Murder One 2018: The Talent

 

MURDER ONE is a unique literary festival weekend: a fun, action packed weekend for lovers of crime and mystery in all its guises.

This is the list of the incredible authors who appeared at Murder One in 2018, our 2019 festival will be just as strong. Click here to join our mailing list to get up to date news and find out more!

The Authors (in alphabetical order)

Claire Allan is a former journalist from Derry in Northern Ireland. She has previously published eight women’s fiction novels, before switching genre. Her Name Was Rose, her debut psychological thriller was published in June 2018 by Avon, and became an instant bestseller. Her second thriller Apple of My Eye will be published in January.

Mark Billingham is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and popular crime writers. A former actor, television writer and stand-up comedian, his series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel Of The Year Award as well as the Sherlock Award for Best British Detective and been nominated for seven CWA Daggers. His standalone thriller IN THE DARK was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Times and his debut novel, SLEEPYHEAD was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade. Each of his novels has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.

A television series based on the Thorne novels was screened in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne and series based on the standalone thrillers IN THE DARK and RUSH OF BLOOD are currently in development with the BBC.

Professor Dame Sue Black is one of the world’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists. Her expertise has been crucial to many high-profile criminal cases, and in 1999 she was the lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team’s work in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo. She was one of the first forensic scientists to travel to Thailand following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 to provide assistance in identifying the dead. Sue is a familiar face in the media where documentaries have been filmed about her work and she led the highly successful BBC 2 series – History Cold Case. In 2015 she moved many to tears with her stories on Desert Island Discs and more recently she stunned over 300,000 Outlander followers when she announced that Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser, was not residing in a coffin built for him at the Wardlaw Mausoleum.
Sue was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to forensic anthropology.

Sam Blake is a pseudonym for Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, the founder of The Inkwell Group publishing consultancy , the national writing resources website Writing.ie, and the Murder One festival. She is Ireland’s leading literary scout. Vanessa has been writing fiction since her husband set sail across the Atlantic for eight weeks and she had an idea for a book.

Her debut novel Little Bones went straight into No 1 and stayed there for four weeks, spending another four weeks in the top 10, and was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year. It was followed by bestsellers In Deep Water and No Turning Back. Find out more at www.samblakebooks.com or follow her on Twitter @samblakebooks

 

Siobháin Bunni  was born in Baghdad in 1968 to her Irish mother and Iraqi father. Juggling her writing with raising three children while managing a full time career is the constant challenge that keeps her alive and on her toes. Siobháin lives in Malahide, Co. Dublin with her three children and a very cheeky Golden Retriever called Milo.

 

Declan Burke Declan Burke is the author of Eightball Boogie (2003), The Big O (2007), Absolute Zero Cool (2011), Slaughter’s Hound (2012), Crime Always Pays (2014) and The Lost and the Blind (2014). Absolute Zero Cool was shortlisted in the crime fiction section for the Irish Book Awards, and received the Goldsboro Award for Best Humorous Crime Novel in 2012. Slaughter’s Hound was shortlisted in the Crime Fiction category for the 2012 Irish Book Awards. Declan is also the editor of Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century (2011) and Trouble is Our Business (2016), and the co-editor, with John Connolly, of Books to Die For (2013). He blogs at Crime Always Pays.

Declan works as a freelance arts journalist, now contributing to the Irish Times, the Irish Examiner and RTE’s arts programme Arena. Declan is the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Writer in Residence, alongside Elizabeth Reapy

Andrea Carter studied law at Trinity College Dublin, then moved to the Inishowen peninsula in Co. Donegal where she ran the most northerly solicitors’ practice in the country. After ten years, she moved to Dublin to work as a barrister before turning to write crime novels, the most recent of which is Murder at Greysbridge. Her books are published by Little, Brown in the UK, Goldmann Verlag in Germany, Oceanview in the US and will be adapted for television next summer.

Jane Casey is the author of the award-winning, best-selling Maeve Kerrigan series. Married to a criminal barrister, she has a unique insight into the brutal underbelly of urban life. Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award for The Stranger You Know, Jane has been shortlisted four times for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award and longlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. The eighth Maeve Kerrigan novel, Cruel Acts, will be published by HarperCollins in April 2019.

Nicola Cassidy is a Drogheda based author and blogger. She worked as a journalist, political press officer and marketing manager, before turning her hand to novel writing. Her debut novel December Girl, an historical fiction novel set in the Boyne Valley, was published by Bombshell Books in 2017 and became a number one Amazon best seller in 2018.

Michael Connelly is the bestselling author of twenty-eight novels and one work of nonfiction. With over sixty million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into thirty-nine foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. A former newspaper reporter who worked the crime beat at the Los Angeles Times and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Connelly has won numerous awards for his journalism and his fiction. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit cinemas worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt, The Black Box, and The Drop. Michael is the executive producer of BOSCH, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character. He spends his time in California and Florida. Dark Sacred Night is out now.

Aidan Conway was born in Birmingham and has lived in Italy since 2001. He has been a barman, a bookseller, and a teacher, translator and editor for the UNFAO. He is currently an assistant university lecturer in Rome where he lives with his family. A Cold Flame is the second novel in his DI Michael Rossi series.

Robert Craven lives in Rush, County Dublin. After a journeyman period of switching and working with small and Indie presses, he re-released all the novels on Kobo and Amazon platforms: Get Lenin, Zinnman, A Finger of Night, and Hollow Point. Eagles Hunt Wolves is due January 2019. He’s also written a Steampunk novella, The Mandarin Cipher, and has two horror stories published in anthologies: A Communion of Blood  in ‘Broken Mirrors Fractured Minds’ (Vamptasy Press) and ‘Vodou’ in Red Rattle Book’s ‘Zombie Bites’. Follow him @cravenrobert

Sinéad Crowley is a journalist by day, crime writer by night. Arts and media correspondent with RTE News, she is the author of the DS Claire Boyle series, crime fiction set in Ireland. All three books in the series, Can Anybody Help Me, Are You Watching Me? and One Bad Turn were shortlisted for Crime Book of the Year awards at the BGE Irish book awards. Sinéad was also a contributor to ‘Trouble is our Business’, a collection of new Irish crime writing published by New Island in 2016 and is currently working on her fourth, stand-alone novel.

Sharon Dempsey’s crime debut Little Bird was released July 2017 with Bloodhound Books. She tutors at Queen’s University and Stranmillis College and has published three health books. She also writes contemporary women’s fiction. Sharon is working on the follow up to Little Bird and a collection of dark short stories.

Shane Dunphy (also writing as S.A. Dunphy) is the million-selling author of twelve books. His series of non-fiction titles, relating the years he spent as a child protection worker, have been sold in translation across several territories, while his series of crime novels featuring the emotionally scarred criminologist, David Dunnigan, have been widely acclaimed.

Tanya Farrelly is the author of three books: a short fiction collection When Black Dogs Sing (Kate O’ Brien Award 2017), and two psychological thrillers: The Girl Behind the Lens and When Your Eyes Close. She holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Bangor University, Wales, and teaches at the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin.

Derek Flynn is a writer and musician with a Masters in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin. The author of two crime/thriller novels – Broken Falls and The Dead Girls – he was also featured in Surge, an anthology of new Irish writing published by O’ Brien Press. He is a regular contributor to “Writing.ie”.

Patricia Gibney’s debut novel, The Missing Ones, was published by London based digital publisher, Bookouture, in March 2017 and since then three further books in the Detective Lottie Parker series have been published, achieving over one million sales in just fourteen months. Her books, already in audio format, are now being published in paperback by Little Brown UK. Foreign translations have sold to Norway, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Taiwan and China. Tell Nobody is the latest in the series and out in digital now. Patricia lives in Mullingar.

Robert Goddard was born in Hampshire and read History at Cambridge. His first novel,Past Caring, was an instant bestseller. Since then his books have captivated readers worldwide with their edge-of-the-seat pace and their labyrinthine plotting. The first Harry Barnett novel, Into the Blue, was winner of the first WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award and was dramatized for TV, starring John Thaw. His thriller, Long Time Coming won an Edgar in the Mystery Writers of America awards. Robert’s most recent books feature hero James ‘Max’ Maxted.

Mick Herron’s first Jackson Lamb novel, Slow Horses, was described as the ‘most enjoyable British spy novel in years’ by the Mail on Sunday and picked as one of the best twenty spy novels of all time’ by the Daily Telegraph. The second, Dead Lions, won the 2013 CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger. The third, Real Tigers, was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and both the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. The fourth, Spook Street, was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger and won the Steel Dagger. London Rules is the fifth. Mick Herron was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.

Maria Hoey’s short story, Reading Brother Boniface, was shortlisted for the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award. Her debut novel, The Last Lost Girl, was published in July 2016 and has gone on to be shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Debut Award 2018 and the Annie McHale Debut Award 2018. Her second novel, On Bone Bridge, was published in July. Maria lives in Portmarnock.

Cat Hogan is an Irish Times Best seller and BGE Irish Book Awards nominated author who lives by the sea in Co.Wexford with her partner and two sons. When she’s not writing crime fiction, she lectures in Adult Education and Literacy. Cat is represented by Curtis Brown and a panellist with Co. Wexford Arts department.

Declan Hughes co-founded Dublin’s Rough Magic Theatre Company; his first novel, The Wrong Kind of Blood won the Shamus Award for Best First PI novel and the Le Point magazine prize for best European crime novel. Subsequent novels include The Colour of Blood; The Dying Breed; All The Dead Voices and City of Lost Girls. His books have been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, Theakstons, CWA New Blood Dagger and Irish Book awards. His latest novel is All The Things You Are. Declan lives in Dublin.

Arlene Hunt is an author of ten novels and co-founder of Portnoy Publishing. She is currently working on a new series, the first to be published early 2019. Her last novel was released in May 2018, entitled The Last Goodbye. She lives in Dublin with her husband and can usually be found half way up a mountain with two German Shepherds.

Peter James is an international bestselling thriller writer. He is a New York Times bestseller, as well as having 11 consecutive Sunday Times No 1s, and he is published in 37 languages. His DS Roy Grace crime novels have sold 18 million copies worldwide. Prior to becoming a full-time author, he was responsible for 25 movies. In 1994 Penguin published his novel, Host, on two floppy discs as the world’s first electronic novel. His novels have won numerous awards, most recently the coveted 2016 CWA Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence, and he was publicly voted by WH Smith – Britain’s biggest book selling chain – The Best Crime Author Of All Time. Visit Peter James on YouTube: www.peterjames.com/youtube

Lisa Jewell wrote her first book when she was twenty-seven and had just been made redundant from her job as a secretary. Inspired by Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, a book about young people just like her who lived in London, she wrote the first three chapters of what was to become her first novel, Ralph’s Party. It went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 1998.  Fourteen bestselling novels later and a move to crime has opened up a whole new world.  Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

Olivia Kiernan is an Irish writer living in the UK and author of crime thriller, Too Close to Breathe. She was born and raised in County Meath, near the famed heritage town of Kells and holds an MA in Creative Writing awarded by the University of Sussex. Website: www.oliviakiernan.com

Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National Theatre and RDC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing – and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series WIDOWS, that has been adapted for film this year. Directed by Steve McQueen from a screenplay by McQueen and Gillian Flynn WIDOWS features Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson, and is released by 20th Century Fox on November 16 2018

Lynda’s novels have all been international bestsellers. Her original script for the much-acclaimed PRIME SUSPECT won awards from BAFTA, Emmys, British Broadcasting and Royal Television Society as well as the 1993 Edgar Allan Poe Writer’s Award.  Since 1993 Lynda has spearheaded La Plante Productions. In that time the company has produced a stunning slate of innovative dramas with proven success and enduring international appeal. Based on Lynda’s best selling series of Anna Travis novels, Above Suspicion, Silent Scream, Deadly Intent and Silent Scream have all adapted into TV scripts.

Lynda has been made honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Writer’s Award 2000, and in 2008 Lynda was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List (Writer and Producer for services to Literature, Drama and to Charity).

Her latest book, Murder Mile is out now.

Visit www.lyndalaplante.com for further information. You can also follow Lynda on Facebook and Twitter.

Sheena Lambert grew up in County Dublin, where she worked as an environmental engineer before becoming a full-time writer. Her stories, novels and screenplays have been shortlisted in a number of prestigious UK competitions. The Lake, was published by HarperCollins and she is represented by Laetitia Rutherford at Watson, Little.

Ali Land: After graduating from university with a degree in Mental Health, Ali spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nurse in both hospitals and schools in the UK and Australia. Ali’s debut novel Good Me Bad Me is a Sunday Times and international bestseller and translated into twenty-four languages. It was short-listed twice for Dead Good Reader Awards, the Crime Writers Association John Creasey New Blood Dagger, and won Book Of The Year at Heat magazine Unmissables Awards. It’s also a New York Times Editors choice and a Richard and Judy book club pick. Ali is now a full-time writer and lives in London. She is currently working on her second novel.

Clare Mackintosh spent twelve years in the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. She left the police in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant and is the founder of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival. She now writes full time and lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children. Clare’s debut novel, I Let You Go, was a Sunday Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It was selected for both the Richard and Judy Book Club (and was the winning title of the readers’ vote for the summer 2015 selection) and for ITV’s Loose Women’s Loose Books. It is a New York Times bestseller, with translation rights sold to more than 30 countries.

Andrea Mara is a freelance writer, author, and blogger. She writes features for Irish newspapers, and has won a number of awards for blogging on OfficeMum.ie.

Her first book, The Other Side of the Wall, was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien award in 2018. Her second book, One Click, is out now.

Niamh McBrannan was a nominee in the ‘No Exit Press’ 2015 short story competition. Her debut novel, The Devil Looks After His Own (Arlen House, 2018) is the first book in the gritty, Dublin-based Silver Bullet series. An extract from the forthcoming sequel, The Devil’s Own Job is published in Writing the Future, the Hodges Figgis 250th anniversary anthology.

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She divides her time between Northumberland and Cheshire

Paul McNeive’s debut thriller The Manhattan Project was published in May in the UK and Ireland, making the Irish bestseller list. Various foreign rights have also been sold. Paul is a motivational speaker and journalist. His autobiographical non-fiction book, “Small Steps,” is also a bestseller.

Helen Moorhouse is the author of The Dead Summer (2011), The Dark Water (2012), Sing Me To Sleep (2013) and Ever This Day (2017). As well as writing fiction, she works as a freelance voiceover artist and copywriter. Her interests include reading, TV, cinema, walking and things that go bump in the night. Originally from Co. Laois, she lives in Dublin with her family. For more, see www.helenmoorhouse.com

Bernice M. Murphy is lecturer in Popular Literature in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin, and a Fellow of the college. She is co-director of the M.Phil in Popular Literature and has published extensively on topics related to popular literature, especially horror and Gothic fiction and film. Her books include The Rural Gothic: Backwoods Horror and Terror in the Wilderness (2013), The Highway Horror Film (2014), Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction (2017), and, with, Stephen Matterson, the edited collection Twenty-First Century Popular Fiction (2018). She is the co-founder of the online Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies and is a founding member of the recently established Irish Network for Gothic Studies (INGS).

Liz Nugent worked in Irish film, theatre and television before becoming a fulltime novelist. In 2014 her first novel, Unravelling Oliver, was a Number One bestseller and won the Crime Fiction Prize in the 2014 Irish Book Awards. Her second novel, Lying in Wait, went straight to Number One in the Irish bestseller charts, remained there for nearly two months and won her a second IBA. Skin Deep is her third bestseller. She lives in Dublin with her husband.

Laurence O’Bryan had three crime/mystery novels published by Harper Collins. He has been published in 10 languages and has won awards for his writing. He recently self-published two further novels in the puzzle series. He is on the committee of the Irish Writers Union and founded the Dublin Writers Conference.

Niamh O’Connor is a crime journalist and best-selling author of true crime and crime fiction. She has been nominated three times for an Irish Book Award and studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. She is represented by Jane Gregory at the David Higham agency.

Cormac O’Keeffe is the security correspondent of the Irish Examiner, where he has covered crime, policing, drugs, justice, terrorism and legal issues since 2000. Black Water is his debut crime novel and tells the tale of a young boy groomed into a criminal gang and the fight to save him.

Nessa O’Mahony is a Dublin-born writer. She has published four books of poetry and is a recipient of two literature bursaries from the Arts Council. She was Writer Fellow at the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies in UCD in 2008/09. She produces and presents a monthly podcast for writers called The Attic Sessions. The Branchman (Arlen House 2018) is her debut crime novel.

Adele O’Neill is published with Aria Fiction, an imprint of Head of Zeus. Her debut, Brothers and Sisters, a number one bestseller on Amazon was awarded The Annie McHale Debut Novel Award 2017 and her second novel, Behind a Closed Door was also a number one Amazon bestseller. When The Time Comes, is due for release in 2019

Julie Parsons’ most recent thriller, The Therapy House, won the Crime Fiction Book of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards, 2017. She has been a full-time writer since 1998 when her first novel Mary, Mary was published to critical and commercial success. It was translated into 17 languages and published in the US. Her subsequent novels were The Courtship Gift, Eager to Please, The Guilty Heart, The Hourglass and I Saw You. Julie is currently a columnist with the Irish Times. Her column, ‘In Praise of Older Books’ appears weekly in The Ticket.

Karen Perry is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Closest Friend, Can You Keep A Secret?, Girl Unknown, Only We Know and The Boy That Never Was, which was selected for the Simon Mayo BBC Radio 2 Book Club. Her books have been translated into several European languages, and have been optioned for both film and television. She lives in Dublin with her family.

Anthony J Quinn is the author of eight novels, including Undertow, which was published in June. His  debut novel Disappeared was a Daily Mail Crime Novel of the Year, and was shortlisted for a Strand Literary Award in the US. It was also picked by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top ten thrillers of the year, and by the Sunday Times as one of the best books of the year.

Alex Reeve is a university lecturer, intermittently working on his PhD. The House on Half Moon Street is his debut novel, and the first in a series of books featuring Leo Stanhope.

Catherine Ryan Howard is from Cork, Ireland and now lives in Dublin. Her debut novel, DISTRESS SIGNALS, was an Irish Times and USA Today bestseller, shortlisted for both the IBA Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA John Creasey/New Blood Dagger Award, and was optioned for TV by Jet Stone Media. Her second novel, THE LIAR’S GIRL, was released in 2018. Catherine has just completed a BA in English Literature at Trinity College Dublin as a mature student and is currently working on her third novel.

William Ryan is the author of five novels, including the Captain Korolev series set in 1930s Moscow. They have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the CWA’s Steel, Historical and New Blood Daggers, the Irish Fiction Award and the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year, as well as published in 18 jurisdictions. Writing as WC Ryan, his latest novel, A House of Ghosts, has been described by Liz Nugent as ‘almost unbearably creepy and beautifully written’.

Jo Spain is the author of No. 1 Bestseller The Confession and the international bestselling DCI Tom Reynolds series. A Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller finalist, Jo’s books have sold in over 13 countries. Jo writes for TV and has co-written new Irish crime drama Taken Down for RTE. Her Reynolds series has also been optioned for TV. She lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.

Sharon Thompson’s debut crime novel The Abandoned launched as a Number 1 bestseller on Amazon kindle. Sharon writes crime fiction, short stories and commercial fiction. Sharon’s short stories have been published in various on-line magazines. www.Indulgeinwriting.com is her new online writing group. She is a regular contributor to Donegal Woman with her Woman’s Words column. Indulgeme.ie features her short-list of Irish, monthly, book releases at #indulgeinbooks. Sharon co-founded the trending, writing tweet-chat, called #WritersWise.

Simon Trewin is a Partner in the global entertainment agency WME. He has been an agent for over twenty years and is a three time nominee for the Bookseller Industry Awards Literary Agent of the Year. Trewin began his career in the theatre and moved to the world of literary agenting 25 years ago and has worked with a string of internationally bestselling authors who have, between them, either been nominated or have won the Man Booker, the Baileys, the Costa, the CWA Daggers, the Irish Book Awards and the IMPAC. Simon represents a number of crime and thriller writers including Robert Goddard, Alex Barclay, Luke Delaney, A A Dhand, Jake Woodhouse and Sam Blake. Simon Trewin is always on the look out for new talent in this area and he also has a particular affinity for the Irish market – representing, as he does, John Boyne, Mary Costello, Alex Barclay, Paul Lynch, Claire Kilroy, John Connell, Sarah Griffin and Sam Blake.

Ruth Ware is an international number one bestseller. Her thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game and The Death of Mrs Westaway have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the Sunday Times and New York Times, and she is published in more than 40 languages. Ruth lives near Brighton with her family. Visit www.ruthware.com to find out more, or find her on facebook or twitter as @RuthWareWriter

 

 

 

 

 

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