KEN BRUEN

Crime fiction is the new rock n' roll.

There'll be times when the only refuge is books. Then you'll read as if you meant it, as if your life depended on it.

My own life has had so many twists that I keep thinking I'll have one blessing that is not in disguise.

The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!

I was a failed actor, but for 25 years, I got to go on stage anyway, and I loved it. I've still got the day job, and the travel bug.

Jack Taylor was a private investigator in Galway, which seemed like madness. I used lots of Galway-isms, which seemed like madness, too.

The tourist board have put a bounty on me head, but they like the biz from tourists.

I decided to write books, just to prove to myself that I was still alive, if nothing else.

After five awful movies, I admitted failure and said I was not cut out to be an actor. But how many people get a chance to live their dream?

My father believed a real man didn't read, and my parents hoped I'd get some sense and find a job in insurance.

I was a failed actor, but for 25 years, I got to go on stage anyway, and I loved it. I've still got the day job, and the travel bug.

Jack Taylor was a private investigator in Galway, which seemed like madness. I used lots of Galway-isms, which seemed like madness, too.

After five awful movies, I admitted failure and said I was not cut out to be an actor. But how many people get a chance to live their dream?

Whenever dark things happen in my life, there is always some dark humour.

I had wanted to write English crime novels based on the American hard-boiled style, and for the first two novels about Brixton, the critics didn't actually know I was Irish.

My own life has had so many twists that I keep thinking I'll have one blessing that is not in disguise.

The tourist board have put a bounty on me head, but they like the biz from tourists.

We haven't had crime writers, and for a long time in the Republic, we didn't seem to have a crime problem as such.

I always had this notion of a noir novel in Galway. The city is exploding, emigration has reversed, and we are fast becoming a cosmopolitan city.

I decided to write books, just to prove to myself that I was still alive, if nothing else.

I'd kill to be a poet.

I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time.

Because I've been so bad at looking after myself, how would I ever look after a kid? But the old cliche applied: they handed her to me, and my world turned upside down - and I realised I was now going to be vulnerable in more ways than I expected.

Crime fiction is the new rock n' roll.

My father believed a real man didn't read, and my parents hoped I'd get some sense and find a job in insurance.

The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!

Tony Black is the Tom Waits of Crime Fiction, yes, that good.

I get through some print.

There'll be times when the only refuge is books. Then you'll read as if you meant it, as if your life depended on it.

And so evil flourishes and spreads because decent people don't want to make a fuss.