It was a dark and stormy night, and the Cellar Bar of the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, was full of journalists. They were looking anxious: their man had not arrived.
John Connolly was the man in question, the gathering was to launch his first book, Every Dead Thing, and he was being as mysterious as one of the characters in his blockbuster crime thriller.
Some 10 minutes later and the friends, relatives and journalists relaxed as Connolly arrived, looking every bit alive and very excited.
At least there was no mystery as to why the party was buzzing with gossip. Connolly, an Irish Times writer, made Irish literary history when he received an unprecedented £350,000 sterling for his first two books and then a further $1 million for the US rights to Every Dead Thing alone.
"Quite overwhelmed" was how Connolly described himself last night, before going on to explain that this was only because there were so many friends gathered in one place.
His agent, Mr Darley Anderson, the man who engineered the huge prices for the book rights, was more forthcoming about the sum. "It's very rare to get such a find as Every Dead Thing, and when you do you want to get the best price for it you can."
Mr Anderson receives over 120 submissions every week and usually publishes only three or four per year.
Ms Sue Fletcher, from publishers Hodder & Stoughton, was the first to speak and she continued in the mystery vein when she expressed her delight that the books were vanishing out of the shops. Hopefully, the motive and means were quite clear in this disappearing act.
Connolly was slightly more blunt, exclaiming that he had never seen so many free-loaders in one place. He went on to describe himself as "very, very lucky" and to express the hope that his next book would be even better. Finally, he compared himself to crime writer Raymond Chandler, who claimed that if he had only two people in a room, he had trouble keeping one alive. Everyone looked slightly nervous. It was that kind of night.