Shane Hegarty, born and raised in Skerries, Ireland, is a children's book author. His books include the Darkmouth series.
In 2016, at the Guardian, he tagged ten of the greatest fictional towns and cities in children’s and YA writing. One setting on the list:
Bayport from The Hardy Boys books by Franklin W DixonRead about another entry on the list.
A surprisingly crime-ridden spot on the Atlantic coast of the USA whose various mysteries could only be solved by a couple of teenage boys (and, on occasion,their pal Nancy Drew). They must have chased villains across every spot of Bayport and Barmet Bay several times over in a series that has run for almost 85 years. Franklin W Dixon never existed either, but was a pseudonym under which many authors contributed. Along with Alfred Hitchcock And The Three Investigators (also not written by Alfred Hitchcock) these were vital books in my 80s childhood, although I was unaware of how much of the horrible racial stereotypes had been stripped from the earliest stories.
--Marshal Zeringue