Short Story: ‘Tell Me Something About Your Wife’ by Karen Perry

Karen Perry – aka Karen Gillece and Paul Perry – had a short story published in the Irish Times this week, titled – ominously – ‘Tell Me Something About Your Wife’. You’ll find it here …
  Meanwhile, the fourth Karen Perry psychological thriller, CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? (Penguin), will be published next month. Quoth the blurb elves:

It’s been twenty years since Lindsey has seen her best friend Rachel
  Twenty years since she has set foot in Thornbury Hall – the now crumbling home of the Bagenal family – where they spent so much time as teenagers. Since Patrick Bagenal’s 18th birthday party, the night everything changed.
  It’s time for a reunion
  Patrick has decided on one last hurrah before closing the doors of his family home for good. All of the old crowd, back together for a weekend.
  For the secrets to come out
  It’s not long before secrets begin to float to the surface. Everything that Lindsey shared with her best friend at sixteen and everything that she didn’t.
  But some secrets should never be told. They need to be taken to the grave. While others require revenge at any cost.

  CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? will be published on August 26th. Karen Perry will be taking part in the ‘Dead in Dun Laoghaire’ crime fiction event on July 22nd. For a review of ONLY WE KNOW, clickety click here …

Coming Soon: GIRL UNKNOWN by Karen Perry

Crime writing partnership Karen Gillece and Paul Perry have established a terrific reputation for psychological thrillers with their first two novels, THE BOY THAT NEVER WAS and ONLY WE KNOW. Their third novel is GIRL UNKNOWN:

When Zoe Barry walks into Professor David Connolly’s office and announces that she is his daughter, he is left reeling. Suddenly his family - imperfect, flawed, but working - is trying to find space for someone new.
  But Zoe’s stories don’t quite add up and lies become indistinguishable from truths. The family struggle to make sense of whether she is a sister, a daughter, a friend, an enemy. But no one could have expected where it all might end.
  Because they have let into their home a girl that they do not know. And now everything they have built has begun to violently, determinedly, break apart.

  GIRL UNKNOWN will be published on June 2nd.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,063: Ronan O’Brien

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?
I have to say two books here but they’re by the same author: CARLITO’S WAY and AFTER HOURS, both of which I’m completely mad about. Believe it or not, they’re written by a Supreme Court judge named Edwin Torres who as far as I know, still practices as a judge in New York City. The gangster narrator in his books is so credible and vibrant, he just leaps off the page.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Biographies or anything that is not fiction. I feel that a writer has to read a lot of fiction in order to stir the fires of his own imagination. Writing without ever reading other people’s work is like flying a plane that has run out of fuel: you’ll probably be okay for a while but there’s a mountain looming and you need something in the tank in order to soar above it.
Most satisfying writing moment?
When I finally nailed the perfect ending for CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN ANGEL on my sixth attempt, after some dark days when I had serious anguish about whether a satisfying ending was even possible.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Something by John Connolly, possibly THE UNQUIET. My favourite one of his books is THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, although I wouldn’t call that a crime novel.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I haven’t read all that many Irish crime novels, to be honest. Karen Gillece’s book, LONGSHORE DRIFT, is about an abducted child, so if that qualifies as a crime novel, then I’ll nominate that one. I thought it was great.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing as far as I’m concerned is writing to finish a book in time for a tight deadline because then you don’t have time to explore tangents that might lead to something great, or might lead to nothing. But when time is of the essence, then you don’t have the luxury of getting it wrong a couple of times before finally getting it right. And if you’re a slow writer like I am, it means you have to get the basic plot pretty much spot on at the first attempt. But then I stop and listen to myself, and think that I really don’t have much to moan about. There is nothing hard about being a writer compared to say, someone who works in a coalmine, or someone who unblocks sewers for a living. The best thing about being a writer is hearing complete strangers say that my book moved them to tears.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
It’s about three very different people whose lives become intertwined: a magician, an artist and a solicitor and it will make you laugh and make you cry. Needless to say, the lawyer is the evil one.
Who are you reading right now?
Bret Easton Ellis. I just finished LUNAR PARK which was weird and wonderful, and I’ll probably read AMERICAN PSYCHO next.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Unmissable, unputdownable, unforgettable.

CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN ANGEL is Ronan O’Brien’s debut novel.