Ken Bruen

“I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time.”

“I always had this notion of a noir novel in Galway. The city is exploding, emigration has reversed, and we are fast becoming a cosmopolitan city.”

“My father believed a real man didn't read, and my parents hoped I'd get some sense and find a job in insurance.”

“Whenever dark things happen in my life, there is always some dark humour.”

“We haven't had crime writers, and for a long time in the Republic, we didn't seem to have a crime problem as such.”

“Crime fiction is the new rock n' roll.”

“The tourist board have put a bounty on me head, but they like the biz from tourists.”

“After five awful movies, I admitted failure and said I was not cut out to be an actor. But how many people get a chance to live their dream?”

“Jack Taylor was a private investigator in Galway, which seemed like madness. I used lots of Galway-isms, which seemed like madness, too.”

“I was a failed actor, but for 25 years, I got to go on stage anyway, and I loved it. I've still got the day job, and the travel bug.”

“The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!”

“My own life has had so many twists that I keep thinking I'll have one blessing that is not in disguise.”

“I decided to write books, just to prove to myself that I was still alive, if nothing else.”

“I had wanted to write English crime novels based on the American hard-boiled style, and for the first two novels about Brixton, the critics didn't actually know I was Irish.”

“I'd kill to be a poet.”

“Because I've been so bad at looking after myself, how would I ever look after a kid? But the old cliche applied: they handed her to me, and my world turned upside down - and I realised I was now going to be vulnerable in more ways than I expected.”