Usually when asked where my inspiration comes from, I tend to say that it begins with character. But The Night I Killed Him started with a location – specifically the gorgeous coastal town of Dun Laoghaire. In fact from the moment I began writing it and long before it had a title, I just called it ‘the Dun Laoghaire book.’
The mystery starts eighteen years ago, in Corrig Point Yacht Club. This was the setting for Olympic hopeful and golden boy Max Fitzgerald’s 21st birthday party. At some point during the evening, Max disappeared. The next morning his shoes were found on the pontoon beside his family’s yacht, but his body was never recovered. He’d been moody and preoccupied leading up to the party and people wondered if Max could have taken his own life.
What sets the story in motion in the here and now is when Max’s body rises from the hidden depths of the ocean and is washed up on a beach. Forensic examination reveals foul play, and the missing person enquiry becomes a murder investigation.
And so I get to bring my two garda SVI detectives, Laura and Niamh, out to Dun Laoghaire to see if they can find out what happened. They start by interviewing beautiful influencer Gemma, Max’s sister who was only sixteen at the time of his disappearance. Gemma lives with her husband Conleth and little boy Ferdia in a stunning house at one of Dun Laoghaire’s most exclusive addresses. She has created a dazzling world where her followers soak up every detail of her charmed existence, and where she is always online. But Gemma knows the dark truth of what happened to her brother that night. If this secret is revealed, she stands to lose everything.
Laura and Niamh are usually based in leafy Clonchapel, a fictional suburb at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. For this book I wanted to bring them somewhere completely different – I wanted the sea. I wanted glamour, wealth, sparkling water, gleaming chrome. I wanted the sound of halyards clanging against masts, the lapping of water, the laughter of carefree people because, as always in my stories, as always in Life, nothing is ever quite as glittering as it seems.
