5 Minutes With … Dervla Mctiernan
THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR TALKS ABOUT TURNING HER NOVEL INTO A FILM WITH COLIN FARRELL
The Perth-based Irish writer’s first book, The Ruin, was published in 2018 and won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. It’s set to be made into a film starring Colin Farrell. Out this month, The Good Turn is Dervla’s third Detective Cormac Reilly mystery. She chats to New Idea about why she loves to read and write about crime.
What’s publication time like for you this time? Things will be fully crazy for a few weeks with events and interviews and visits every day, and then medium crazy for a month or two after that. I’ll enjoy every minute of it and then I’ll happily settle back down in my writer’s cave, stop dying my hair, and go back to work on my new story.
Tell us about The Good Turn
At the heart of the book is very young woman, Anna Collins. She’s a single mother and her little girl, Tilly, has stopped speaking. Social workers think she may have experienced some kind of trauma and when it looks like they may try to take Tilly away, Anna decides to run. Meanwhile, back in Galway, another young girl has been abducted. Detective Cormac Reilly and policeman Peter Fisher are desperate to track her down before it’s too late.
What draws you to writing about crime? Crime fiction is what I love to read. I write it because I think a novel should be a snapshot of the most important time in a character’s life. A serious crime, whether it’s a murder or something else, puts people under enormous pressure. That kind of pressure can destroy and reveal but it can also give people a chance to shine. There’s just so much scope to work with there as a writer.
What’s happening with the screen version of The Ruin?
Colin is very much still on board and I know the producers are working on finding the right screenwriter, so I’m excited to see what happens next!
Will you ever set one of your books in Australia or write a standalone?
I think it’s likely that I’ll write a standalone. There would be something so freeing about building an entirely new world with a new cast of characters and of course there are some stories that can only be told in particular settings. I had an idea recently for a story that would be set in Australia, but I’m not sure when I would get to write that one.
What are you working on now?
My next crime novel, which I’m right in the midst of. Probably like every other writer, I always think the thing I’m about to write is the best idea I’ve had. The ideas are always so exciting until you mess them up with the actual writing. Most recently I was on holiday, where by family agreement I was banned from writing anything except for a fantasy story I’m writing with my little girl. We’re having a lot of fun.