, and Esme Kanha, feisty and with a burning ambition to succeed.
They both stumble upon a conspiracy between a big tech organisation and their party leaders and decide to team up to expose it. But with the tech company watching their every move, they have to tread very carefully. Already a minister and an MP are dead, supposedly from suicide, and a journalist has died in suspicious circumstances.
As I write the series, it’s easy to be inspired by the traditions and long-established routines of Westminster. I worked there for a while, meeting with MPs and ministers, even venturing into No. 10 on occasion, and I always felt it an intense privilege to do so.
I guess some of that feeling seeps into my two main characters who hold a firm belief in the importance of democracy. There is nothing like walking into the central lobby at the heart of the Palace of Westminster, an octagonal room of white stone – the entrance to the House of Commons on one side and the House of Lords on the other – when a debate is underway.
Anyone can go there; it is open to the public either by invitation from a Member of Parliament or simply by booking a tour on the Houses of Parliament website. You can see the famous green benches from which the government and their opposition jeer at one another, you can see the Speaker’s chair where he sits to field the debates, and over in the red-clad House of Lords you can see the throne where the Monarch sits for the state opening.
But it is not just the buildings at the heart of government that inspire me. It’s also the places the Westminster folk go to plot, scheme and party: the gentlemen’s clubs of Pall Mall and the drinking holes of Parliament, such as the Strangers’ Bar, the Pugin Room and the Woolsack (formerly known as the Sports and Social Bar).
Then there are the pubs and taverns that abound nearby, such as the Red Lion, the Clarence, and the Marquis of Granby. Some of them still have division bells, which were traditionally rung to let MPs know they had eight minutes to wolf down their beef sandwiches, down their pints of beer and get back to the House of Commons for a vote – or a division, as it is called, with MPs walking one way to vote ‘for’ and another to vote ‘against’.
There are three books in my thriller series so far: Dirty Geese, Palisade and Divinity Games. They are full of twists – page turners for sure – but the traditions of Westminster are as seeped into them as they are the stone walls of Whitehall. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Divinity Games by Lou Gilmond is published by Armillary Books and is available to buy now.
Lou Gilmond
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