And you can’t force your way in to learn the truth. Where did they come from? When did they arrive? Are they dead or alive? And what will happen next? They can emerge at a time of their choosing, but you can’t enter. But who? And why? And what do they intend to do? They can see you, but you can’t see them. What is a householder to think if, one day, they find their panic room locked? This can surely only mean someone is inside. The panic room as a danger in its own right is the essence of the idea I had for this story. The case has become a magnet for conspiracy theories because of various bizarre circumstances, but what’s not in doubt is that the secure room to which Safra retreated from a perceived threat became his tomb. A famous example is the death of the Lebanese banker Edmond Safra at his apartment in Monte Carlo in December 1999, killed by smoke inhalation while sheltering from a fire and supposed intruders. Steel‐reinforced doors and walls, video cameras feeding images from all other rooms in the house, dedicated power and telephone lines and a store of food and water make it seemingly impregnable.īut a hiding-place can become, under certain circumstances, a prison, or worse. In the event of a break‐in, the owner can retreat to their panic room, which can only be locked from inside and can’t be opened from outside once it is secured.

Panic rooms have become must-have accessories for those with enough wealth both to acquire large and often remote properties and to attract the wrong kind of attention to themselves. It hinges, at least apparently, on an extrapolation of the tradition into our present day era of high tech security in the home. The plot of my new novel, Panic Room, is a contemporary twist on that. There’s a long tradition of locked room murder mysteries in crime fiction.

Closed Circle by Robert Goddard