Listen to the Podcast here  https://www.mixcloud.com/liffeysoundfm/bookline-cormac-quinn-030526/

A debut novelist brings cosy crime to the Shannon

Theresa Quinn – ‘no relation,’ as she was quick to clarify on air – welcomed Cormac Quinn to Liffey Sound 96.4FM’s Bookline programme this week to discuss his debut novel, Murder on Lough Derg, published by Mercier Press. The conversation ranged from the book’s origins in a sweltering Irish summer to the particular challenges of writing a murder mystery fair enough for the reader to solve.

From Kildare to Lough Derg

Quinn, originally from Athy, Co. Kildare, and now Dublin-based, began reading murder mysteries in his early teens – Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy L. Sayers – before graduating to contemporary writers like Anthony Horowitz. The ambition to write one himself had been quietly simmering for years, but it took a specific moment to crystallise it. During the record-breaking heatwave of 2018, Quinn returned to Lough Derg on the River Shannon for the first time in roughly a decade – his family had kept a boat there throughout his childhood – and something clicked.

‘Between overhearing conversations down in the bars and probably the summer, the heatwave and all the rest, an idea kind of lodged in,’ he told Theresa Quinn. Even so, another five years passed before he sat down to write the first word.

The Plot – Without Giving Too Much Away

The protagonist is Jack Myers, a foreign correspondent who has spent twenty years working abroad in high-tension environments, and who returns to Ireland for what is supposed to be a quiet holiday with his sister’s family on the Shannon. Slow-paced rural life does not sit well with him. When a suspicious drowning occurs one evening, his journalistic instincts take over.

‘It’s a classic murder mystery setup,’ Quinn explained. ‘A select group of characters, set in an insular little village or world, and then he’s the outsider coming in to try and solve a thing.’ What distinguishes Jack from the genre’s more famous detectives, Quinn suggested, is not brilliance but restlessness. ‘When you think of Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, they’re kind of more genius and brilliance. His is kind of more natural curiosity.’

Theresa Quinn, who had clearly read and enjoyed the book, noted that Jack seemed genuinely out of his comfort zone in the holiday setting – which, in its own way, made him more relatable. Quinn agreed, describing an arc where the first half of the novel finds Jack unsettled by the quiet, while the second half sees him unsettling everyone else as he pursues the investigation.

The Craft of Cosy Crime

One of the more candid stretches of the conversation concerned the sheer amount of work involved in structuring a murder mystery. Quinn produced six or seven drafts over the course of a year, and described going back to re-read Christie novels with entirely new eyes once he knew the endings – paying attention to how clues were planted and how tension was sustained without car chases or shootouts.

‘In writing a murder mystery, the end achievement would be that the reader feels like they were given a fair shot to solve it – that you’d more wanna slap yourself in the head saying, how did I not see that? It would look so obvious.’ Getting that balance right – fair to the reader without giving the game away – was, he acknowledged, a subtle and difficult thing.

He was candid about his own weaknesses as an editor of his own work. ‘I tend to kind of wordsmith everything. It’s difficult to get through a paragraph without feeling the need to change the sentences.’ He credited Mercier Press with insightful editorial guidance, particularly around developing character arc and building tension in a novel that is, by design, gentle rather than gory.

Character Takes Over

One of the more interesting moments came when Quinn described how Jack Myers evolved beyond his original conception. He had planned the book chapter by chapter, but the character repeatedly led him off in different directions.

‘I didn’t know what the story was going to be till you start writing the characters,’ he said. Jack turned out to be considerably more uncertain and self-questioning than Quinn had originally envisioned – ‘much more unsure of himself, questioning himself, not really sure he’s doing the right thing.’ That vulnerability, he reflected, made the character more grounded and more human than the typically assured detective of the genre.

What Comes Next

Quinn confirmed he is already halfway through a second book featuring Jack Myers – though this time the setting will be considerably less pastoral. ‘It’s more of a murder mystery in a kind of geopolitical setting,’ he said, characteristically guarded about further details. Jack’s fundamental nature will remain unchanged, however. Like Miss Marple, he has no official remit or authority – he is driven purely by curiosity and the need for experience. ‘He wants the truth, but he also wants the experience and the thrill of it. Certain things haven’t changed.’

On Covers, Bookshops, and Sense of Place

The conversation wrapped up with a shared enthusiasm for independent bookshops and the importance of a strong cover. Quinn was thrilled with the book cover that Mercier Press produced – ‘miles better than what I would have had in my head’ – and both speakers agreed that the handwritten staff recommendations found in independent bookshops remain one of the best ways to discover new Irish writers.

Theresa Quinn closed by noting what had struck her most about the novel: ‘The whole ambience of an Irish summer holiday was part of it – with the murder thrown in then.’ Quinn, laughing, acknowledged that his own memories of summers on the Shannon involved considerably more rain than the 2018 heatwave that inspired the book.

Murder on Lough Derg: A Jack Myers Mystery

Quinn, Cormac

When his instinct for uncovering the truth follows him on home turf, Jack Myers finds himself drawn into the hidden tensions of a close-knit Irish community where old secrets run deep, and no one welcomes an outsider asking questions.

ISBN: 9781917453578

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Murder on Lough Derg by Cormac Quinn is published by Mercier Press.