Murder Mondays: Dervla McTiernan

Dervla McTiernan, who won last year’s Davitt Award for Best Adult Novel plus a Neddie for her debut crime novel The Rúin (HarperCollins), is the second guest on the Sisters in Crime new video series, Murder Mondays, where talented women authors are interrogated by Karina Kilmore about the craft of crime.

The Irish-born Dervla now has two more novels in her Cormac Reilly series set in Galway – The Scholar and The Good Turn. Her books have been bestsellers in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Hugely acclaimed by critics and readers alike, the film rights for The Rúin were quickly snapped up by Hopscotch Features and Colin and Claudine Farrell’s company, Chapel Place Productions.

Dervla practised as a lawyer for twelve years in Ireland. Following the global financial crisis, she moved with her family to Perth. An avid fan of crime and detective novels from childhood, Dervla now writes full-time. She says that being shortlisted in the 2015 Scarlet Stiletto Awards gave her the impetus to complete five (!) drafts of The Rúin.

“In many ways my writing career started with the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto short story competition, so to have won the Davitt feels like coming full circle,” Dervla says.

“It was such a pleasure to catch up with the brilliant Karina Kilmore… and to answer her very tricky questions about all things crime writing!”

Upcoming Murder Mondays episodes will feature writers  Anne Buist and Katherine Kovacic and Candice Fox … more authors will be announced soon.

 Subscribe to our new YouTube channel so you don’t miss a thing! Videos available Mondays at 6pm.

Click HERE for Sue Turnbull’s review of The Good Turn. 

Click HERE for more about Dervla.