The story is the tale of Joe Luchesi, a hard-bitten New York detective who comes to live in Ireland with his family for some time away from police work after a routine investigation comes to a violent and tragic end.
But Luchesi’s Irish idyll turns sour when a girl in the village goes missing and the locals close ranks. His life turns into a nightmare worse than the one he left behind.
The town where he chooses to settle and where much of the action takes place bears a startling resemblance to Dunmore East in Co Wexford, which first inspired Barclay to write the story. In fact, the Luchesi house bears more than a passing resemblance to the house where Barclay was staying at the time, though the usual caveats regarding characters apply.
“I remember being there for a long weekend with the in-laws when the idea for the book came to me,” she says. “So I wrote three chapters. I just sent them to my agent, who then called looking for the rest of the book.”
Initially, she says, she merely wanted to see whether her aspirations towards writing were worth pursuing. They were. Before long she had a two-book international deal with the publisher HarperCollins. Barclay, a Dublin City University journalism graduate with a background in magazine writing and sub-editing, then had to finish the novel.
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She abandoned her career as a journalist and the safety of the two-bedroom apartment in Dublin she rented with her husband, and, with the blessing of friends and family, spent an itinerant year living in no fewer than five houses spread across the country, each adding its own inspiration, plot points and atmosphere.
“I thought a change of scenery might help me get it finished,” she says. “My husband was crazy enough to sponsor me, so I gave up work and became a full-time writer.”
She headed back to the Co Waterford seaside town and Harbour village, a group of holiday cottages overlooking the town. Dunmore East was to become the principal inspiration for the fictional town where the violent denouement of her dark tale takes place around a lighthouse not unlike the one at Hook Head.
Barclay’s three-bedroom cottage cost about €350 per week in the low season and up to €750 in the summer to rent, and she found herself returning again and again.
During her first sojourn there, she became spooked by the fruits of her own writer’s imagination. “As the weeks went by, I found more lights had to be turned on in the house,” she says. “At night I found myself wedging chairs under door handles.”
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From Wexford, Barclay headed west for Anam Cara Writers’ Retreat on the Beara Penninsula in remotest West Cork. An altogether more social affair, she found herself surrounded by other creative types.
“I felt a bit of a fraud telling the other writers I was writing a novel,” she says. “But they just accepted it without batting an eyelid. It was great to be in the company of other creative people and the scenery was beautiful.”
The retreat is a large rambling cottage in extensive gardens with breathtaking views of the Atlantic. Meals are provided by the hosts, and guest accommodation is simple but comfortable.
Barclay says she came up with two of the most important twists in the story there. “I was having breakfast with some of the other residents and suddenly found myself saying at the top of my voice, ‘I have my twist’, at which point everyone looked at me very strangely.”
Later that year she moved into a cottage near Goleen in West Cork. The cottage was a two-bed, which was rented for €300 per week and has since been sold on. It was here that the book’s structure was finalised. Barclay says: “I wasn’t really obsessed with structure, but you have to decide in what order you are going to reveal each piece of information.”
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In August Barclay upped sticks and headed for another country cottage, this time in Liscannor, Co Clare. The house was an old stone roadside cottage near the village that the couple rented for €300 per week.
Barclay spent her time there developing the darker scenes. “The landlady thought we were really strange when she called one day and saw books about firearms and forensic medicine scattered about the kitchen table.”
Just after Christmas, Barclay headed for a little relaxation in a holiday home in Wexford to see in the new year at Roney Beach near Roney Point. A modern four-bedroom beachside getaway, it was hardly the ideal location for writing spine-chilling fiction.
“It was supposed to be a holiday,” she says. “But I ended up working, which has been the usual story for the past couple of years.”
In January last year, Barclay and her husband rented yet another cottage, near Letterfrack, Co Galway. “It was freezing,” says Barclay. “But funnily enough I came up with the more heartwarming bits of the book here, the family stuff.” The couple paid about €200 per week for the cottage, which is now a private house.
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Barclay returned to Dunmore East last spring, her so-called lucky writing house, to write the last chapters. “I remember it was a glorious sunny day and I ended up writing the most hardcore scene in the whole story.”
She is currently working on a sequel.