Globetrotting thriller from Paul T Lynch

"It's little things that mess up your life. Like the lingerie receipt your wife finds when you leave your suit out for the cleaners. Or the small lump of lead with the cupro-nickel jacket. If it hits you after leaving a gun barrel, it can change you forever."
- Chapter one of Better Beginning

Paul T Lynch lists among his many careers and interests "musician, soldier, songwriter, voyager, photographer and writer". He is retired from the civil service and the Reserve Defence Forces, and lives in Killiney.

New Paul Williams book on Graham Dwyer case

Paul Williams has joined the growing list of crime journalists to write a book about the notorious Graham Dwyer murder case.

Jamie Dornan filming siege of Jadotville

Jamie Dornan, the star of The Fall and Fifty Shades of Grey, is currently filming Jadotville, based on the true story of the siege of Irish UN troops in Congo. Production has finished in South Africa, and some scenes will be shot in Dublin and Wicklow.

The Irish actor has been sporting a new moustache for the movie, with several photos appearing on Twitter.

Tana French on 'The Secret Place'

Tana French's fifth Dublin Murder Squad novel, The Secret Place, has been shortlisted as Best Novel in both the Anthony Awards and Strand Magazine Awards. Here are six interviews (not video) about her latest murder mystery:

Jane Casey and William Ryan for Beaconlit

Leading Irish writers Jane Casey and William Ryan are taking part in the Beaconlit festival in Buckinghamshire this weekend.

The crime panel also features novelists Laura Wilson and M R (Matthew) Hall, who has written over 40 hours of primetime drama for the BBC and ITV, including Kavanagh QC.

Beaconlit Festival
27 June 2015
Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, UK
Official website: beaconlit.co.uk

Colin Farrell in 'True Detective'

Colin Farrell plays Detective Ray Velcoro in the second season of HBO's anthology crime series True Detective, which begins this week.

The London-Irish cop Cathal 'Paddy' Breen

"Shaw skilfully recreates an era of social turmoil and class conflict" 
- The Sunday Times

William Shaw’s "Breen and Tozer" trilogy, set in late 1960s London, features a second-generation Irish detective sergeant in Marylebone CID called Cathal Breen.

Ciarán West's dark thrillers

Irish writer Ciarán West's Girl Afraid (2013) has divided reviewers, readers and bloggers alike with its physical and psychological violence.

The dark horror thriller now comes with a health warning: it contains themes relating to child abuse, human trafficking and underground Internet subcultures.

Author profile: Gerard Murphy

Cork-born writer Gerard Murphy's day job is as a lecturer in the Institute of Technology Carlow's School of Science and Health.

His first crime novel is Death Without Trace (2005), in the American hardboiled tradition:

Michael A. Madigan is a supervisor in a Dublin brewery, recently separated and a part-time private eye. He listens to the news in Irish because he doesn't want to know what's going on in the world. 

But when the wealthy, attractive wife of a professor of neurobiology asks him to tail her husband, Madigan is soon caught up in the dirty underworld of serious crime.  

Cormac Millar on 'Sister Caravaggio'

Last April's Franco-Irish Literary Festival had a crime fiction theme. Here Cormac Millar talks - in French - about his novels and the current state of Irish crime fiction.

But first he explains how he worked on Sister Caravaggio (2014), the collaborative novel about a group of nuns who become sleuths.



Other writers on the light-hearted crime tale  included Peter Cunningham, the late Maeve Binchy, Mary O’Donnell,  Peter Sheridan and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne.

Irish crime fiction set in... Nova Scotia

Anne Emery is a Canadian writer whose crime novels have a strong Irish slant but are squarely aimed at a North American audience. Her "Collins-Burke" series is mainly set in Nova Scotia, and occasionally Ireland or London.

A James Joyce crime story: 'Two Gallants'

For the day that's in it, here is Carl Finnegan's new short film, a modern retelling of a criminal tale from James Joyce's short story collection Dubliners.

Andrew Hughes's thriller from Victorian Dublin

"Kafka" / "Kafkaesque" often pops up in reviews of Andrew Hughes's historical thriller set in Victorian Dublin, The Convictions of John Delahunt (2013).

'Setting the Scene' conference at QUB

"Setting the Scene" is a two-day conference about crime fiction and rurality which begins this morning at Queen’s University Belfast .

Authors taking part include Gerard Brennan, Leigh Redhead and Rob Kitchin. As part of the conference, Brian McGilloway and Anthony Quinn will be in conversation with author Dr Andrew Pepper at the No Alibis bookshop at 6.30 this evening.

‘Setting the Scene’: Representations of Rurality in Crime Fiction and Media Culture
Queen’s University Belfast
15-16 June 2015

'Kerry Babies' case inspires new film

The infamous "Kerry Babies" case from the 1980s has inspired a feature film currently in post-production at Telegael's film studios in Galway.

Telegael describes the film as "an incredible story of injustice, prejudice, State bias, religious dogma, tragedy and the power of family and law".

Fred Johnston's many hats

Originally from Belfast, Fred Johnston has been a major figure on Galway's arts scene for many decades now. He wears many hats - as a novelist, short story writer, translator, playwright, lecturer, journalist, arts organiser, critic and folk musician.

Author profile: David Lawlor

David Lawlor's "Liam Mannion" series of historical novels is set in the early 20th century. Tan (2014) opens in Mannion's home village of Balbriggan in north Dublin in 1914.

'Consuming Crime' at University of Limerick

"Consuming Crime" is a major academic conference on crime fiction at the University of Limerick on 26-27 June 2015.

A session on "Irish Crime and the Celtic Tiger" features papers on greed and corruption in Alan Glynn’s Winterland; Tana French and the crime novel in the wake of Eurozone consumerism; and "(Post-) Celtic Tiger Dublin in Recent Irish Crime Fiction".

Lynda La Plante talks 'Tennison' at Kells

Top crime fiction writer Lynda La Plante is among the big names at this year's Hay Festival Kells in County Meath.

Riviera job for Jordan, Banville and McGuinness

Former U2 manager Paul McGuinness is to produce a TV crime drama series set in the south of France, with a writing team headed by Neil Jordan and John Banville. The trio are working on the series for pay TV.

BOTM: 'Gun Street Girl' by Adrian McKinty

Our June "Book of the Month": Gun Street Girl (2015).

The author: Adrian McKinty.

Free new Sean Duffy story

Adrian McKinty has written a new Sean Duffy short story for Radio Silence magazine.

The 2,800-word standalone story, "Shadowboxing" takes place on an afternoon in 1987, around the same time as the epilogue of McKinty's latest novel Gun Street Girl. Duffy is on crowd control at a public event in Belfast featuring boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Story available free online here.

Innocence Project fights miscarriages of justice

The Irish Innocence Project made the headlines earlier this year after it achieved its first exoneration: a posthumous pardon for Harry Gleeson, who was convicted and hanged for a murder in 1941. But its work doesn't stop there.

Author profile: Orna Ross

Áine McCarthy found an unusual way to come up with her pseudonym. She was well aware that people outside Ireland would find "Áine" difficult to pronounce.

Keith Baker thrillers get new life on Kindle

A Northern Ireland thriller from the 1990s by a former BBC head of news is to be republished on Kindle this week.

Keith Baker's third novel, Engram (1999), was described by The Times on first publication as "a taut, well-orchestrated piece" and "redolent of [Patricia] Highsmith".