Tell us about your new crime novel, The Silent Ones
It’s 1980. A baby is found dead on a Kerry beach. Garda Mary Shea, long overlooked by her colleagues, is first on the scene. When suspicion falls on every woman in town, Mary suddenly becomes useful to the men in charge — until their bias threatens to railroad a young woman. To uncover the truth, Mary must risk not just her career, but everything she stands for.
The plot has echoes of the Kerry Babies case
I was a teenager when that case shook my generation. It marked the moment Irish women had enough of the patriarchy. This novel, inspired by those times, asks a simple, searing question: what if a woman was on the force back then?
Are you planning to base a series around Mary Shea?
The novel is written in a way that easily lends itself to TV so that is the goal.
You also have written two series of a TV crime drama, The Gone. What made you to turn to crime?
I’ve always loved crime. While I was pigeonholed in women’s fiction, TV gave me the freedom to write what I wanted. Cowriting The Gone was a gamechanger and, once free of contract, the time felt right.
RM Block
Your 2006 debut, Pack Up the Moon, was so well-received, you quit your job to write full-time. But it hasn’t been easy, coping with a recession and a pandemic?
I’m lucky to have maintained a career despite everything, from the challenges of publishing to tech giants siphoning off authors’ profits but only because I can write across genres and work in film and TV as well as novels.
The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes was a 2015 Richard and Judy Book Club pick. It has a very tough subject. How much was it inspired by your very tough childhood?
It’s a love letter to my mother, who died of MS when I was 17, and to my husband’s first band of best friends and great talent, whose lead singer was also diagnosed with MS. In Rabbit those two worlds collide, making it a story incredibly close to my heart.
Which projects are you working on?
I have one film in post-production, one at the early draft stage. I’m currently finishing the second book in the Mary Shea Murders trilogy and I’ll be starting on a UK TV show project in October.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Write. Just write.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
I’d enshrine access to contraception and safe, regulated abortion in every constitution worldwide. Women’s health and autonomy should never hinge on public opinion or be kicked about as a political football.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue is a gripping crime read about a woman carrying a terrible secret and trapped in a dangerous marriage.
Which public event affected you most?
Is war a public event? It certainly feels like it when I’m watching people die on my phone. The genocide in Gaza will mark all of us for the rest of our lives.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
Lake Tarawera in New Zealand, where my brother has a holiday home, is stunning and serene, with an indescribable energy. If I closed my eyes and dreamed of his heaven, it would be Lake Tarawera. There, he is completely at peace.
Your most treasured possession?
I’m not deeply attached to things. I hate calling my dogs my possessions but in the spirit of answering the question, my two dogs, Doris and Clem.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
The Wild Atlantic Kitchen by Maura Foley is more than a cookbook. It’s filled with Maura’s beautiful recipes, stories from my hometown of Kenmare, and breathtaking photographs of the food and landscape, it also features artwork by the late Pauline Bewick.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Oscar Wilde, Maeve Binchy, William Goldman, Ruth Jones and Sinéad Moriarty. A serve-yourself buffet with a separate dessert table, plenty of booze and water and I wouldn’t get up until the last person left, for fear of missing a thing.
The best and worst things about where you live?
I love having a working farm behind us, just beyond my back wall is a sea of green. I hate that slurry spreading turns my stomach two or three times a year, but it’s a small price to pay.
What is your favourite quotation?
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. – Martin Luther King jnr.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
David Brent, The Office. He’s ridiculous, misguided, egotistical, vulnerable and as charming as an old sock, yet somehow, he’s completely lovable.
A book to make me laugh?
If you like deadpan humour. I’m Just a Person, by Tig Notaro. She went through a year of hell and turned into perfect comedy.
A book that might move me to tears?
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is a haunting exploration of love and the futility of war.
The Silent Ones is published by Canelo Crime
