Eye Contact (DI Harland 1)

Author/Guide: Fergus McNeil

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Don’t make Eye Contact or you’ll be next…

ISBN: 978-1444739657
Genre: Crime

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

From the outside, Robert Naysmith is a successful businessman. He”s certainly charming and has the gift of the gab. But he also has a way to relax outside of work – he likes to play games. One’s which are deadly. Robert you see has a game where he selects a random person – the first one to make eye contact with him infact and decides that they are not going to have long to live. No motive. Just a game.

When the body of a young woman is found on Severn Beach, Detective Inspector Harland is assigned the case. It’s only when he links it to an unsolved murder in Oxford that the police begin to guess at the awful scale of the crimes. But how do you catch someone who’s motive is just a game to them?

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

Fergus himself takes you around his Bristol:

I found some wonderfully atmospheric locations for Eye Contact. The book begins with scenes set around Clifton, one of the most beautiful parts of Bristol, and also along the nearby Severn Estuary, which can be extremely bleak when the weather closes in. There’s a striking difference between these places, though I loved visiting (and physically sitting down to write in) both of them. Clifton has a warm, village-within-a-city feel to it, which I wanted as a backdrop for the stalking sections. By contrast, Severn Beach can be very remote and lonely; and with views that let you stare out across miles of emptiness, you get a very real sense of how far away you are from things.

Then there’s the unnamed village where the killer lives. This was based on Wilton, just outside Salisbury – it’s picturesque, and I found a lovely period property right on the village green for my villain and his girlfriend to share.

Finally, I wanted a dramatic setting for the climax at the end of the story. For this, I chose the Royal Victoria Dock in London’s Docklands. It’s a huge, stunning place, with vast stretches of water, towering ancient cranes, and sleek modern buildings.

Hopefully I managed to capture the feel of these locations, and hopefully they help to augment the mood of the story, and make it all just a little more real!