Dervla’s A Thriller Killer

BY LLOYD GORMAN

Perhaps the most famous lawyer in Perth today is no longer at the Bar, but the world of crime still looms large for this individual. Crime Queen Dervla McTiernan Image: Twitter @abbeysbookshop Dervla McTiernan studied corporate law was also freeing. We got to start again and this time in University College Galway and went on to become we threw out the rulebook. Our little boy was born a solicitor, training in Dublin. She returned to five weeks after we arrived in Australia, so I didn’t Oranmore, Galway to start her own practice which she work straight away. When I did go back to work I was built up over 12 years. Her practice, and her husband’s determined that I wouldn’t practice law again. I found engineering work, were devastated by the economic part-time job and started writing at night, when the crash in Ireland, and the couple came to Perth in work was done and the kids were in bed.” 2011 where she got a job with the Mental Health Commission. The move changed everything for her. “I don’t think I would be a writer today, and I wouldn’t have a book deal if I had stayed in Ireland,” she admits. “I studied law at university, and though I knew from day one that it wasn’t right for me I stuck it out through two degrees, law school, my apprenticeship and almost twelve years in practice. It wasn’t all bad, While she had always dabbled with writing, in 2015 on her first public attempt at writing for the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto short story competition she was shortlisted. This gave her the confidence to finish a manuscript, find an agent and become a Number 1 best selling crime fiction writer within a very short period of time. and I worked with some great people, but law is a “In late 2016 my agent sent my manuscript out on very challenging environment. It’s adversarial by its submission in Australia and, incredibly, I got six offers nature, the hours are long and you have to really love of publication!,” she said. “The Ruin was a bestseller the highs to stick it out. I enjoyed the challenge of it in in Australia and Ireland, and named an Amazon the early years, but I always felt like a fish out of water. book of the year in the USA, which was incredible. My Having said that I would still be doing it today if the second book, The Scholar, came out in Feb 2019 to Global Financial Crisis hadn’t hit and decimated my similar success, and my third, The Good Turn, will be legal practice. publishing in 2020.” “I saw Tana French speak about her book, Broken As well as a busy touring schedule (before Covid) Harbour, which is set in one of the ghost housing and demanding publishing schedule, the former estates that was left in Ireland after the property crash. lawyer has been watching recent events in America She spoke about the rule-followers who were badly and elsewhere closely. Her twitter feed is full of posts hurt by the crash in Ireland. Tana said she was not expressing concern about police brutality, suppression a rule follower, but I certainly was. When the GFC and targeting of the media by authorities and hit and we lost everything, it was devastating but it promoting anti-racism causes and similar causes.