Novelists in noir

In the mood for noir? Then our next Department of English reading event is for you.  Our Visiting Professor in Creative Writing, John Banville, wearing his Benjamin Black hat, and Cork’s newest crime writer, Catherine Kirwan, whose debut novel, Darkest Truth, was nominated as Cork’s One City One Book last year, will be reading together.

John Banville’s latest Black title (under a slightly altered pseudonym, B.W.Black), The Secret Guests, is a speculative historical novel set in 1940, featuring the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret who are evacuated secretly out of Blitz-time London to Clonmillis Hall in rural Tipperary. All goes well until a dead body turns up in the big house, threatening to expose the identity of the secret “guests of the nation”.

Kirwan’s Darkest Truth, is set in the “cut-throughs and cobbles” of Cork and features fiery, flawed solicitor Finn Fitzpatrick on the trail of a murderer.  The book has a resonant  #MeToo theme, features the Cork Film Festival, and namechecks many of the city’s landmark haunts. Described as a “fabulous sleep thief”, Darkest Truth is the first of a series, so expect to hear more from Finn in Catherine’s second novel.

We’re going to town for this next event at a new venue: –  The Banking Hall, UCC Centre for Executive Education (formerly Cork Savings Bank), 1 Lapps Quay. 

Tuesday, March 24 @ 6pm. Admission is free and all are welcome.