CNN) -- It used to be safe to say that most of us don't go looking for crime on our vacations, but that's not true anymore. Crime fiction travel, a juicier version of the well-worn literary pilgrimage, is a popular way for people to see the world.
"A lot of people read crime fiction in advance of visiting a new city. Once there, I think it's natural to see how the real place aligns with the one on the page," says best-selling crime novelist Laura Lippman, whose main character Tess Monaghan is a reporter turned private investigator living and working in Baltimore.
A sense of place is vital to creating realistic crime fiction, but writing about a place people know and can visit presents challenges, notes Lippman, a former Baltimore Sun reporter. "If you want to write about a real place, you better get it right, or you'll hear about it," she says. When authors succeed, their books and characters can become forever linked with the locations in which the books are set. Here are five destinations whose local authors get it right.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/07/travel...ml?hpt=hp_bn10