Tell me about your new novel, The Close.
After a man’s body is found in a derelict house, DS Maeve Kerrigan goes undercover, posing as a couple with DI Josh Derwent in a small suburban cul-de-sac that hides some unexpected dark secrets.
It’s your 10th Maeve Kerrigan novel. What makes for a successful series character?
There are two kinds of series characters: those who are basically the same in every book and those who are altered by their experiences. Maeve is the second kind, and she’s been through a lot. I think readers just want her to be happy now.
How important is it that she is London Irish?
It’s very important to me that she has an Irish background as it’s so different from English culture. It makes her an outsider, which is ideal for my purposes as a novelist, and also means she’s a better detective. I like to let Maeve deal with people who make Irish jokes. She says the things that I’m too shy to mutter.
How would you describe the relationship between Kerrigan and her colleague, Josh Derwent? And what is your favourite other pair of detectives?
Maeve and Josh started out not seeing eye to eye but over time they’ve developed a close friendship and professional partnership. He’s still quite hard on her. Being away from their real lives in The Close forces Maeve to confront her feelings for him, which was a joy to write.
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Dorothy L Sayers’s Strong Poison introduces Harriet Vane, a crime writer accused of murder. Lord Peter Wimsey is determined to get her acquitted. Their relationship over four books is stormy but fascinating – Sayers was very aware of how women lost out in conventional 1930s life.
You’ve moved from Dublin to London to Dublin and back again. How would you compare the two cities?
Dublin is still home; I just happen to spend most of my life in London. I miss Dublin. It’s very easy to idealise a city when you don’t live there, but I try to see Dublin as it is. It has a unique spirit and character. London is the sort of place where anything could happen – I appreciate that as a novelist. Sadly, I think Brexit damaged its reputation and atmosphere.
You started off as an editor of YA fiction and also have a YA series, featuring Jess Tennant. Tell me about it. Is it a field you’d like to return to?
I loved writing crime novels centred on Jess, a newcomer in the small coastal town where her mother grew up. My sons would be mortified if I wrote a book aimed at their age group now, so I might have to wait until they’re grown up to return to it. It’s the most innovative and fast-moving part of publishing and I miss my editorial past.
What projects are you working on?
I’m an executive producer of the TV adaptation of my novel The Killing Kind, which is being filmed at the moment. I’m finishing the 11th Maeve book and planning a novel set in Dublin. I’m only bearable when I’m writing, so I write a lot.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I’ve visited Agatha Christie’s house in Devon, the setting for some of her best country house novels. I kept looking for corpses in the shrubbery.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Finish whatever you start. Everyone has a moment halfway through a creative project where they think they should give up – but don’t!
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
I would ban self-checkout machines.
What current book, film, TV show and podcast would you recommend?
I’m excited to read Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. I’ve been watching the brilliant Bad Sisters on Apple TV and I just listened to Death of an Artist about the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta who died tragically and mysteriously.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
A wildlife reserve in the Klein Karoo in South Africa. I’ve never felt closer to the stars.
Your most treasured possession?
The silver medal I got for my Leaving Cert English exam. It was presented by Seamus Heaney.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
A catalogue of 19-century Russian landscape paintings from an exhibition I saw in 2004.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I’d have all my crime-writing friends; we’d need a big table and it would go on until breakfast.
The best and worst things about where you live?
There’s a lovely community spirit where I live in London; I always bump into people I know when I leave the house. That’s the worst thing too. I’m always caught when I go out with deadline hair and hollow eyes.
What is your favourite quotation?
The whole of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats. “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore” is such an evocative line.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie.
A book to make me laugh.
Marian Keyes is the gold standard for this. Her books are a delight.
A book that might move me to tears.
The first book that ever made me cry was Charlotte’s Web and I’ve never forgotten my grief – but I read it again the next day.
The Close is published by HarperCollins
