Doing research for my mystery novel set in Derbyshire...with the help of police officers.

An old writer’s adage is ‘Write what you know.’  In writing detective fiction, that’s fine ⎯ if you’re a detective.  But what about us plain folk?  The closest we’ve been to a crime scene is pressing our hands against the television screen during an airing of CSI.  And about the only detective we’ve seen in the flesh ⎯ or fur ⎯ is McGruff, the crime-fighting dog.  And even there we’d be barking up the wrong tree.
So how do we get the facts, ma’am, just the facts for our novels?
In my case I went straight to the source: I zoomed over to Derbyshire, England, where my novels are set, and talked to some police officers....
[continued in attached article]