Now You See Her

Chapter 4

Now You See Her is the first psychological thriller I"ve located in the USA. Usually my books are set in the United Kingdom and have a distinctly British feel to them.

Now You See HerI"ve been to New York twice, but I consume American TV more than I watch UK television shows, so most of my knowledge is based on fictional situations.

To make sure I got the language right, I teamed up with an author friend called Bill Cokas—who also writes mysteries—and he ran through the book for me, making sure I didn"t mess anything up.

Bill listens to my podcast for authors at Self-Publishing-Journeys.com which has listeners from all over the world. That can be very handy at times, when you need to make sure you"re getting things right in your book.

I read a lot of Linwood Barclay novels—he"s one of my favorite authors, alongside Harlan Coben.

Most of the time I"d say my books were more like Harlan Coben"s standalone thrillers. Now You See Her is very much in the style of a Linwood Barclay story, with its local police department, small town setting, and local characters.

Now You See HerAs a former journalist, I often choose reporters as my main characters because I know their world so well. I spent 18 years of my working life at the BBC, most of that time as a radio presenter and journalist. You get a lot of access to the police and senior figures in the community as a reporter, so it makes a good job for a character to have in a thriller.

A lot of my books are drawn from personal experience. Lacey"s Diner is very much modeled on the diner I ate breakfast in when I first visited New York to attend an awards ceremony with the BBC. By the way, Prince appeared live on stage that night—can you imagine how pleased I was?

Poor old Imogen Franklin gets killed off in the library stacks and this is another potential murder location I spotted some time ago. My wife works in our local library and on the top floor, they keep their archives in these stacks. They can be quite dangerous if staff don"t follow the correct protocols.

At my wife"s place of work, she always places a chair between the shelves, just in case. That gave me a great idea for a way to dispatch one of my characters when she told me about it. Sorry, Imogen, it"s nothing personal!

When I was a lot younger and had to buy old cars that were very cheap, I"d go to junkyards with my dad, scavenging for parts and spares. I don"t see as many around these days in the UK; I guess that"s because cars are so complicated these days that most of us take them to dealers to get fixed rather than patching them up ourselves.

When you"re a thriller writer, you spend a lot of time thinking how you can place your characters in danger. It struck me some time ago that a junkyard is a great place to do this, hence Cory"s rather thrilling attempt to get his hands on a starter motor.

I hope you enjoyed reading Now You See Her as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Now You See HerIf you liked this story and want to stay in touch, I’d be delighted if you registered for my email updates at https://paulteague.net/thrillers, as that’s where I share news of what I’m writing and tell you about any reader discounts and freebies that are available.

Paul Teague