Niamh O’Connor
Screenwriter | Author | Journalist
PHOTO: Alison Barrow
Talking crime with Tess Gerritsen
About
I worked as a crime journalist for many years and have had crime fiction and nonfiction books published. I was nominated for an Irish Book Award on three occasions.
I’m now working as a full-time screenwriter, specialising in creating returnable TV crime dramas for leading Irish TV & Film production companies.
“No comment”
Photo: Karen Morgan
Stories
All of my work is rooted in experience. I was crime correspondent with THE SUNDAY WORLD for almost 13 years and eventually became the newspaper’s True Crime editor. Prior to this, I was crime correspondent with THE MAIL ON SUNDAY, IRELAND ON SUNDAY and the crime editor of the Irish edition of the THE BIG ISSUE magazine.
Interviewing
Lynda LaPlante
AT THE ‘MURDER ONE’ FESTIVAL
Novels:
I’ve been nominated three times for an Irish Book Award in the Best Debut, Best Crime Novel and Best Short Story categories in 2010, 2012 and 2013 respectively.
I’ve also written a series of True Crime books for the Sunday World newspaper:
Author
Nonfiction
THE BLACK WIDOW (The O’Brien Press, 2000): A successful businesswoman spends 10 years asking anyone and everyone to murder her husband and then succeeds, but the killer’s identity remains unknown.
CRACKING CRIME (The O’Brien Press, 2001): The founder of the state’s forensic science lab dedicates his life to bringing perpetrators to justice, but the gangster who caused his devastating injuries goes unpunished…
BLOOD TIES (Transworld, 2009): A woman hires a hitman to bump off her husband and his two sons after googling the word ‘hitman’.
I’M SORRY SIR (Amazon, 2015): An architect and married dad by day turns into a BDSM killer by night after seeking out a suicidal woman on the basis that she wanted to die anyway.
The truth really is stranger than fiction…
Interviewing
Linwood Barclay
MURDER ONE
I was made a Lord David Puttnam scholar in 2021 and have been awarded degrees in:
—English and history (University College Dublin);
—Journalism (Dublin City University);
—Screenwriting (Institute of Art, Design and Technology);
—Crime Fiction (University of East Anglia).
Above: With screenwriting guru (and the real star of ADAPTATION!), Robert McKee
