We all think of ourselves as broadly honest, don’t we? We like to believe that we’d do the ‘right’ thing most of the time. If we found a wallet on the street with a £50 note tucked inside, I like to think that most of us would probably hand it in, with the money untouched. But what if – instead of a wallet – you found a backpack? And instead of a single £50 note inside, there were thousands of them?
What if no-one would ever find out if you decided not to hand it in?
That’s the situation facing six old friends at the beginning of my new thriller. Out walking in the Yorkshire Dales on New Year’s Eve, they’re caught in a thunderstorm and take shelter in a cave where a chance discovery forces them all to confront this very question. Instinctively, they know the correct course of action is to take it straight to the nearest police station – but as night falls, cracks start to appear in their resolve as some of them start to wonder if there might be an alternative path to take…
I’ve always been intrigued by moral dilemmas, the shady grey landscape in between right and wrong, the stories we tell ourselves to justify our own actions. This tension between head and heart fuels The Weekend, through the conversations these six friends have in the hours and days that follow. Some view it through a purely moral prism – a simple question of right vs wrong – while others focus on the chance of getting caught, or even that the money split between them is not enough to justify the risk. When I’ve been at bookshop events and festivals talking about this book, I’ve enjoyed asking for a show of hands from the audience as to what they would do in this situation. It’s fair to say that the results have been quite varied! But there is often a fairly substantial minority who would want to keep the money.
I also drew inspiration from one of my favourite thrillers, one of the first books that really switched me onto the genre: A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. Along with a few others – including Tell No One by Harlan Coben – it was my gateway to the stories I love to write now and one of the novels that really inspired me to try writing my own books.
Like all great thrillers, A Simple Plan really puts you there in the shoes of the protagonist. The first time I read it I was completely hooked by the deadly progression of the story, the spiral of choices one after another that lead him down a very dark path. Like many of the best tales, it made me ask myself: what would I do in that situation? What choices would I make? It’s one of those moral questions that has always fascinated me and I wanted to explore it with my own story. That was my starting point for The Weekend.
The Weekend is published by Bonnier
