Cork author: My characters are strong women

COBH writer Michelle Dunne, a former army officer, has turned her hand to writing psychological thrillers and has three books coming out in less than 12 months.

Michelle used her defence forces background as inspiration for her character Lindsey Ryan, star of a series of novels, which is in development for television. While that is exciting for Michelle, she says it’s a slow process.

“There’s never any guarantee but there are three production companies on board at the moment. It’s giving me good insight into converting a book for the screen. It has been going on for almost a year and a half. But it’s all going in the right direction.”

Michelle, a mother-of-one, has a book coming out next March with Bloodhound Books. It’s not part of the Lindsey Ryan series. This stand-alone book, entitled The Good Girl, is set in Cork. It’s about a young woman called Grace Murphy who had an appalling childhood.

“She suffers a psychological breakdown and, basically, gets her revenge on the people she thinks have hurt her. She turns into a bit of a serial killer. She works as a barista, she’s very normal. Everyone likes her. She just happens to be killing people. My novels are character- driven, female-led with strong women.”

Michelle also has two books coming out with Storm Publishing. In July , The Hotel Maid will be published. This psychological thriller is about a maid cleaning a hotel bedroom who finds a murdered woman there. As she tries to figure out what to do, the police suddenly arrive as they received a report of a missing child from the same room three hours earlier.

The other novel to be published by Storm doesn’t yet have a title. It’s a domestic thriller about how the death of a teenage girl brings to the surface a lot of secrets in two different families.

Growing up in a household where crime fiction “was devoured”, Michelle (in her mid-forties) was an avid reader of the genre. However, she didn’t start writing until her five-year contract with the army was over.

I had no idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I trained as a physiotherapist. I still keep up some physiotherapy work. I have to get out of the house and meet people. I do a lot of work in nursing homes, working with dementia residents. I hear some fantastic stories. I get inspiration from absolutely everywhere.

Despite the radio documentary Women Of Honour, and a book by a former soldier, Karina Molloy, alleging sexual abuse in the army, Michelle’s experience of the defence forces “was hugely positive”.

“It really shaped me. You’ll meet one or two eejits everywhere but my experience was fantastic. It was massively eye-opening and thrilling. I think what made it thrilling was my age. I had my 21st birthday while I was in the army.

“I had no worries and was naive enough to think that nothing bad would ever happen to me, despite shells falling all around us (in Lebanon). We had a very turbulent time. But I was never really scared.

“Now I have my five-year-old daughter Emily to think of. It would be a very different story now.”

Michelle’s brother Ken McNamara is in the Navy.

Crime fiction in this country, often written by women, is very popular. Why is it having such a high profile?

“Ireland has a very dark history with its women, given the Magdalene laundries and the way women have been treated. Maybe all that dark stuff is on our minds and we’re kicking and screaming our way out into the world.

“There’s Liz Nugent, Andrea Mara, Sam Blake and some brilliant female crime writers in Cork such as Catherine Ryan Howard, Amy Cronin, Catherine Kirwan. They’re a most supportive bunch of women.

If you get stuck with a plot, you can go for a coffee with them and talk about it. We have a WhatsApp group called The Irish Murderesses.

While Michelle says writing is mostly solitary and she sometimes misses the camaraderie of the army, her involvement in literary festivals that focus on crime fiction is ideal for her.

“I’d love to be a full-time writer but I would still need something else. Organising festivals is a very social thing. I love gathering writers together.

“I used to organise a small event for Culture Night years ago on Spike Island. Management there were saying we should do an annual thing. So the Spike Island Literary Festival of crime writing took off. It’s going into its third year. This year, we got hit by Storm Betty on day one and we had to cancel some of it but people still enjoyed the festival.”

Michelle has also been asked to join the team as programmer of Dublin’s international crime literary festival, Murder One, which takes place in October, 2024.

Clearly, Michelle has a busy year ahead of her. While she says she doesn’t often sit down at a desk to write, she is good at time management.

I write when Emily is at school. And I bring my laptop everywhere with me. So if I drop Emily off at dancing, I’ll sit in the car park and write while I wait for her.

Michelle’s writing career has come a long way since self-publishing two books over a decade ago. Now, she says she takes her writing seriously.

“It has become a career in the last couple of years.”