Inspiration for ‘Husband, Wife, Strangers’.

Where did the idea come from?

Don’t panic – no spoilers here!

A question that’s popped up more than once, is where the idea for the book ‘Husband, Wife, Strangers’ came from. So here goes, but I promise I won’t give away anything that will ruin the story for you.

Sometime before I took up writing, I was the European head of a large American company. Whilst we had businesses (thirty-four of them!) scattered around the continent, the European head office was in the Netherlands, and located in the south-east of Amsterdam. That’s where I was based, although my permanent home was in the UK. So rather than use a faceless business hotel (I had had enough of those by then), I rented an apartment, close to the characterful city centre. I would typically fly over to Amsterdam at the start of the week, and return to our home in Cambridge, England, at its end. I took the metro to travel between my apartment and the office. There wasn’t much to do on my own, so I started work early, and finished late.

It wasn’t easy being away from home so much, but I knew it was only for a few years and it was a job I really wanted to do. My wife was very understanding, and had plenty going on in her life, so we pressed on. I really enjoyed my time in Amsterdam, it’s an amazing city and I was lucky to work with a great bunch of people.

More recently, this got me thinking. For couples that both work, it’s rare that they do so for the same organisation, and in the same place. To that extent, they lead different work lives. Okay, there might be opportunities to meet with each other’s colleagues from time to time, but these are likely to be few and far between (does anyone do office Christmas parties anymore?). So, despite the inevitable sharing of information that accompanies any normal relationship, perhaps over the evening meal, for example – as individuals, we can only have a limited appreciation of the nitty-gritty of our partner’s work life.

Now let’s have one of you work in another country. Suddenly it becomes much harder to know what’s going on with your better half, harder to picture their workplace, to visualise their environment, to get to know their colleagues. And if that remote working is accompanied by regular and protracted stays away from home, the challenges are multiplied.

Let’s add even more complexity. Because typically, those stays away from home would be in a hotel. One of those faceless chain establishments, the bars of which are populated by bored business people keen for the company of those in a similar predicament. Too many big dinners, too much booze at the bar. Ample opportunity to strike up friendships and associations, not all for the good. The routine punctuated by an occasional visit to the hotel’s soulless gym, both to alleviate the guilt of excess, and control the expanding waistline. It’s a predictable and all too common scenario.

But let’s change the environment. Let’s replace the characterless hotel with an apartment, one of many thousands in a big foreign city. A home with its own front door, its own distinct feel, and situated in its own neighbourhood. And every opportunity for the tenant to create an identity, a persona, that nobody locally would think to challenge.

So now we can let our imagination run riot. Explore an infinite variety of scenarios, until one starts to solidify in our mind. It may not represent all of the story, sure, but it might just serve as the germ of an idea. And at that point we reach for the pen and the notebook. Because that’s how emotionally gripping suspense thrillers are born!

Enjoy the book!