Michelle McDonagh, Andrea Mara and Amanda Cassidy have more in common than being acclaimed crime writers. As well as crafting dark domestic dramas for a living, they are former journalists and mothers, and each author brings a unique perspective to the increasingly popular genre. Michelle, who lives in Blarney, writes so-called ‘rural noir,’ with her novels, There’s Something I Have to Tell You and Somebody Knows set in the Irish countryside usually with long-buried family secrets.
Andrea, from Dublin, leans into urban settings for many of her bestsellers, including the chart-topping No One Saw a Thing and her recent book Someone in the Attic. Amanda tends to draw from her experience as a travel journalist. Breaking was set in Florida and her latest thriller The Perfect Place takes place in the South of France.
The trio sit down together to chat about everything from social media to writing inspiration. On writing Michelle: I always wanted to write, but I just talked about it for years and never actually did anything about it. Then suddenly, 50 was looming and I decided, during lockdown, to do a Faber online course about how to write your first novel.
I think you had to do 10,000 words, but I ended up writing 30,000 and that was the first book; There’s Something I Have to Tell You . Amanda: But was the idea percolating for a while? Michelle: Yes. But I found it hard to know what do to with the idea.
I’d started so many books and I’d get a quarter of the way throug.