Only a hundred miles south of Hollywood, San Diego has “guest starred” in a number of television productions over the years, including a few of the most popular or critically acclaimed shows of recent years.
Here’s a look at the best TV series filmed on location in San Diego — including the ones that called their towns by other names.
In the run-up to writing Nemesis, I came across a number of other authors who’ve set their stories in San Diego or penned notable books while they were living here. In doing so, I realized that “America’s Finest City” actually boasts a pretty fine literary heritage, more than many people would suspect.
My bucket list of the best books written or set in San Diego is broken into two parts: 1880s to the early 1980s (the first century); and mid-1980s to the present day.
Nemesis and all of these books are available at the usual places online, as well as local bookshops like Warwick’s in La Jolla, Mysterious Galaxy in Clairemont, Bookstar in Point Loma, and the various Barnes & Noble branches.
My picks for the best San Diego books published between the 1985 and now are . . . .
In the run-up to writing Nemesis, I came across a number of other authors who’ve set their stories in San Diego or penned
notable books while they were living here. In doing so, I realized that “America’s Finest City” actually boasts a pretty fine literary heritage, more than many people would suspect.
My bucket list of the best books written or set in San Diego is broken into two parts: 1880s to the early 1980s (the first century); and mid-1980s to the present day.
Nemesis and all of these books are available at the usual places online, as well as local bookshops like Warwick’s in La Jolla, Mysterious Galaxy in Clairemont, Bookstar in Point Loma, and the various Barnes & Noble branches.
And my picks for the best San Diego books published between 1884 and 1981 are . . . .
What was your inspiration for NEMESIS? What appealed to you about this story?
Believe it or not, my inspiration happened during a trip to Borneo. I got sick fron1eating something I probably shouldn’t have, and spent several days recovering in a ren1ote jungle lodge at the base of Mt Kinabalu. The guy I was traveling with gave me a book to read while he clin1bed the mountain – Black Dahlia by Jan1es Ellroy. I couldn’t put it down, had the book finished by the time my friend was back down the mountain. And I ren1ember telling n1y friend that I wanted to write a book like that – a n1urder mystery that reflected the politics, culture and history of a particular city in ways rarely seen before.
The plot went through several iterations before NEMESIS en1erged – a version set in Hong Kong, another in the San Francisco Bay Area and finally one set in San Diego. Which is really the truest, because like Ellroy I wound up setting the story in the place where I was raised and knew best in the world. Somewhere along this
road, I read The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Fell head over heals for that book, too. I actually got to interview Carr for a magazine story I was writing on the world’s n1ost significant battles (he’s an avid military historian). And that book was highly influential in having me set NEMESIS in 1880s San Diego rather than contemporary titles.
Remember that old express about a kid in a candy shop? That’s exactly how I felt getting a sneak preview of the Grand Egyptian Museum currently under construction on the outskirts of Cairo. I wasn’t around when Howard Carter famously discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. But as a lifelong aficionado of just about everything pharaonic, a tour of the museum’s restoration lab was the next best thing.
Inside the museum’s high-tech Conservation Center — being cleaned and catalogued by dozens of earnest young archeologists — are hundred of artifacts from King Tut’s crypt that have never been on public display. Everything from a golden bed embossed with recently discovered images of the god Bes to the pharaoh’s walking sticks and immaculately preserved wooden boxes that would have held food and other items for his passage to the underworld.