“This part of the journey is particularly dramatic. We have the sea on one side of us, and every so often the land sheers away so that it feels as if one wrong move might send us careering over the edge. The water is slate gray, violent-looking. In one cliff-top field the sheep huddle together in a group as though trying to keep warm. You can hear the wind; every so often it throws itself against the windows, and the train shudders.”

Foley begins her mystery novel with a foreboding tone. Chapter 1 immediately develops tension through the descriptions of the setting. The journey to Loch Corrin is “dramatic,” and the water is “violent.” These characterizations identify Loch Corrin as an ominous setting where the natural elements of water and wind work together to make humans feel small. The obvious message is that bad things will happen as the train continues to its destination.

“And the ones like me, the mousy nobodies, we don’t always turn out to be the heroes of the tale. Sometimes we have our own dark secrets.”

Katie’s friends perceive her as a successful professional who always follows the rules. Unlike her friend Miranda, Katie isn’t the leader of adventures. She tends to be a follower, a wallflower in the setting of a party. Here, however, Foley characterizes Katie as multilayered. She has her “own dark secrets” that she holds close. This characterization implies that Katie’s friends don’t know her as well as they think they do, and it foreshadows future conflict.

“And, just like that, the landscape, for all its space, seems to shrink around us.”

The landscape’s characterization as shrinking around the friends implies that despite the vastness of the wilderness, the estate feels claustrophobic. This claustrophobia develops through the friends’ discomfort in nature as well as their complicated dynamics.