“Another French Fancy, Vicar?”

The build-up to the eagerly awaited publication to Tana French’s sequel to IN THE WOODS, THE LIKENESS, continues apace, with Publishers Weekly conducting a small but perfectly formed interview with Tana, a sample of which runneth thusly:

Q: THE LIKENESS has elements of a locked room mystery, with all the characters, including the potential killer, living under the same roof. Was this a challenge?
A: “Absolutely. I love the conventions of the mystery genre, the fact that you start out with such tight parameters: somebody gets killed and somebody finds out whodunit. I like twisting and breaking these parameters. One of my twists is that the main characters like being in their “locked room,” they like being in their own world. So the question becomes, is the danger from outside or from inside?”

Erm, we give up. But is it possible that the danger is neither outside nor inside, but – gasp! – somewhere in between? That’s right, folks – it’s a new sub-sub-sub-genre, the Killer Door Mystery! Did we mention we’re giving these ideas away for free?