An Interview with Marie Tierney

And don’t forget to cast your vote to decide who will take home the UK and Ireland’s most coveted crime fiction writing award.

Tell us your story – when and how did you start writing fiction?

I started writing fiction as soon as I learned to read and write which was really early – my father taught me to read and write about three-years-old. This is why I hold my pen in a distinctive way as I was never taught the ‘proper’ way! I loved stories being read to me, and as soon as I could read, I loved reading as many different genres as I could. Writing my own stories quickly became an extension of that.

We’ve heard of some unusual writing habits over the years, what would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

I can draw very quickly (years of teaching art to teenagers in busy classrooms!), and I sketch scenes in longhand notebooks. This helps with description. I also write dialogue scripts to make sure it sounds natural, and I read them aloud in the different voices!

What’s the one line or paragraph you’re most proud of in your shortlisted book?

I’ve quite a few favourites but one of the lines I’m most proud of is: ‘To Ava, the raindrops resembled glass beads thrown against the window, a multifaceted view through each globule, like a fly’s compound eye.’

Let’s say you’re going rogue: which crime fiction villain would you most enjoy being (just for research, of course)?

Hannibal Lecter because he isn’t always a villain.

Which writers have influenced your own writing the most?

The writers who have influenced my writing the most are: Margaret Atwood, Thomas Harris, Stephen King, Lynda la Plante, William Golding, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

You’re cast in a gritty crime drama. Are you the detective, suspect or the wildcard witness?

The wildcard witness! Someone who seems quiet and unassuming, watching human behaviour and keeping secrets until she unleashes the truth!

What book would you always recommend to someone who “doesn’t usually read crime”?

I would recommend Mr Mercedes by Stephen King – easily one of the best cat-and-mouse crime fiction novels of the past twenty years.

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

I’ve read many great books recently but my favourite was The Missing by Tim Gautreaux. It’s set in New Orleans and Mississippi’s rural areas at the dawn of the Jazz Age and it is about a man who is determined to find a child who was abducted on his watch at a department store. I read it while I was in New Orleans, and it recreates that incredible city, era and state so well that real time and the past meshed as one. After this book, I read all of Gautreaux’s work. It’s beautiful, vivid and very human.