Adrian McKinty
Adrian McKinty
Adrian McKinty is an Irish crime novelist who has won the Ned Kelly Award and been shortlisted for the Edgar Award, Dagger Award, Anthony Award, Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1968 and grew up in Victoria Council Estate, Carrickfergus, County Antrim. He read law at the University of Warwick and politics and philosophy at the University of Oxford. He moved to...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
CountryIreland
major man school
I used to get a lift to school every day with a man who was a major in the British Army.
grow street
I think if you grow up in a culture where the army is out on the street sighting you with rifles, it has to have some kind of psychological impact.
followed met studied
I studied law at Warwick University, then philosophy at Oxford. I met my wife Leah there. She is American, so I followed her to New York.
came few longer proper stories
I had a few stories and longer pieces published, but my first proper novel came in 2003, called 'Dead I Well May Be.'
noir
Crime fiction, especially noir and hardboiled, is the literature of the proletariat.
england secondary
After secondary school, the big thing to do was apply for uni in England or Scotland and then just stay there.
attempt bbc embarrass generally lack lower privately themselves truly unless writers
Because of England's lack of social mobility, unless they make truly heroic efforts, writers who are privately educated and then go on to Oxbridge or an institution like the BBC will generally embarrass themselves when they attempt to have a go at working- or lower middle-class characters.
certain daughters fathers guthrie recite ride sing song time turned wandering woody
Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.'
bad christmas good stealing tree
I don't know if that's a year's bad luck, or if that's how it works. But stealing a Christmas tree - that can't be a good thing, karma-wise.
agent bad bicycles days english ireland met neither readers riding widows
Every publisher or agent I've ever met told me the same thing - that Irish readers don't want to read about the bad old days of the Troubles; neither do the English and Americans - they only want to read about the Ireland of The Quiet Man, when red-haired widows are riding bicycles and everyone else is on a horse.
ended fell few followed illegal lots love met until
I met my wife in Oxford, fell in love with her, and followed her to New York. I was an illegal there for the first few years, until we got married, so I ended up doing lots of interesting jobs, some for a few days, some for a few months.
coolest definitely entire given kelly
The Ned Kelly is definitely the coolest of all the crime fiction awards, and if you think about it, it's the only one that's given for an entire continent.
life misfortune novel speaks talks yours
In the crime fiction section, you may just find a novel that talks about the place where you're from and speaks to you about your life - or the life yours could have become if a little misfortune had come your way.
david delighted peter proper
The first proper mystery novel that I read was 'Murder On the Orient Express' with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover. 'Orient Express,' you'll recall, is the one where everyone did it, which delighted me no end, and I was immediately hooked.