Five Questions - Desmond J. Doherty

Desmond J. Doherty and Eva Gabrielsson

Desmond J. Doherty was born in Derry and is a solicitor in his own law firm. He has extensive civil and criminal law experience. Over the years he has been involved in a number of high-profile inquests which include the Dublin and Monaghan bombing and the Omagh bombings. He has experience in various courts and tribunals including the Special Tribunal for the Lebanon and the International Criminal Curt for the former Yugoslavia.

‘Deadlight’ is the third in the Valberg trilogy.

Gerard: It’s well known that Scandinavian crime fiction has been popular for some time. You’re the only CSNI regular who has a foot in the Northern Ireland and Sweden via your main character, Detective Valberg. Is it safe to assume you’ve been influenced by the likes of Stieg Larsson?

Desmond: 'Is it safe?' Very safe. For sure. Henning Mankell before Stieg Larsson and now of course the great Norwegian, Jo Nesbo. But the deeper you dig and the further you go into Nordic Noir the list and talent of all those fantastic authors is endless. Valberg has been described as someone from Nordic Ireland! We are so close to Scandinavia. How could any crime writer not be influenced by our Scandinavian neighbours who have great PR. While the Nordic authors expose the deep divisions in their society, the divisions that we have lived with and grown up with here make for fantastic dark and violent crime fiction.

Jørgen Jaeger

Gerard: So, as the photographic evidence suggests, you’ve been to Norway recently. And you met Mr Larsson’s widow. Would you consider that a high point in your career?

Desmond: The high point went even higher after Eva asked me to sign all three Valberg novels for her. She was delighted to be the first person to receive the third Valberg novel. We were on a panel together for a group of mainly Norwegian lawyers dealing with Human Rights and the rights of authors dead and alive. Eva's position is outrageous. Under Swedish law she has been treated appallingly and we all should support and stand by her. Hearing how Stieg's three novels came about and his writing process was bewildering. I never thought I'd be in such a privileged position to be with Eva and personally speak about and ask about Stieg's work. I hope to get Eva to Nordic Ireland next year.

Gerard: Valberg’s career as a PSNI detective has more highs than lows. Do you consider him to be a true representation of a cop from Northern Ireland?

Desmond: Remember, when he does go low it's very low. Sometimes I feel I won't get him back. He's more of an eclectic mix of lawyers and police officers I've come across over many years of experience here and elsewhere. He's not based on any one individual I know. I think his scorn for procedural propriety in this day and age of form filling and pettifoggery would mean that he wouldn't survive long in the PSNI. He's a fictional representation of a police officer from here. I think his emotions and feelings are true to all of us however. Fans of the books say, 'He's some boy...isn't he.' Every time I hear that I pause as I wonder are they being complimentary to Valberg or O'Driscoll. Some of the readers like both of them.

Gerard: Part three of your series is clearly the most high-octane to date. Anybody who’s read the first two will know that says quite a lot. Do you think the series has a definite end in sight or do you plan to torture your poor characters for a few more years?

Desmond: I wanted to move and develop the characters with time. Valberg moves on and so do the police officers and lawyers around him. Therefore the story moves on too. Deadlight for me was high-octane with emotion, as well as action. I had a plan all completed but I really just followed my gut with the story.'Emotional content. Not anger.' I wanted to bring the O'Driscoll affair to some sort of conclusion. That was always the desire. But I found it hard to let the main characters go as they have so much to say and develop. I wasn't under any pressure to write a fourth in the series but I couldn't stop writing when I finished Deadlight, so continued.

Gerard: If not Valberg, who else?

Desmond: Amanda Cleary-the Derry Journal journalist. I really like her. She is the one character who everyone trusts and who comes out of the whole debacle with her integrity and dignity intact. On the other hand the lawyer who sleeps with her eyes open,  Miss Maguire, has a series of her own in my head. She is wild and beguiling. Yes. Lets have more of her. I've written a short story in a collection I'm working on called, 'Inquest.' It's all about Constable Michael Bell and what happens to him on his first day in CID. He's just one of the characters that I'd like to take further. As for Jon Valberg, he has good and bad days. A lot of dark and not much light but his gallows humour allows him to survive. That is a very Irish and Scandinavian trait.

Desmond J. Doherty is published by Guildhall Press. Check out their website for more information on where to buy his books.

Five Questions -- Brian McGilloway

Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. After studying English at Queen's University, Belfast, he took up a teaching position in St Columb's College in Derry, where he was Head of English.

His first novel, Borderlands, published by Macmillan New Writing, was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007 and was hailed by The Times as 'one of (2007's) most impressive debuts.' The second novel in the series, Gallows Lane, was shortlisted for the 2009 Irish Book Awards/Ireland AM Crime Novel of the Year. The third Devlin, Bleed a River Deep, was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of their Best Books of 2010. The first DS Lucy Black novel, Little Girl Lost, became an Amazon Kindle No 1 Bestseller in 2013. The follow-up novel featuring Lucy Black, Hurt, is published in November 2013.

Brian lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife and their four children.

Gerard: Preserve the Dead features Lucy Black, your PSNI series character. Now, I very much enjoy your Inspector Ben Devlin books (set on the other side of the Irish border), but I really do prefer DS Black. She has a little more grit in her belly, I think. Have you heard this often? Do you have a favourite yourself, or is that like ranking your kids?

Brian: Thanks Gerard. It’s strange because there's no consensus. The Lucy books have obviously done better in terms of sales and that, but I still get emails from people saying they like the books but would love another Devlin again soon. I suppose the books have different qualities. The Devlin books tend to be more reflective on account of being a first person narrative whereas the Lucy books move faster because they’re third person. In terms of which I prefer, I couldn’t say. I do miss Devlin, and I like writing in that voice which is, truth be told, not a million miles away from my own, with a few minor differences. But I enjoy writing the Lucy books very much and like her as a character and the way in which she’s developing across the series - and I do have a definite ending for her story. And I’m very fond of her mum, even if she isn’t. The Devlin books are constrained a little by his family life and by the fact that his kids are growing up and have to impact on the narrative; Lucy is freer to do things than Devlin is because there’s no one waiting for her to be home at a certain time. That probably means that Devlin would have a much healthier work/life balance!

Gerard: I suppose you could argue, though, that Devlin has a hell of a lot more to lose than Black... Time will tell, I suppose. So you've an ending in mind for Lucy? That's interesting. Are you able to project/predict how many more volumes it'll take to complete her tale?

Brian: To an extent, I guess. Devlin has mostly managed to keep his family and professional life separate - though what happens in one is normally reflected in the other. It’s a deliberate choice - it’s too much of a cliche to have the family in peril in every single story. It happened in Borderlands, which was my first, and I think that’s really it. Much more interesting for me is how he balances the two sides of his life, like plates spinning. As for Lucy, she does have her own network of sorts and, as the books go on, that will continue to grow. She was an outsider in Little Girl Lost. By this new book, she’s beginning to make friends, some in more forced situations than others and is having to be more honest with some others about her relationship with her mother. Lucy has withheld one too many secrets in this book and gets called out on them. She needs to learn to be more trusting. As for the ending, I had thought 5 books, but as I’m working on the fourth at the moment and I’m no much nearer the ending, that might change. Ultimately, Lucy’s story will be tied to the story of Mary Quigg, the little girl who is lost in the book of that name. From the start I knew where I wanted the Lucy books to end; I don’t have that with Devlin. I guess in both cases, they’ll end when I have no more stories to tell for those characters.

Gerard: Two multi-novel series seems like a hell of a lot of story to hold in your head. Do you ever wish that you could write a standalone just to take a break from the long game? Maybe even write in a different form?

Brian: Yes. To be honest, Little Girl Lost was intended as a stand lone for a break from Devlin, but I found that after I’d finished it, I wanted to find out more about Lucy and her story still had some distance to go. I do have an idea for a standalone that I started last year but the story wasn’t ready - I intend to revisit that when it’s more fully formed. I suppose the big problem with two series is trying to ensure that one does;t end up morphing into the other. Keeping them distinct, with the voices of the main characters clear and different is a major concern when I’m writing them. And at times I have an idea and think it’s great, then realise the next day that I already used something similar in one of the Devlins. As for writing outside of crime - I’ll write whatever the story is that I have to tell. If it so happens that that story isn’t a crime one, then so be it. In term of forms, I’m doing some screenwriting at the moment which I’m enjoying very much. It’s more concentrated than writing the novel as you have to know where it’s going from the start, whereas I rarely do with a book. The timeframe is much tighter, too, though it’s much more collaborative than a novel. Certainly its something I’d like to develop further if I can.

Gerard: Something I noticed about Preserve the Dead is that there seemed to be a little more tongue-in-cheek humour than in the prequels. You had a little fun at the expense of English teachers in an early chapter that made me smile. Was this intentional? Perhaps a way to further separate Lucy Black from Ben Devlin?

Brian: I think the first two Lucy books were quite cold - especially Little Girl Lost. Part of the reason for that was that both books dealt with crimes against or involving children. Nothing about that topic suggests humour to me and as a result, both books feel a little cold to me. The Devlin books, I think, have a warmth from Devlin’s voice and from his family life which, again, the Lucy books don’t have - her family is anything but warm, although there is a thawing between her and her mother. The other thing which struck me is that, by this third book, the various agencies and teams know one another now and would be fairly comfortable with one another, so that hopefully is reflected in the banter between them. Of course it’s also a Northern Irish thing - humour in the face of horror. The English teacher joke is about all poems being about sex or death from what I remember. I’ve used that line myself in class and I know of several other English teachers who subscribe to the same theory. The poem he mentions was one that was taught to me by my own teacher, who was a poet called Paul Wilkins. Paul was a superb teacher, a fine poet and a good friend. He died a few months before Borderlands was published, but he was hugely influential in my wanting to be a writer when I was at school. The scene with Fleming is a personal light hearted nod to Paul who I imagine would appreciate the joke.

Gerard: So who gets the next outing? Inspector Devlin or DS Black?

Brian: It’s another Lucy. To be honest, I started it as a Devlin - the book is about hate and complicity in crime; a religious pastor who makes some inflammatory comments about homosexuality in the wake of which a gay youth is killed. The problem was that I made it to chapter 15 and hit a brick wall. So many of the sub plots I wanted to introduce to parallel the main plot didn’t suit the border setting or Devlin’s family life. After three weeks of struggling to move it forward I started it again as a Lucy novel and it just seemed to work - the sub plots make more sense and the setting seems more appropriate to the storyline. I would like to revisit Devlin again when he has another story, but for now the next one is a Lucy. I had played with the idea of them meeting earlier in the series, and Jim Hendry appears in Little Girl Lost, so they exist in the same world. In fact, the first draft of LGL ended with Lucy phoning Devlin to ask for help in tracking down  Mary Quigg’s killer. Henry refers to a friend over the border earlier in the book. But the two series were optioned by two different TV companies and I was warned that they couldn’t appear in a novel together or it would cause all kinds of complications with who owned the rights to which character. They shared a one off story called The Sacrifice, which I wrote for Radio 4 as part of the Derry City of Culture celebrations, but I suspect that will be it with regards a crossover.

Brian McGilloway has a brand spanking new website that you've got to check out. Right now! Also, he can be found on Twitter, and the really privileged might be able to befriend him on Facebook.

What are you waiting for?

Five Questions -- Kelly Creighton

Kelly Creighton is a poet and fiction writer with work in literary journals The Stinging Fly, Long Story, Short, Wordlegs, The Galway Review, A New Ulster, The Boyne Berries and numerous other publications.

She was awarded second place in the Abroad Writers’ Conference Short Story Competition judged by Robert Olen Butler, long-listed for The RTE Guide/Penguin Ireland short story contest and shortlisted for the Carousel Writers.

Gerard: Brian McGilloway described The Bones of It as "A brilliant crime debut, chilling, compulsive and beautifully written." Being a fan of Mr McGilloway's work, I was very keen to have a look. Did you set out to write a crime novel, or was this a case of a literary text that veered into the crime world?

Kelly: I set out to write a thriller, even although nothing else I'd written up to that point was crime, and I wasn't really sure how The Bones of It would eventually be marketed. It is the direction I went because that's what the story called for. That said, I'm very happy to have wound up in the crime world.

Gerard: I'm happy too, especially since your contribution to the Northern Irish crime fiction scene has doubled the number of women writers in our wee community (shout-out to Claire McGowan). I have heard that Lucy Caldwell is writing a crime fiction novel too, which is more great news. Any theories on why it's taken this long for our female talent to shine in the crime world?

Kelly: Doubled! That's a depressing statistic! Lately I've been reading all these articles about how 'so many women read crime', and how 'female crime writers write gorier stuff than men', and 'why today's most exciting crime writers are women', and yet here in NI, where there's a recent explosion in emerging crime writers, there aren't many women writing in the genre.

I don't know why this is. I suppose we don't know what people are getting up to on their pcs until the work is out there for us to read. In The Bones of It, the narrator is a young man, so I'm making sure the next book is from a woman's point of view.

I hope some local women writers get in touch and let me know that they write crime too.

Gerard: I'm glad you mentioned your narrator. I thought you nailed the masculine voice. Quite an accomplishment given Scott's less than conventional personality. Did you have any difficulty writing from his perspective or did it come naturally?

Kelly: Thanks very much, Gerard! It was only after I'd started on the book that I heard a couple of people say, 'How can a woman write from a man's perspective?' and vice versa. The thought that it was strange hadn't occurred to me before that. I still don't know if it is. My stories are probably half and half. I love writing from different perspectives, different ages. That's a big part of what interests me - finding the voice. I think we all start in our own voice, writing semi-autobiographical stuff. As I go on I want to explore characters that aren't familiar to me. There has to be an emotional truth in there that I feel I understand. It doesn't have to be my truth, if you know what I mean. I knew Scott really well before I even started writing, that gave me the confidence to slip into his mindset. The book was written and redrafted in quick bursts, so that made it easier.

Gerard: Was the transition from poetry to prose difficult for you?

Kelly: It's more a back-and-forth between the two than a transition really. I write the odd poem but prose is more my thing. It's so hard to write a poem I'm ever really happy with. I'm in awe of 'proper' poets. Prose has much more freedom and it suits me better.

Gerard: So, what's the craic with the next book?

Kelly: I'm working on two books right now - one is a collection of linked short fiction and the other is a detective novel from the POV of a female detective. This summer is all about finishing the story collection because the house is full of noise and there isn't the headspace to give the novel the attention it needs. I should be wrapping up the novel by the end of the year, then I have the structure in place for the next one. If someone could just arrange more hours in the day, I'd be sorted.

You can follow Kelly on Twitter or send her a friend request on Facebook if you're feeling lucky. And you should get yourself a copy of The Bones of It. CSNI approved.

Five Questions -- Stuart Neville

Stuart Neville has been a musician, a composer, a teacher, a salesman, a film extra, a baker and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian. His first novel, The Twelve, was one of the most critically acclaimed crime débuts of recent years, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Find out more about Stuart on his website -- http://www.stuartneville.com/ -- and/or follow him on Twitter @stuartneville.

Gerard: Those We Left Behind isn't quite your usual thrill ride. You're well known for your high octane thrillers, but this one seems more thoughtful and displays more emotional depth. Why the change?

Stuart: It just seems to be a natural evolution in my writing. I’m finding myself less interested in pace and action, and more interested in character. I think Flanagan has been a catalyst in that change. She’s opened up a lot of possibilities for me. Mind you, I’d hope this new book will still have the reader turning pages, and I think there’s enough bloodshed to do most people!

Gerard: Oh, yeah. Plenty of bloodshed in this one. But as in your previous books, I can see that you've presented it with restraint. Can I safely assume that you're not a fan of 'torture porn' as applied to crime fiction novels, or indeed TV shows and movies?

Stuart: No, I don’t like torture porn. I’ve no problem with the portrayal of violence in itself, so long as it serves the story. Violence for its own sake always stands out, and it’s obvious when an author is deliberately pushing those buttons just to get a reaction out of the reader. But I think readers are smarter than that, and they know when the writer is trying to manipulate them.

Gerard: Did you find it more difficult to write about young offenders compared to the full-grown gangsters you've explored in the past?

Stuart: To be honest, it made a nice change. I think I’ve pretty well covered the paramilitary gangster angle, and I’ve done a couple of serial killers, so it was time for something new. And again, being less focused on breakneck pace allows more room to explore something like the dysfunctional relationship of the Devine brothers.

Gerard: In Those We Left Behind, you presented one character's POV in present tense and the other characters' POV in past tense. If you can, without spoilers, tell us why. And did you have any difficulty justifying this style decision to your editors?

Stuart: Ciaran’s POV scenes are all told in present tense, but the prose is also very different in those passages. When I was researching the book, I spoke with a probation officer, and he told me something that really struck me: if a twelve-year-old boy like Ciaran Devine was put away, and was released seven years later, he’d come out still a twelve-year-old. I wanted to show his child-like view of the world, so both the present tense and language try to build on that.  My editors were fine with it; I hope it’s not distracting or gimmicky.

Gerard: No, it's not gimmicky. It's very much a style choice. Do you think style is something that writers with a strong voice employ as much to entertain themselves as their readers? Or is it all about the reader?

Stuart: I think you’d drive yourself crazy if you spent your time worrying about the reader’s reaction. The story is king, so that’s always at the forefront of my mind: what will serve the story best? In this case, for the story, I felt the present tense seemed more natural for Ciaran.

Stuart Neville will launch Those We Left Behind at No Alibis on Thursday 11th June at 6:30pm. Be there or be quare disappointed.

Five Questions -- Steve Cavanagh

Steve Cavanagh was born and raised in Belfast and is a practicing lawyer. He holds a certificate in Advanced Advocacy and lectures on various legal subjects (but really he just likes to tell jokes). He is married with two young children. The Defence, has been chosen as one of Amazon's great debuts for 2015, as part of their Amazon Rising Stars programme. In 2015 Steve received the ACES award for Literature from the Northern Ireland Arts Council. 

Steve writes fast-paced legal thrillers set in New York City featuring series character Eddie Flynn. The Defence is his first novel. 

Find out more at http://stevecavanaghbooks.com/ or follow Steve on Twitter @SSCav

Eddie Flynn, lawyer, con man, drunk. How much of this is autobiographical, Steve? I know you're a lawyer. Two out of three wouldn't be too bad...

Well, while I was at University, and probably for a good few years afterwards, I would've been a man with a powerful thirst. One of my best mates, Mark, is a guy from my QUB Institute of Professional Legal Studies class, and the only reason I know him is because we both liked to turn up to the pub an hour before any social event began so that we could have a few before the crowd arrived. We didn't arrange it or anything, we just happened to be men with similar approaches to an evening's entertainment. I remember somebody once handed me a pint, the glass was soaking and the pint simply slipped right through my fingers. I had my order in for another one before the glass hit the ground. Now I have two small children. The rock and roll days are over. As for con man? There is a certain amount of sleight of hand in any good cross examination. That's where the overlap is between the courtroom and the back alley. Eddie straddles that line precariously.

I noticed that you used US spelling (eg color rather than colour) in the UK edition of your book. What's the craic with that?

Glad you spotted that. It was my editor's suggestion. As the book is in US English anyway with an American narrator, may as well go the whole hog. I think it helps a little with authenticating the American voice that I'm going for. I've noticed it before in John Connolly books and to be honest it's fine with me because it means I don't have as much work to do for US publication.

Ah! The mighty Connolly. It must tickle you that you're likely to be stocked out pretty close to him on the crime fiction shelf. Recommend one of his works, for the uninitiated. Please?

There is so much to recommend, but for the crime fan you simply have to read the Charlie Parker series. You can read them out of sequence, I have a little. But you get a far better experience reading them in order. Start with Every Dead Thing and work your way up. EDT is one of the best crime debuts you'll ever read. And the books just keep getting better. That's rare in series fiction. Yeah, I'm stoked that I get to be on a shelf with one of my heroes.

Your story in Belfast Noir was top notch and it featured an actual Belfastian solicitor. Any plans to set a novel in Belfast?

Yes, a solicitor and a barrister with the story focussed on barrister, Mack. I loved writing that story. It's a weird thing, I wrote The Defence as an escape, primarily for me. I was going through a hard time and I wanted to try writing again. If I had come home from a day's work being a lawyer in Northern Ireland and sat down to write for two or three hours about being a lawyer in Northern Ireland I think I probably would've gone insane. At the time I wanted to escape somewhere else for a few hours, into a different world. After I wrote The Defence I knew I wanted to write another book with Eddie Flynn - I find him very interesting and I can pretty much accomplish everything that I want to do right now, in fiction, using that character. If I ever give up the law, I may write a book set in NI but not at the moment. I have a few ideas, but for now I want to concentrate on Eddie's story.

You know we're pretty sold on The Defence at CSNI. Care to share a tag line for the next instalment?

This is the hard part, I'm terrible at writing blurbs. I can tell you that this next book is currently titled The Plea and, among other things, it looks at international money laundering, the grand jury system, and welcomes back some of the characters from The Defence. In the new book Eddie Flynn has two clients. Two cases. Both very different. One client is innocent and the other is guilty. He can only save one of them. It's an easy choice for most lawyers, but what if the guilty client was Eddie's wife? Will he sacrifice the life of an innocent man to save his wife? He's got 48 hours to decide. But no matter what choice he makes, the only certainty is that at eight o'clock on Saint Patrick's Day Eddie Flynn will die.

Find out more about Steve and his writing over at his website.

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