Oliver’s Twist

An Irish crime fiction debut to watch for this year is Liz Nugent’s UNRAVELLING OLIVER (Penguin Ireland), which is billed as ‘a gripping novel of psychological suspense’. Quoth the blurb elves:

‘I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.’
  Oliver Ryan is a handsome and charismatic success story. He lives in the leafy suburbs with his wife, Alice, who illustrates his award-winning children’s books and gives him her unstinting devotion. Their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease - enviable until, one evening after supper, Oliver attacks Alice and puts her into a coma.
  In the aftermath, as everyone tries to make sense of his astonishing act of savagery, Oliver tells his story. So do those whose paths he has crossed over five decades. What unfolds is a story of shame, envy, breath-taking deception and masterful manipulation.
  Only Oliver knows the lengths to which he has had to go to get the life to which he felt entitled. But even he is in for a shock when the past catches up with him.
  Liz Nugent’s gripping novel of psychological suspense, UNRAVELLING OLIVER, is a complex and elegant study of the making of a sociopath in the tradition of Barbara Vine and Patricia Highsmith.

  UNRAVELLING OLIVER arrives in early March. For all the details, clickety-click here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Deborah Lawrenson

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects …

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
A FATAL INVERSION by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell).

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Charlotte Gray, eponymous heroine of Sebastian Faulks’ wartime novel, for sheer bravery and guts, with a yearly sabbatical as Daisy in THE GREAT GATSBY: how utterly relaxing to be that shallow and careless of others while remaining adored …

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Not who but what: arty picture books of houses in the South of France.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Selling the rights to my fourth novel THE ART OF FALLING to Random House after having published it myself ten months earlier.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE STATEMENT by Brian Moore. Hope that counts. I love the way he writes sparingly yet lyrically, as tension builds.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Well, genuinely, I’d like to see THE BIG O make it. With Billy Bob Thornton as Frank.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst: sitting at my desk and realising I’d be better off on a ten-mile run before sad case of Writer’s Bottom becomes irreversible. Best: sitting at my desk for hours playing around with words.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A cycle of interlinked stories set in Provence, exploring themes of age and experience, youth and innocence, reality and imagination - and a cold murder investigation.

Who are you reading right now?
THE LEVANT TRILOGY by Olivia Manning, alongside the biography of Olivia Manning by Neville and June Braybrooke.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Reading – without hesitation.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Evocative, sensuous and derriere-enlarging.

Deborah Lawrenson’s SONGS OF BLUE AND GOLD is published by Arrow Books.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Julie Parsons

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
There are actually three – A FATAL INVERSION by Ruth Rendell / Barbara Vine – amazing plot and wonderful atmosphere; THE SHINING by Stephen King, not so much a plot more a way of death; and THE BUTCHER BOY by Patrick McCabe, which doesn’t usually figure in crime fiction lists, but does it for me in horror, sadness and a meditation on loss and pain.
What fictional character would you most like to have been?
When I was a kid I was crazy about the books by the American writer, Mary O’Hara. So I would have loved to have been Ken McLaughlin, who grew up on a horse ranch in the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. For pleasure I read anything by Martin Amis, Nadine Gordimer, Philip Roth and J.M Coetzee.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Writing the synopsis for my first book, MARY, MARY, and knowing, even before I sent it to Treasa Coady of TownHouse, that I had a winner.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
You know, I don’t read crime novels since I started writing them … terrified I’d be so put off by their brilliance and never write another word. Best Irish novel? THE BUTCHER BOY [by Patrick McCabe] for the above reasons.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
For the above reason, I can’t really say, but three of my books – MARY, MARY, THE COURTSHIP GIFT and EAGER TO PLEASE – have all been optioned for film and TV and I think they’d all be great - with the right writer, director, cast of course.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best is being on your own in complete control of your own world, and the worst is pretty much the same.
The pitch for your next book is …?
The next book is a high-concept, international DAY OF THE JACKAL-type thriller – the inhabitants of an island off the southwest coast of Ireland discover when the last ferry of the day has left, that they are NOT on their own.
Who are you reading right now?
I’m reading HUMAN SMOKE by Nicholson Baker, which tells in extracts from newspapers, letters and biographies of the build-up in the late 1930s and early 1940s to the Final Solution. Stunning and terrifying.
God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
I don’t believe in God, but if I did the God I would believe in would never make such a demand. Because that God would know that to be a writer, you have to be a reader …
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Powerful, vivid, unforgettable.

Julie Parsons’ I SAW YOU has just been published in paperback by Pan Books