Those who are familiar with Inishowen will know that whilst the town of Glendara is fictitious, many of the locations I use in my books are real. So, I hope I will be forgiven for some of the liberties I have taken with the landscape and topography in this one. Sliabh Sneacht is a much longer climb than I have portrayed here, and while there may be derelict houses in the area, the cottage portrayed in this book is fictitious.
Culdaff has some great pubs, but the Bunagee Bar is not one of them. And while the pier exists, the boatshed does not—or at least not the one in the book! Thankfully, Lagg, or Five Fingers Strand, exists in all its majesty but it is not a safe place to swim. The Barclay Arms and the Hampton Beach Casino in Derry are also works of fiction. The Dublin-Derry flight no longer exists, I believe, but there are hopes it may be reinstated. Thank you to the Tyrone Guthrie Center at Annaghmakerrig, to Maria McManus and her husband Martin, Lily McGonagle, Henrietta McKervey, Natalie Ryan, Jo Spain, Joe Butler, Mark Tottenham, Fidelma Tonry, and Una ní Dhubhghaill. All provided advice and support which was invaluable. All errors are, of course, entirely my own.
Thank you to all my friends and family who continue to support me and say nice things about my books even when they don’t have to. And to my fellow crime writers both here and across the water – I’ve discovered they’re a cracking bunch. As are the booksellers.
Thank you to Bob and Pat Gussin and my lovely U.S. publishers at Oceanview and to my agents at Susanna Lea Associates, New York and London.
And finally, love and thanks, as always, to my family and to Geoff.