The Witness, how it all came about.

The Witness

The Witness is my first attempt at writing a psychological thriller.  It began a number of years ago when my sister Joanne and her husband Dean lived in a lovely little village called Garmouth.  Situated in Morayshire near to the ancient city of Elgin, Garmouth sits on the edge of Spay Bay, an area of outstanding natural beauty.  The river Spey flows through this beautiful landscape as it makes its way from the Highlands towards the Moray Firth.

There was a time when this area was not so tranquil.  On one side of the river towards the village of Kingston boat building once thrived and on the other side towards Spey the Tugnet Ice House and visitor centre was once part of a fishing station.

A railway serviced the area and spanning the river is a magnificent iron bridge.  This engineering monument had to be re-designed before construction was completed as the river decided to change course.  Nowadays the bridge forms part of a walking and cycle path that lead visitors into the bay.

During my stay in the village we took the path across the bridge and made our way along the riverbank towards the visitor centre where they serve a mean mug of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows.   It was on that day I saw an artist painting a picture of the bridge and then my story began to take shape.  

Josie MacDonald, my main character, was there pretty much from the start and as I turned my mind to constructing a plot I knew that some unimaginable horror would have to disturb the peace and tranquillity of this place.   The plot began to evolve and as my characters came to life my research took me to some interesting places.  I couldn’t resist weaving in an historical element, but  things could quite easily have got out of hand if it wasn’t for the qualities of my characters to anchor the plot.  The drama of the unpleasant scenes made for a racy story, but it was the everyday lives of the characters that kept the whole thing honest.

I wrote this book over a long period of time, the basic story didn’t take many months to complete, it was the re-writes and editing that took the time, I was in no hurry to publish.

The Witness was always going to be a standalone novel, but I can’t resist the challenge of developing some of the characters and locations that appear in the story.  I imagine a series of books that are all connected in some way with many of the characters and places appearing throughout the different stories.  The next book, The Cellist, is already being planned and features a character called Mia Falzone, but that is as they say another story.