Dervla McTiernan

So that book had enormous influence on my writing.

And that's sort of what you did.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was very useful and helpful, for sure.

What else?

Tana French is somebody else who's had a huge influence.

I'll never forget reading her book, In the Woods, I think is the title of the first one.

And it's years now since I've read it, but I still remember...

particular characters and moments between characters and reveals and twists.

And I think it was such a character driven novel.

I was probably reading quite a bit of crime at the time, but maybe a lot of procedural, whereas this was entirely character driven.

And it just opened up my eyes to

you know, the possibilities of what you could do, that there were no rules really in the kind of way you could approach crime fiction.

I there's no answer, but I think it I think it has to start with character, because if you don't feel anything for the character, it becomes one of those interesting puzzle books that you read and you enjoy.

But then you put down and you can immediately forget everything about them.

And that's not a very satisfying read for me.

Whereas if you can get someone to feel something for the character and then put them through the plot and the stakes and the ringer, then they're engaged.

And that's the book that it's 10 o'clock and you're looking at your watch going, oh,

I've got work tomorrow, but I'll just read one more chapter.