THE true story of the death in a fire of a billionaire banker in Monaco in 1999 is the surprising inspiration for a new novel set in the Wellington area – and featuring cameo roles for townsfolk and local businesses.

Author Hilary Bonner, who lives near Wellington, came up with the idea for her 14th thriller Wheel of Fire after finding a yellowing cutting in a copy of the Sunday Times from 2002. Hilary said: “I have a drawer at home into which I stuff scribbled ideas when they come to me, or a torn newspaper cutting – anything which might one day form the germ of a book.”

The Lebanese-Brazilian banker Edmond Safra, killed by a fire started by one of his bodyguards and nurses, becomes Sir John Fairbrother in the book, a wealthy banker from a grand old Somerset family. Fairbrother is a philanthropist who lives in the fictional Blackdown Manor and has given enough money to the Wellington Monument restoration fund for work to begin in the coming year.

Wheel of Fire is the fourth book in a series featuring Detective Inspector David Vogel, from the Bristol Major Incidents Team. He is the antithesis of most fictional detectives as a secular Jew, family man and teetotal vegetarian, a likeable police officer with a sharp brain and an excellent sense of humour. Hilary said: “I was sort of sick of the non-functional functioning alcoholic headcases who probably wouldn’t be let near a police station in the land in reality.”

The author, who critics have compared to Sophie Hannah, Peter James and Val McDermid, carried out research for her book at Wellington Fire Station and the town’s police station,

She spoke with retained firefighter Dave West and his colleagues at the fire station, who told her basic information about how fires are fought – “Dave also mends her television,” she said.

PC Hayden Smith at the police station helped out describing the practicalities and occasional tensions involved when a major incident unit takes over a small-town police station.

Hilary said: “I’m old fashioned – I find books and stories come to life if I visit the locations and talk to real people rather than going online. The advantage of setting the book in Wellington Without was that I didn’t have to drive very far and everybody was terrific. All the lads at the police station and fire station were great.”

Wheel of Fire also gives mentions to the Blue Ball and Culm Valley Inn, butcher Tim Potter and hardware shop HT Perry & Son & Grand-daughter in Fore Street, Wellington, and The Cheese & Wine Shop in South Street.

Hilary, 69, has lived at Whiteball for 35 years where she has an office at the top of her house with a good view of Wellington Monument and the Blue Ball. She married her long-term partner, actress Amanda Barrie, who played Alma Sedgewick in Coronation Street for 20 years, in 2014 and they split their time between Somerset and a flat in Covent Garden in London.

Hilary was brought up in Bideford in North Devon where her father was a local butcher and ran a tea shop. The former journalist was accepted for the Daily Mirror training scheme as a 17-year-old school leaver and landed her first Fleet Street job aged 20. She went on to become showbusiness editor for The Sun, The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mirror.

She left the world of newspapers in 1993 to become a full-time author and is a former chairman of the Crime Writers Association. Almost all her novels are inspired by real-life events.

Wheel of Fire by Hilary Bonner – published by Severn House Publishers – went on sale on Monday.