“To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.”

Irish writer and theatrical actress

Tana French is an Irish writer and theatrical actress based in Dublin. She is known for her crime fiction, especially her debut novel, In the Woods, published in 2007. In the Woods won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for best first novel. French has become closely associated with psychological mystery writing, and The Independent has called her "the First Lady of Irish Crime".