The Inciting Incident

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We always talk about how a good story begins: with one huge out-of-whack inciting incident that pulls the rug out from under the main character and forces them to do something to regain equilibrium.

Dervla McTiernan has lived that.

When she was shopping her first book, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. A serious, deadly, horrible brain tumor.

Let’s have her tell it:

DERVLA MCTIERNAN: “I got the news from my GP very early on a Friday morning, and a few minutes later, when I was still sitting in my car in the car-park, I got an email from a literary agent saying that she’d read my first fifty pages, and loved them, and asking me to send her the rest of the book. 

It was the most surreal moment. I felt like I was on an episode of the Truman Show, except I was the subject and the director had decided that the story was far too boring so threw in a tumor and an agent and surgery and all sorts of drama. 

It was a very scary time, because my children were only six and four, and the GP made it clear that without surgery the tumor would ultimately be fatal. And then the first surgeon we saw said that the tumor was inoperable. 

But then we were lucky enough to find another wonderful surgeon, and he was confident that he could do the surgery. In the end I had three weeks from diagnosis to surgery, and I spent that time distracting myself by sending my book out to agents. 

The surgery went well. I spent 11 days in hospital, and a few months at home recovering before I was well enough to go back to work. 

I think it was about six weeks after the surgery when I got my first offer of representation, and things just took off from there.”

HANK:  Took off? Now, Reds and readers, read her bio:

International #1 bestseller Dervla McTiernan’s first two novels, The Rúin and The Scholar, were critically acclaimed around the world. Dervla has won multiple prizes, including a Ned Kelly Award, Davitt Awards, a Barry Award and an International Thriller Writers Award, and has been shortlisted for numerous others. Dervla’s third book, The Good Turn, went straight to #1 in the bestseller charts, confirming her place as one of Australia’s best and most popular crime writers.

WOW.

Now, her newest thriller, THE MURDER RULE, comes out next Tuesday! And if you are hearing about it here first, I can assure you that you will be hearing about it a lot more.

And here’s maybe the coolest part. Dervla is on the road for this book now, and instead of worrying about her very existence, she gets to worry about much more lovely and quotidian stuff. See below!

And ooh: she’s giving away a copy of THE MURDER RULE to THREE lucky commenters!

DERVLA MCTIERNAN: Hello, everyone! Thank you for letting me trespass on your space. I’m feeling very privileged to be hanging out (even virtually!) with such fantastic writers. By way of introduction, I’m Irish, but living in Western Australia, and I’m a full-time writer (and recovering lawyer). I live with my husband (also Irish – we met in a Tae Kwon Do class in college when we were seventeen, which let me tell you came pretty close to killing any nascent romance!) and our twelve-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son (both of whom have Australian accents and both of whom like to correct mine on an almost daily basis).

I’ve been writing full-time for a few years now, and my first stand-alone novel (The Murder Rule) comes out on May 10th in the US. I get to do my first US tour, which is a very big, very exciting deal for me, though it presents one tricky little problem. What to wear??

You would think that this would be a very easy problem to solve. Most of the book events I’ve been to have been very casual affairs, where anything goes and creative self-expression is appreciated. But the reality is that, these days, everything ends up on social media, and I don’t know about you guys, but I do feel a bit of pressure to get things right. I’m just not entirely sure what right is!

I’ve been telling myself that getting it right means accepting my forty-five year old body, which has carried me through a few major medical challenges over the years, and has the battle scars to prove it. And reminding myself that it is always about the stories, first and last. I have most of my packing done now, and though I’m still not quite sure how I’ll get through three weeks without access to my washing machine, the worry about getting things right is beginning to fade and the excitement of it all is beginning to take over.

My timing for this tour is pretty good, I have to say. Last year we bought a little 1940’s house, closer to our kids’ schools. We renovated it and moved in before Christmas. We absolutely love it, but it is truly teeny, and the kids are sharing a room, which is going to be a problem when they get a little older. So we’re building an extension (with a special writing room for me!) and it looks like works are going to kick off before I get back. I think the noisiest, messiest stuff might be done while I’m away, so my poor husband will be dealing with it all (and juggling two kids and two dogs at the same time) so I’m giving myself a big pat on the back for some truly excellent planning.

I’m so looking forward to getting out on the road and talking about this book. The Murder Rule tells the story of a young, idealistic law student named Hannah Rokeby. Hannah joins the Innocence Project on the eve of their biggest case – they’re trying to save an innocent man from death row. On the surface Hannah appears to be bright eyed and keen, eager to please and to be accepted by the team. But the real Hannah is quite different. She’s darker and more complicated, and she has her own agenda.

Every tour is different, of course, and the conversations you have at events vary depending on the topic of the book. I feel like The Murder Rule is giving me a lot of places to go, lots of topics and themes worth exploring. In researching for the book, I learned so much about how unjust convictions happen, about the junk science, the shoddy witness testimony, the forced confessions. I thought I knew much of it going in, but I learned a lot that surprised me. Some wrongful convictions come about due to corruption and dishonesty, of course, but a surprising number are due to what you might be consider to be ordinary human frailty. Self-delusion or self-importance. A refusal to admit that you might have gotten it wrong.

My first event was here in Perth on May 2nd, an “In Conversation” hosted by my best writing buddy, Sara Foster. I can’t think of a nicer way to kick things off. After my Perth events, I head to Sydney, and from there to Los Angeles. I’ll be in LA (with Rachel Howzell Hall), New York City (with Don Winslow), Phoenix (with TJ Newman) and Atlanta (with Karin Slaughter). If you happen to live close by I’d love to see you at an event!

HANK: And she will be in The Back Room (shhh, it’s not announced yet) on July 10, and on CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze on August 9! You can tell how much I love this book.) And ooh, yes, a thriller about a maybe-sinister lawyer? Yes, indeed.

So let's have a fun day on Jungle Red–to be entered to win a copy of THE MURDER RULE: you have a choice. What’s your favorite lawyer-book? What do you think about Dervla’s topic?

OR: how have your clothing choices changed in the pandemic?

(And I think it may already be tomorrow in Australia, which is always so reassuring to me.)