Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Right Kind Of BLOOD

Another week, another Irish crime fiction writer. Sunday World crime correspondent Niamh O’Connor’s best-selling non-fiction book THE BLACK WIDOW goes out in paperback next month, with an update on the story of ‘the life and crimes of Catherine Nevin’, but a little birdie cheep-a-cheep-cheeps to the effect that Niamh will be publishing her first crime fiction opus next year, when IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN arrives courtesy of Transworld Ireland. No details as to plot et al just yet, but I’m hearing rumours of Lynda LaPlante-style shenanigans. I’ll keep you posted …
  As if that wasn’t enough, Niamh has another non-fiction true crime book arriving later this year, when BLOOD TIES hits the streets.
  I was on a panel with Niamh a couple of months ago, alongside the über-glam* Alex Barclay, so I got in touch with Niamh earlier in the week, to see if I couldn’t pick her brains about a character I’m working on in a new story. She was incredibly helpful. “Anything you want to know,” she said, “just ask.” So I said, “Okay, my character is radiantly gorgeous. How does a girl manage to pull that off and be brilliant at the same time?”
  It was all downhill from there, really …

* (that umlaut’s for you, Ms Witch)

1 comment:

Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.