“I was born the year the Troubles began, in 1968. That world of violence was all I knew - people murdered, maimed, kneecapped, bombed. I don't remember a time without a major atrocity of some...”
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Author detail
Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied law at Warwick University and politics and philosophy at Oxford University. In the early 90's he emigrated to New York City where he worked in bars, building sites and bookstores for seven years before moving to Denver, Colorado to become a high school English teacher. In 2008 he moved again, this time to Melbourne, Australia with his wife and kids.
Quotes
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“I was born the year the Troubles began, in 1968. That world of violence was all I knew - people murdered, maimed, kneecapped, bombed. I don't remember a time without a major atrocity of some...”
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“I speak with a Northern Irish accent with a tinge of New York. My wife has a bit of a Boston accent; my oldest daughter talks with a Denver accent, and my youngest has a true blue Aussie acc...”
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“I think the poetry that came out of Belfast, and especially the Queen's University set, in the 1970s and '80s - you know, Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Ciaran Carson - that...”
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“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...”
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“Building on the work of George Macdonald, William Morris and Edward Plunkett, what became known as high fantasy was more or less invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.”
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“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...”
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“I've always been a secret locked-room fanatic. I read my first one when I was about ten or 11, Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express,' with David Niven and Peter Ustinov on the cov...”
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“I did the same thing as every Irish person who comes to New York. I arrived on a Wednesday, and by Saturday night, I was pulling pints at a pub in the Bronx.”
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“I had gone to New York with no plan at all. I did a lot of jobs - barman, teacher, security guard, postman and construction worker - and I was meeting many eccentric characters, and they wer...”
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“I was knocked down and dragged by a police Land Rover in a hit-and-run.”
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“People in the North are really taciturn and reticent, and they don't really like to talk about the past.”
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“I've never been a believer in the word-count thing. I write slowly and tinker with the words and the word order, and I throw a lot of stuff out.”
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“Our daughter's name Arwynn comes from Arwen in 'Lord of the Rings' because my wife and I met for the first time in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis us...”
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“I love the trilogy form. I like the idea that you can establish a character in book one. And then in the second part, you can take the characters down to their darkest point. And then in the...”
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“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...”
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“The winters in Denver are brutal; it snows from the end of October to April.”
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