Author profile: Ava McCarthy

"Harry Martinez is strong, attractive and super-smart... a clear-eyed, nonsentimental soul sister of Val McDermid's Kate Brannigan, or Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski." - the Irish Times

Ava McCarthy's series of international bestselling thrillers features female hacker turned private eye Henrietta "Harry" Martinez.

The series begins with The Insider (2009), about white-collar crime in Dublin's Financial Services Centre. It was Sainsbury’s Book Club's book of the month and has been optioned for film by Polaris Pictures in Hollywood.

McCarthy's next novel, the psychological suspense thriller Dead Secret, is due to be published in November 2015.

McCarthy was born and lives in Dublin. She has a degree in Physics and a Master’s Degree in Nuclear Medicine. A former medical physicist and computer analyst for the London Stock Exchange, she also worked in the software industry for over two decades years before writing her first novel.



She currently works in software in County Dublin, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Author on Twitter: @ava_mccarthy

BOTM: Ava McCarthy's 'Dead Secret'

Our March 2016 Book of the Month: Dead Secret.

The author: Ava McCarthy, taking a break from her Harry Martinez series with this standalone thriller.

The genre: psychological / domestic noir / chase.

Ava McCarthy's latest will be a 'Dead Secret'

Ava McCarthy, author of the PI Harry Martinez series, switches to a psychological suspense thriller with Dead Secret, which is due out this November:

Two quick shots. One for him. One for you. 

After the death of her three-year-old daughter, Jodie has nothing to live for. Before taking her own life she must kill the man she holds responsible for her daughter’s death – her seemingly perfect husband Ethan...

Crime fiction at Wexford Literary Festival

The 2016 Wexford Literary Festival includes a panel on Irish crime fiction writing with Jax Miller, Ava McCarthy and Andrea Carter on Saturday 28 May.

Best Irish crime fiction of 2015

2015 was a bumper year for Irish crime fiction. Among major releases were novels by - to name just ten - Alex Barclay, Louise Phillips, John Connolly, Ava McCarthy, Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Sinéad Crowley, Mark O'Sullivan, Karen Perry and Anthony J Quinn.

There were also some dazzling debuts in the crime fiction department, such as novels by Steve Cavanagh, Jax Miller, Alan Walsh, Michael O'Higgins, Frankie Gaffney, Jo Spain and Kelly Creighton.

And it was a good year too for crime fiction on the small and big screen.

Here are some of our personal choices from the past year's Irish crime fiction novels, movies, TV shows and audio books...