Author Amy concludes celebrated crime trilogy

AUTHOR Amy Cronin has closed the door on her Cork crime trilogy with her latest book, In The Shadows.

Amy, who lives in Kinsale, began the trilogy with the character of Anna Clarke two years ago with the thrilling crime read Blinding Lies, and followed up with the equally addictive Twisted Truth last year.

So the question that Amy had to consider was whether the door would be closed forever on Anna Clarke, by killing off the character, or whether the door should remain open for another opportunity.

This was the dilemma facing the popular Cork writer – because readers want more of the character. The Anna Clarke trilogy came about for Amy as she made the most of lockdown to indulge her passion for writing.

She loved writing and reading literature at school and studied arts in UCC before switching to economics, and earned a business degree and a master’s degree in management.

She worked for Avon in the UK before returning to Ireland to work for the Department of Agriculture, and later the Department of Social Protection, for eight years.

Amy turned 40 in 2020, the year when Covid-19 turned people’s lives upside down. And amid the ‘great reset’, she turned back to her passion for writing, and developed her crime fiction writing which has proven to be a huge hit.

The three books in the Irish crime series are based in Cork city – a city Anna knows well, and the locations and namechecks will be familiar to Cork readers, as the writer as made the southern capital a character in itself.

But, what her fans want to know right now is, how will the trilogy end In The Shadows?

In the latest book, Kate Crowley has tried to put the past, and Cork city, behind her, but Tom Gallagher isn’t ready to absolve her of her sins. As she flees across Spain, his henchmen are only steps behind her, the net ever-closing.

Amy said that knowing Ireland’s obsession with crime led her to having her main characters Anna and Vivian re-examine a previously- closed murder case in the latest book. But to find out what happens next, readers will have to catch up with the character of Anna Clarke who, this time around is, In the Shadows.

The third book in the trilogy is published this month by Irish publisher Poolbeg’s Crimson imprint.