Like many authors, I'm frequently asked, "where do you get your ideas?" The idea for my debut novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden came from someone really special. His name is Hans and I first met him about six years ago, when we were living in a little town called Bad Münstereifel, in Germany.
We moved to Germany in 2001. The move had all the potential for a disaster. I had two very young children; we didn't know a soul in the area, and I didn't even have a car to start with. Also, Bad Münstereifel is a very small place. Even my husband was nervous about leaving me there all day, he said, "You can walk from one end of the town to the other in two minutes. You'll be bored."
I wasn't remotely bored, though. Ever since I was a child I've been obsessed with legends, weird history and ghost stories. Bad Münstereifel abounds with all of these - I think it must be one of the most haunted places on earth. It has a headless ghost, and an eternal huntsman and a coven of witches who can turn themselves into cats. But there is one legend that stands out from all the rest - the tale of "Unshockable Hans"
Hans is supposed to have lived in a mill in the Eschweiler valley, to the north of the town. The mill was so badly infested with evil forces that nobody else had ever succeeded in staying there. Hans was made of sterner stuff than his fellows; as well as making his home in the mill he is said to have faced down the eternal huntsman and the headless ghost. I was completely charmed by Hans! He had nerves of steel but he was also sociable, warm-hearted and practical. I'd always wanted to write a book, and now I felt I'd found my hero.
So much of the rest of the book flowed from the character of Hans. I wanted to have Hans helping to solve a modern mystery, by inspiring the book's heroine, Pia, to undertake her own investigations. Katharina Linden, a girl Pia's own age, vanishes during a carnival parade - and hers is only the first in a series of sinister disappearances. Everyone in the town is shocked and horrified, but it is ten-year-old Pia who decides to find out the truth.
Pia's ten-year-old voice sprang from the fact that she naturally has to be at an age before adult cynicism has cut in, when legends still seem real. She often tries to think how Hans would react to a particular situation. Throughout the book, adults are letting her down. Her teacher doesn't manage to prevent her classmates from teasing and ostracizing her. Her parents' marriage is floundering and she has the threat of moving away from her beloved home town hanging over her head. Finally there is an even worse betrayal. Hans is one person who doesn't let Pia down. He's with her right through the book, to the very last sentence.
Like Pia, I loved living in Bad Münstereifel. It's a beautiful, fascinating place. When we were there, I couldn't imagine wanting to live anywhere else, but like Pia, I had the shadow of having to leave one day hanging over me. Writing the book was a way of creating a memorial to a wonderful time in my life. If we had never moved to Bad Münstereifel, I am sure I would have written a book in the end anyway; it was an ambition of mine since childhood. But the book wouldn't have been The Vanishing of Katharina Linden.