Poolbeg Crimson: Irish Crime Fiction in the Past and Present
Malahide Library, Co. Dublin
Wed 23 Oct 2019 6PM
In preparation for this week's Crimson Crime Event, I have a little exclusive for Bleach House Library followers. Each of the featured Crimson Crime authors have shared nuggets of their writing process and what it is like to write Contemporary Crime vs. Historical Crime Fiction. Come along to Malahide Library on Wednesday 23rd October to hear more from Andrea Mara, Nicola Cassidy, Jane Ryan and Maria Hoey. Free event and, having hosted Crimson Crime before, I can guarantee a lot of laughs.
Andrea Mara on writing Contemporary Crime

However, you can flip that on its
head - for every element of plot that becomes more challenging in the digital
age, there's another that becomes more interesting. There's an ever-widening
scope of storylines linked to smart phones, social media, and the
internet. Characters can spy on one another
using apps and in-built cameras. They can record calls and conversations. They
can catch each other out by checking fitness tracker routes - wearable fitness
devices have even been used in real life cases to break alibis. Characters can
set up fake social media accounts or have two on the go at the same time to
keep foes (and readers) guessing.
In my book, One Click, the main character, Lauren, does
what many Instagram users do – she posts a photo of a crowded beach scene. Only
there's a woman in the photo, one who is identifiable to an anonymous troll who
begins sending increasingly threatening messages. Lauren has no idea why the sender
is so interested in the woman on the beach - she deletes the photo but of
course as we all know, you can't ever really delete anything from the
internet! ‘
Nicola Cassidy on writing Historical Crime Fiction

I’ve always been fascinated by the
19th century. Our parents liked to bring us to visit old houses and
historic sites, and I think that’s where the interest began. I loved the
fashion, the toys, the upstairs, downstairs effect – I’ve been living Downton
Abbey in my head since about the age of eight!
“Setting a crime story in late 19th
century Ireland was natural for me, as I’m so familiar with the time period. If
you think about books like Sherlock Holmes, you can see how detective work as
know it nowadays was just beginning. Chemical testing and crime scene
photography were introduced. We still remember great crimes from the 19th
century, like Jack the Ripper. The Nanny at Number 43, was inspired by 19th century serial killers
Mary Ann Cotton, known as The Black Widow, who murdered her husbands and their
children for the inheritance and Amelia Dyer, who was a prolific baby killer,
thought to have done away with hundreds of small babies.
“My book covers elements of all
these crimes. The research was fascinating, although a little macabre. I
studied books on various 19th century crimes, learning about police
procedures of the time, how autopsies worked, how coroners worked and the
effects of various types of poisoning. I wanted to explore what could possibly
drive these women to do the things they did.’
Jane Ryan on writing Contemporary Crime

In my opinion the detective novel
is the pinnacle of this, you can bring the reader on a journey – I would always
differentiate between plot and story – plot being the way the writer presents
the story to the reader and story being the journey you are bringing your
characters on. One of the reasons I enjoy police procedurals is that you have
one central character, in my case Detective Garda Bridget Harney, that can be
developed novel by novel. This allows events to have to your character in
parallel, like life, rather than sequentially which can feel staged and could
keep a character superficial.
Modern police procedurals tend to
hang fiction on a skeleton of fact, this is another area of huge interest to
me, actual policing work. My main character is based in the Drugs and Organised
Crime Bureau in Dublin and AGS are a complex and fascinating organisation – for
me at least – I have a passion for research and have delved into policing
strategies in many forces, the London Met, AGS, the West Midlands, complete
with the myriad of information put out by the EU on drug trafficking and
organised crime. In an age of social media, camera phones and the human desire
to catalogue our lives working as a police officer has never been so challenging.
I try to bake in some of this conflict into the life of my character.’
Maria Hoey on writing Historical Crime Fiction

To a certain extent, and I admit
it, there is a freedom about writing crimes of the past – a freedom from the
restraints imposed by technology, mobile phones, social media etc. Crimes were
crimes then and detection was a different ballgame.
But mostly, I suspect, it is down
to my love of writing child characters and then following them through to
adulthood where the shadow of their past sins (whether big or small) finally
catch them up. Because I like to write ‘bad’ children or children who
might be perceived as such. The subject of child killers, by which I mean
children who kill, has always fascinated me. I want to know why? I want
to know how it gets to that point. I want to know – are they intrinsically bad
or were they (and if so, at what point) themselves failed?
But, in all my books, I move
between a past setting to a contemporary one. I suppose I find a joy and a
challenge in interweaving those timelines and, as it were, seeing my characters
through to maturity. Seeing what life has done to them, if you like. I
like to watch them change and develop, I am fascinated to see whether their
badness is ingrained or if there is a possibility of redemption.
And ultimately, such is the mystery
of writing anyway, it is my characters who lead me and not the other way
around, and so far, invariably, they have led me into the shadowy, intriguing,
inescapable past.’
Poolbeg Crimson titles are available in all good bookshops and on poolbeg.com