Latest news with #DervlaMcTiernan
NZ Herald
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Auckland Writers Festival special: Dervla McTiernan - The Unquiet Grave extract
Irish-born Australian author Dervla McTiernan's new book, The Unquiet Grave, is out now. To celebrate the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival, we've teamed up with New Zealand publishers to showcase some of the authors who will be on stage over the festival weekend. This extract is from Irish-born Australian author Dervla McTiernan's new book, 'The Unquiet Grave'. Cormac and Peter started walking. There
Otago Daily Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
'This is the missing bit'
Best-selling Irish author Dervla McTiernan still finds it ''crazy'' that hundreds of people turn up to her book events. She talks to Rebecca Fox about the novels that have captured the imagination of so many readers. Dervla McTiernan loves nothing more than being at home writing with her cats, dogs, children and books. ''I live a very quiet life. I'm not a terribly social person at home,'' the best-selling Australian-based Irish author says. But every so often as one of her books is published, she hits the road to publicise it - and this time she is coming to New Zealand and Dunedin. ''Your publisher says, 'now off you go, be very extrovert and go and have fun and meet lots of people'. And then when the two months are up, they're like, 'that's enough of that now, back you go to your writing'. ''Maybe it's a good balance. I mean, it's a little schizophrenic, but maybe it's a good balance?'' She remembers back around seven years to her first book, The Ruin , when she was lucky to get a handful of people to turn out to a book signing. Six books later, including two standalone thrillers which each won the New York Times Best Thriller Award, crowds in the hundreds are turning up to her book events. ''It's just surreal, you know, and people are so nice to you. No human on Earth could deserve that level of niceness. So you're just kind of trying to wrap your head around that.'' McTiernan is quite modest, given The Ruin , the first in what has become her Cormac Reilly series, was a bestseller in Australia and in Ireland and named an Amazon book of the year in the United States, accolades that continued with its follow-ups The Scholar and The Good Turn . She has also won numerous awards, including two Barry Awards, a Davitt Award, a Ned Kelly Award and an International Thriller Writer Award. It has not come easy, though. McTiernan practised law in Ireland for 12 years, believing writing was for other people. She had her own practice, which she set up when she was 26. But the 2008 global financial crisis hit her and her civil engineer husband's work hard. ''I had so many clients who lost everything down to family homes and we worked through the worst of the crisis, but it was incredibly stressful. And clients couldn't afford to pay bills because they were losing everything. ''We were going through our savings at the rate of knots. I was so burned out by it all. It was quite traumatic. You know, some really, truly terrible things happened in terms of suicides and things. And I just couldn't do it any more.'' They decided they wanted a fresh start, so looked at immigrating to Canada or Australia, going where the work was for him - with a 2-year-old and a baby on the way. Australia won out due to better visa options and her husband having backpacked there when younger. Perth became home after her husband mentioned they had flying cockroaches in Brisbane. ''And I said, 'OK, perfect decision'. I was traumatised by the idea of cockroaches. It's so stupid, but we don't have them in Ireland. So I found them a bit horrifying at the time.'' That was 14 years ago. Settling into a new life, McTiernan knew she did not want to go back to practising law when her children got a bit older, so she got a part-time job. At the same time she began to write at nights at the kitchen table with the laundry stacked on one end, and the story of Maude and Jack emerged. She knew from the beginning it was going to be an Irish story. ''And once I started writing, even though I was really bad to begin with, I'd have two hours in the evening to write and I could maybe get 500 words and they were terrible. And you delete the next day and start again. Even though I was that bad, it just felt so good. It felt so good. And I was like, this is the missing bit.'' But she was living in Perth, adjusting to blue skies and the heat and missing Ireland. ''In writing the books, I could travel home. So this is so stupid, but I used to close the blind and turn up the air conditioning - not very good for the environment - put on my jumper and genuinely play rain sounds. It's so cheesy, I know, but that's what I used to do to get in the mood. And then I was just there and it just felt like, 'OK, I'm back in Ireland'.'' McTiernan had no expectations. She was aware how hard it was to get published, let alone make a living out of writing, so her expectations were ''non-existent'', but she loved it. ''And I still love it. And I think I'll always love it. So as long as they let me do it, I'll be doing it.'' A turning point came when she entered a short story competition and was short-listed. It gave her the confidence to continue writing. She wiped what she had written on Maude and Jack and started again, trying to answer why this 15-year-old was having to look after her younger brother and living in poverty. ''As I started to write it, it took the form of a kind of a police procedural type novel because it made sense. There's a reason people write these books, you know, having a detective who follows an investigative path, it gives you a structure to build a book and a story around. And so the book kind of took on that structure. And then I understood it sort of instinctively.'' At that stage she was not thinking about genres, and feels she has fallen into the crime-thriller genre by accident, due to her own passion for reading. Her mother maintains she learned to read at 3 years old. As she was one of seven children, her mother did not have time to read to her, so instead encouraged her to read herself. ''She was working fulltime trying to raise us all. So I would sit at her feet while she was ironing or peeling potatoes. I hate to fulfil the stereotype, but there you go. I knew my letters and she would sound them out for me. And that's how I learned to read. And from that moment on, I never stopped. Books have been just my constant companion. I inhaled books.'' Her passion in her teens and 20s was fantasy novels, but when she ran out of good authors she started to pick up crime novels. ''I think I found the same sort of stakes and excitement and robust story between the covers of crime novels. So that's what I loved. That's what I was reading a lot.'' So it was maybe no surprise the detective in that first book, Cormac Reilly, became the centre of the story and a series of books. ''I never set out to write a series. That wasn't my intention. It just grew. And so I wrote the first three books, which were The Ruin, The Scholar and The Good Turn . And I thought I might be done with series fiction at that point.'' While people were keen for her to continue writing series fiction, she wanted to change things up. She went on to write two standalone novels. What Happened to Nina was No1 for five weeks in Australia. But things changed one Sunday afternoon when she was lying on the couch reading a novel that was part of a series. ''I was just like, really enjoying myself. And I was like, 'I love this. I love being with these characters. They feel like old friends. I love being in this place that I know so well, but it also feels fresh to me. Like I'm genuinely excited. I don't know what's going to happen next.' And I remembered just the charm of it for me as a reader. And it made me think, 'geez, I really want to see if I can do this as a writer again and go back and write series fiction'.'' Then the right story came along for the book, ''so off I went'', and her latest book The Unquiet Grave was born. She had been inspired by reading an article about ''bog bodies'', bodies discovered in Ireland's peat bogs which have been preserved by the conditions of the bogs for centuries. But what really caught her imagination was the mysterious ritualistic injuries the bodies had. ''So we don't really know why this is done. The theory is that these bodies were Irish high kings who were sacrificed for a better harvest, because we had these little mini kingdoms in Ireland at that time in history. So I found all this fascinating and I was really interested. But, the dark crime writer's mind takes over and I thought, 'hmm, what would happen if we found a body? And at first glance, we thought this is another historical body. But almost as soon as you examine it, you go, oh, no, no, no. This happened much more recently'.'' Then she wondered who would do that, why, and why would they kill someone in that specific way. ''And then I had to write to answer that question.'' Fans of the series will be happy to know that McTiernan believes she does have more Cormac Reilly books in her to write. ''They're just not up next, and I don't know when I'll get to it, to be honest.'' McTiernan's next novel is already at the publishers for its first edit, and she hopes to get stuck into that when she returns from the book tour; but if it's not ready she will start her next one - a standalone story set in Melbourne, her first full-length Australian novel. ''Because what I have learned is that I am happiest when I'm writing. I do get tired sometimes. And my husband will say 'maybe you should take a break'. And then a week later, he'll say, 'I think the break's over'. Because I just get so cranky. And so I don't worry about the fact that I just like to work and I just get on with it, you know.'' These days she has a little study upstairs out of the hustle of family life where she retreats to and writes, mostly keeping office hours. She spends the morning writing and then afternoon doing the surprising amount of administration that comes with the job. McTiernan is looking forward to the rest of the year at home writing. ''I won't travel at all. It will just be at home with family every day, normal life, the normal rhythms and routine of life and writing every day. And it's my favourite, favourite thing. So I'm really looking forward to it.'' TO SEE ''An Evening in Crime'', Dervla McTiernan and New Zealand author Michael Bennett, Monday, May 12, 5.30pm, Beautiful Science Gallery, Tūhura Otago Museum.
News.com.au
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Dervla McTiernan on her chart-topping TV win – and why it ‘sucks for me' that she can't stand up to the tech giants' AI piracy
If you haven't yet heard of Dervla McTiernan, you soon will. She wrote Australia's top-selling crime fiction book last year – and was the fourth most-read adult fiction writer behind fellow Aussie literary powerhouses Liane Moriarty and Trent Dalton. Now McTiernan is poised to follow Moriarty and Dalton into screen domination, with her gripping mystery What Happened to Nina? being adapted for TV by the BAFTA-nominated makers of After the Party and The Secrets She Keeps. The story was influenced by recent high-profile murders of women by men with whom they were in relationships. It is more of a 'whydunit' than a whodunit; and Irish-born, Perth-based McTiernan is thrilled that both the story and its discussion of an important, confronting issue has reached so many readers. 'It doesn't often happen that you get to sit five weeks at number one,' she says. As it unfolds, What Happened to Nina? offers insights into the perspectives of the mothers of both the killer and the victim. McTiernan reveals she was driven to write it after swapping parenting stories with a friend. 'We didn't grow up with camera phones everywhere, with all this constant commentary online,' she says. 'She was like: 'What if my son screws up? What if he does something online, or makes an unwelcome move, or sticks up for a friend who makes an off-colour joke and it suddenly escalates?' And I was really taken aback by the conversation because I never really thought about that, because my son is 13 and my daughter's 15. We're not at that stage yet.' It's not the only element of the online world that has become concerning for McTiernan. Like many authors around the world, McTiernan is appalled to have discovered that her books are being replicated in the pirated online library LibGen, where they are used by tech giant Meta to train AI models. 'I am relatively small fry in comparison to some authors who have had 20 or 30 years' worth of work (taken), and then very small fry in comparison to the total, which is around 7.5 million books,' she sighs. 'There's nothing I can do as an individual writer about this. I don't have the resources to sue anybody. 'There are authors in the US who've put together resources (to take action against Meta). 'I hope they are successful. The reality is those cases will take years. They may not be won, because Meta and everybody else who falls into this category has almost endless resources to put against litigation.' A former lawyer, McTiernan believes the only solution is government regulation. 'If you were to say to me, 'Look, the work of these seven million books has been put to this tool, but it's going to only create amazing new drugs and solutions for people, and we all get to share the outcome of that and the financial reward,' to some degree I'd say: 'Okay, well, it sucks for me, but great for everybody.' 'But that's not what's going to happen. A handful of people, contextually speaking, are going to control these tools, the flow of wealth and the gap between rich and poor will widen exponentially over the next 10 to 20 years if nothing is done about this. People are going to lose their jobs.' And writing is a job that McTiernan holds dear. Especially as it has given her a lifeline in the darkest of times. After moving to Perth in 2011 for a fresh start after the Global Financial Crisis left her burnt out and strapped for cash, McTiernan's husband, Kenny, urged her to take another leap of faith into writing. So, while working part-time and juggling two small children, McTiernan began penning The Ruin; a mystery following Irish detective Cormac Reilly. It was also during this time, in a blur of sleep-deprivation and stress, that McTiernan was diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain tumour. She was given the shocking news less than an hour before a literary agent called expressing interest in The Ruin. After undergoing surgery and a gruelling recovery process, McTiernan distracted herself from the ordeal by focusing on getting her first story out into the world. ' The Ruin made it into Top 10, and then The Scholar made it into Top Five, and then The Good Turn went to Number One. And they've all been number one since then, and the readership just keeps growing. 'And I just feel incredibly lucky as this Irish woman in Western Australia that you guys let into the country and let me keep writing books.' That's why it feels especially meaningful for McTiernan to return to writing about the detective who launched her career and saw her through brain cancer – and who has become a firm fan favourite. Her new book, The Unquiet Grave, comes five years after the last in the Reilly series and after she felt she'd said goodbye to the dogged policeman. She hopes that being reunited with Cormac will be as rewarding for readers as it has been for her. 'Because that's what I feel when I pick up a book by one of my favourite writers that I've been waiting to read, and it's set in a place that I know with characters I love,' she says. 'I'm on the couch, the blanket over my legs, a cup of tea beside me, and it's just so comforting to get three or four hours in a place I want to be with characters I love.'
Perth Now
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Bestselling Perth author strikes again with new release
Irish-Australian author Dervla McTiernan is returning to her roots — not by moving back to Ireland, but by penning a return to her wildly popular Det-Sgt Cormac Reilly series, with pacey new thriller The Unquiet Grave out on Wednesday. The literary homecoming for the bestselling crime writer — who is based in Perth with her husband and two children — is a highly anticipated occasion for loyal readers who have been begging for a return to Cormac's gritty world. Set in the misty, windswept landscapes of Ireland, DS Reilly investigates a murder in the boglands of Galway. Irish bog bodies provide an extraordinary window into ancient Irish society and are among the best-preserved human remains that can date back to the Iron Age. McTiernan's modern take on this culturally rich slice of Irish history is a centrepiece of the book. 'I came across an article about bog bodies. It wasn't the first time I'd encountered this bit of Irish history,' McTiernan tells The West Australian of what first sparked the novel's concept. 'And the idea struck me — what would happen if a body was found with the exact same pattern of injuries in a very similar place? But its contemporary . . . a modern body. Someone has done this today.' As the novel unfolds, McTiernan delves into the effects of grief and the burden of unspoken pasts. The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan, $34.99, published by Harper Collins. Credit: Harper Collins As for the motivation behind creating her literary leading man the way she did, she says: 'For me, writing Cormac was initially a reaction to some of the crime fiction I was reading. 'I was getting a bit frustrated (to) come across yet another detective who's bemoaning the fact that his marriage is broken down, (or) that he'd lost his wife, or his wife had left him, but also that his 20-something-year-old daughter he had no relationship with . . . All I found myself doing was rolling my eyes.' Why? Because the men she knew 'weren't like that'. Consequnetly, McTiernan's stereotype-defying depiction of Det-Sgt Reilly quickly won the hearts of thousands of readers across the globe in previous books The Ruin (2018), The Scholar (2019) and The Good Turn (2020). 'I wanted to write a central character that I could really admire. I don't think it's that impressive if you solve the crime but you never pick your kids up from school,' she says. In the beginning of the Cork-born author's writing career, her sister gave her a firm word of advice. 'She said: 'You need to be careful that you don't start writing about the Ireland you knew, and not the Ireland of today',' she says. 'She was right then, and she's still right today.' To combat this, McTiernan visits her homeland often, noting the country is a 'politically and socially aware' destination that changes quickly. Her legal background, too, continues to shape her writing. Before turning her hand to writing, McTiernan spent 12 years as a commercial lawyer working on contracts with 300-400 pages, plus an appendix — all of which she would have to memorise. This process proved invaluable in her eventual shift to creating complex plot structures. 'You have to hold the map of the contract in your head and it trains your memory in a particular way. My books have quite complicated plots, and they have to weave back into each other in a way that feels seamless and natural to the reader,' she says. McTiernan has cemented herself as one of Australia's premier crime writers with six successful novels, two of which are in development for screen adaptation — The Murder Rule and What Happened To Nina? Which begs the question, if The Unquiet Grave were to be adapted for the screen, who would play her beloved Cormac? 'There's so many amazing Irish actors out there. I always think of Jamie Dornan in The Fall. He was so spectacular in that show and I know he was very dark, obviously, playing a serial killer, whereas Cormac is quite the opposite. But I could see (Dornan) playing the role in the sense of delivering Cormac in a nuanced way,' she says. The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan, $34.99, is published by Harper Collins on April 30.
