Murder One 2025: The Talent

We have a wonderful selection of guests appearing at our 2025 festival, listed here in alphabetical order:

JAKE ARNOTT

Jake Arnott is an award-winning novelist whose bestselling debut The Long Firm was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was adapted as a BAFTA award-winning BBC TV drama series starring Mark Strong and Sir Derek Jacobi. His second novel, He Kills Coppers was made into a critically acclaimed ITV1 series, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly. Along with his third book, truecrime, this trilogy was awarded the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library. His subsequent novels include Johnny Come Home, The Devil’s Paintbrush, The House of Rumour and The Fatal Tree.

JOSEPH BIRCHALL

Joseph Birchall spent much of his twenties living abroad before returning to Dublin to establish a successful family business. A lifelong writer, he penned his first play at just eleven years old. Over the years, he explored screenwriting and novel writing, but family and work took precedence. Eventually, he returned to his first love of writing, carving out time in Dublin’s early morning coffee shops to write. He lives in Dublin with his wife and three children and still gets up early to write.

SAM BLAKE

Sam Blake is a multiple No 1 bestselling Irish crime writer and has been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year three times, and twice for Irish Teen and YA Novel of the Year. Her second YA novel, Something’s About to Blow Up was Winner of the International Education Services Teen & YA Novel of the Year 2024. Her latest adult thriller, The Killing Sense, came out in January 2025 and is a No 1 bestseller. Sam is the founder of Ireland’s International Crime Writing Festival, Murder One. She is currently Chair of the board of the Society of Authors, and previously was Chair of Irish PEN and a board member of the Crime Writers Association.

ANDREA CARTER

Andrea Carter is the author of The Inishowen Mysteries. She grew up in Ballyfin, Co. Laois, and graduated in law from Trinity College, Dublin, before qualifying as a solicitor and moving to the Inishowen peninsula. Having practised law for twenty years, more recently as a barrister, she now writes full time.
Her short story The Lamb was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in 2019. The Inishowen Mysteries series is in development for television. Her first standalone thriller There Came A-Tapping, was published in March 2025 to critical acclaim.

JANE CASEY

Jane Casey is the author of seventeen novels, including the Maeve Kerrigan series and The Killing Kind which was adapted for television. In 2024 Jane won Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards for A Stranger in the Family. Her most recent book is The Secret Room, a number one bestseller in Ireland.

AMANDA CASSIDY

STEVE CAVANAGH

Steve Cavanagh is a critically acclaimed, Sunday Times best-selling author of the Eddie Flynn series which has sold a million copies in the UK. His third novel, The Liar, won the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the year 2018. Thirteen won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime novel of the year 2019. FIFTY FIFTY was a Richard and Judy Book club choice, and the BBC Between The Covers book club choice. All of his novels have been nominated for major awards. His last four novels have all been Sunday Times Bestsellers

EDEL COFFEY

Edel Coffey is an Irish novelist and journalist. She has worked as an editor with the Irish Independent, and as a reporter and presenter with RTE Radio. She is a regular contributor to The Irish Times, and Books Editor with The Gloss magazine. Both of her novels have been number one bestsellers in Ireland and her debut novel Breaking Point won the An Post Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction Book Of The Year in 2022. Her third novel will be published next year.

DR. JOHN CURRAN

PROFESSOR JOHN DEANE-O’KEEFFE

John Deane-O’Keeffe is a Forensic Criminologist and Lecturer in Criminal Law, a Lay Anglican Minister and Lectures in Theology. Additionally John works as a Journalist and Radio Broadcaster. He is currently Dean, Faculty of Criminology & Policing Studies at City Colleges, Dublin where he also lectures in Criminal Law. He was also a Magistrate in the UK where he sat on the Northumbrian Bench and is currently a Tutor in the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford [Christ Church]. John is a Lay Minister in the Church of Ireland and works as a Hospital and Prison Chaplain and has undertaken undergraduate studies in History, Law and Theology at UCD, TCD, Bristol and the University of Oxford. He also holds post graduate degrees in Forensic Criminology and Law. His book, ‘Christ Alive!’ published at the end of 2024.

VICTORIA DOWD

Victoria Dowd is the award-winning author of the Smart Woman’s Mystery series and has been shortlisted for the CWA Dagger. Her novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, won The People’s Book Prize for fiction and was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year. Her novel Murder Most Cold won the Grand Puzzly award. Victoria was also awarded the Gothic Fiction prize for her short fiction. Her historical crime novel, Death in the Aviary, is the first book in her new series, The Blood Chronicles. Victoria also writes the Adapting Agatha blog. She is on the board of the Crime Writers Association and head of the London chapter. She was a criminal defence barrister for many years on the London circuit appearing at the Old Bailey.

MICHELLE DUNNE

Michelle Dunne is a bestselling psychological thriller writer from Cork whose new thriller,
A GOOD MOTHER, came out to rave reviews in April 25. Michelle also wrote The Hotel Maid and The Good Girl, which saw its Czech language edition chosen as one of the 12 most exciting books to publish in Czech Republic in 2025. Michelle also wrote the Lindsey Ryan series of psychological thrillers, While Nobody is Watching and The Invisible. The series is currently in development for television and is inspired by Michelle’s own experiences as an infantry soldier and United Nations Peacekeeper. Michelle is organiser and programmer of the Spike Island Literary Festival – a crime-themed festival set in Ireland’s very own Alcatraz. In 2024 she also joined the team at Dublin’s international crime writing festival, Murder One.

R.B. EGAN

R.B.Egan initially worked as an actor in film, television and theatre dividing his time between London and Dublin. At a later point he moved to Tanzania and settled in the north of the country, outside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where he developed a safari lodge and tours business with his wife. Now, together with his young family, he lives in Dublin and writes. R.B.Egan has been signed to Hodder UK on a two book deal. His debut One Perfect Stranger was released in the UK and Ireland in 2024.  In 2025  R.B.Egan’s second stand alone psychological thriller The Landlord is being released.

KAREN FITZGIBBON

Karen Fitzgibbon is a theatre and film maker based in Limerick city. She has been co-writing, co-producing, acting in and directing plays and short films with community groups and professional groups for over twenty years. She holds a Licentiate in Theatre Studies with Trinity College London. Karen lives in Limerick with her family and much-loved springer spaniel Major. The World’s End is the first in a series of novels, introducing Private Investigator, Lana Bowen. Never Look Back is her second novel published in May 2025 (Poolbeg).

CARMEL HARRINGTON

Carmel Harrington is an international bestseller of thirteen novels. Her latest novel, The Stolen Child, a Number One bestseller, was named a STs Best Crime Fiction of the Year pick. Carmel’s debut was a multi-award-winning novel, and several of her other books have been shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. She frequently appears on Irish television and radio, and has been a guest speaker at literary events in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. Her thrillers and family dramas including The Lighthouse Secret, The Girls from Donegal, A Mother’s Heart, and The Moon Over Kilmore Quay, have been Irish Times, USA Today, and Kindle bestsellers.

AMY JORDAN

Amy Jordan lives with her husband and young children in Cork, Ireland. The Dark Hours is her international debut with HQ Stories, HarperCollins. It was also released in North America and Canada with Mira Books, and reviewed by The New York Times, who said “Jordan writes Julia with particular fire, bringing us a woman who has chosen invisibility but who cannot escape what once made her visible.” Soon to be published in Germany with Piper Verlag, The Dark Hours was an instant Irish Times bestseller. Previously writing as Amy Cronin, she released three crime thrillers with Irish publisher Poolbeg Press. Amy is a former civil servant and tutor at MTU, who now writes full time.

JADE KAVANAGH

Jade Kavanagh is a literary agent at Darley Anderson & Associates. She represents a list of thriller, suspense, horror and book club authors. Jade has been at Darley Anderson since 2020 after starting out at Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency. Her team are focused on commercial bestsellers and look after brand authors like Lee Child, Martina Cole, Tana French, T M Logan and K L Slater. Jade is focused on building the next generation of commercial bestsellers in entertainment fiction. Jade’s favourite part of the job is working creatively with authors and pitching their books. Jade spends time mentoring through various groups working with aspiring authors on their manuscripts all the way through to the submission stages. She loves meeting authors this way and is passionate about nurturing new talent and helping wherever she can to open up what is often felt to be an inaccessible industry by sharing the process of querying and being published.

CATHERINE KIRWAN

Catherine Kirwan grew up in the parish of Fews, County Waterford. She studied law at University College Cork and lives in Cork where she works as a solicitor. She is the author of three legal thrillers featuring Cork solicitor Finn Fitzpatrick. The Seventh Body is Catherine’s fourth book.

ANDREA MARA

Andrea Mara is a number one Sunday Times, Irish Times and Kindle bestselling author, whose books have sold more than 900,000 copies across all formats. Her most recent novel, It Should Have Been You, was a number 1 bestseller in Ireland for four weeks, and a Top Ten bestseller in the UK hardback charts. Her book No One Saw a Thing was a Sunday Times number one bestseller and has sold over half million copies. The TV adaptation of her 2021 book, All Her Fault, is in production, with Sarah Snook (Succession) playing the lead. Andrea lives in Dublin with her husband and three children.

GILLIAN MCALLISTER

CONOR MCANALLY 

MICHELLE MCDONAGH

BRIAN MCGILLOWAY

Brian McGilloway is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve crime novels to date, including the Ben Devlin and the Lucy Black mystery series. His most recent standalone novel, The Empty Room, was a Sunday Times bestseller while his previous, The Last Crossing, won Highly Commended in Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021. He has also written for BBC Radio and has written several episodes of BBC NI’s Hope Street. His new novel, The One You Least Suspect, published in May 2025.

JAMES MURPHY

James Murphy is a writer of crime fiction from Belfast, N. Ireland. He is best known for his Farset Investigations Belfast detective series and his more recent gripping psychological thriller series featuring investigative psychologist Dr. Carolyn Harkin, Write Me A Murder and How To Be Dead. He also teaches crime fiction writing classes and is an active member of the Crime Writers Association both as Master Convenor of the Irish Chapter and as Library Champion for Northern Ireland. James is a founding director of Merlin Arts CIC and The Northern Ireland Festival of Writing and is the host of the hugely successful podcast, A Life Of Crime (Writing) with James Murphy, and the popular radio show, Crime Scene with James Murphy. The third Dr. Carolyn Harkin novel, Little Stabs at Massacre, is due for release in Feb 2026.

KITTY MURPHY

Kitty Murphy writes murder mysteries set in a fictional Dublin drag scene. Death in Heels and Death in the Dark are out now, published by Thomas & Mercer, followed by Death in the Holidays last year and Death in Love coming soon.

E.R. Murray

E.R. Murray writes novels, short stories and poetry for children and young adults. Her novels include Arabella Pepper The Wild Detective, featuring beautiful illustrations by Monika Pollak, and the award-winning Nine Lives Trilogy; The Book of Learning (Dublin UNESCO Citywide Read 2016) The Book of Shadows (shortlisted Irish Literacy Association/Irish Book Awards) and The Book of Revenge. Elizabeth lives in West Cork where she fishes, grows her own veg and goes on plenty of outdoor adventures. 

alan nolan

Alan Nolan is the author and illustrator of Fintan’s Fifteen, Conor’s Caveman and the Sam Hannigan series, and he is the illustrator of the popular Gordon’s Game books written by Gordon D’Arcy and Paul Howard, as well as Animal Crackers by Sarah Webb.

He is the recipient of the Children’s Books Ireland 2024 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Books. His book Molly Malone & Bram Stoker in the Riddle of the Disappearing Dickens, the latest in his #1 best-selling Molly & Bram series, was shortlisted for An Post Children’s Book of the Year 2024 (Senior), and is out now!!

LUCY O’CALLAGHAN

GILL PERDUE

Gill Perdue is the author of bestselling crime novel If I Tell which was nominated for Crime Novel of the Year in the An Post Book Awards 2022. If I Tell is the first in the Shaw and Darmody series of crime thrillers published by Penguin, set in the fictional Dublin suburb of Clonchapel. A second Shaw and Darmody, When They See Me, was published in 2023 to excellent reviews. In July 2025 her hotly-anticipated third novel, The Night I Killed Him, a cold-case murder set in Corrig Point, an exclusive South Dublin yacht club, launches in Dun Laoghaire – where else? This book has already received rave reviews – with Marian Keys declaring it: ‘utterly UTTERLY magnificent!’ The paperback edition of When They See Me is out in May this year and her first standalone thriller will appear in 2026.

CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD

Catherine Ryan Howard is an award-winning, no. 1 bestselling thriller writer from Cork, Ireland. Her novels have been included in the New York Times Best Thrillers of the Year, the Washington Post’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of the Year and the Sunday Times Best Thrillers of the Year. She is published in 20 languages and a number of titles are being developed for screen. An adaptation of her lockdown thriller, 56 Days, starring Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia, will debut exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in early 2026. Her latest novel is Burn After Reading.

TIM SULLIVAN

Tim Sullivan is a crime writer, screenwriter and director whose film credits include Jack and Sarah, A Handful of Dust and Cold Feet. Early in his career he directed Jeremy Brett’s iconic portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in ITV’s The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, cementing his lifelong passion for crime fiction. Tim’s critically acclaimed crime series features the socially awkward but brilliantly persistent DS George Cross, it has won an army of fans and topped the book charts. He lives in North London with his wife Rachel, the Emmy Award-winning producer of The Barefoot Contessa and Pioneer Woman.

ANNA SHARPE

Anna Sharpe (Anna Mazzola) is the award-winning author of historical fiction and modern thrillers. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award. Her fourth novel, The House of Whispers, won a Fingerprint Award for Best Historical Crime novel. Her bestselling third novel, The Clockwork Girl, was shortlisted for various awards and nominated for the Dublin Literary award. Her fifth novel, The Book of Secrets, was a Times Historical Novel of 2023. Her first legal thriller, Notes on a Drowning, was published in January 2025 under the name Anna Sharpe and was named as a thriller or crime novel of the month by The Times, Daily Mail and i-Paper. When not writing, Anna works as a human rights and criminal justice solicitor acting for survivors of crime.

PROFESSOR HENRY SUTTON

Henry Sutton is Professor of Creative Writing and Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia, where he’s course director of the MA Crime Fiction. He is the author of 15 novels and a collection of short stories, including My Criminal World, Get Me Out Of Her (both with Harvell Secker/Vintage), and the Goodwin Crime Family trilogy Time to Win, Red Hot Front, Good Dark Night (Corsair/Little, Brown) under the pseudonym Harry Brett. His monograph, Crafting Crime Fiction, is published by Manchester University Press (2023). He is co-editor of the 30 monograph series Elements in Crime Narratives, Cambridge University Press. He also co-edited Domestic Noir: The New Face of 21st Century Crime Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

R.O. THORP

R.O. Thorp is an Australian living in Cork, Ireland, where she writes lyrics and herds cats. She was one of the Observer‘s top 10 debut novelists of 2021, and her writing has won the London Short Story Award and been shortlisted for the BBC Opening Lines Prize. Death on Ice is her first foray into murder mysteries.

SIMON TREWIN

Simon Trewin has spent thirty years working as a literary agent and his authors have been published in over 54 languages and sold many millions of copies. In 2019 he launched his own agency to represent authors, brands and entrepreneurs in the areas of art, culture, digital, literature, and live events. He represents Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch and Sam Blake amongst others. He is also the founder of vintage letterpress studio The Garage Press.

RUTH WARE

Ruth Ware is an international number one bestseller. Her thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs Westaway, The Turn of the Key, One by One, The It Girl , Zero Days and One Perfect Couple have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the Sunday Times and New York Times, and have sold more than ten million copies. Her books have been optioned for both film and TV, and she is published in more than 40 languages. Ruth lives near Brighton with her family.

MARY WATSON

Mary Watson is from Cape Town and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She’s worked as an art museum guide, library assistant, theatre duty manager, and an actor in children’s musicals. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town where she taught for many years. She won the Caine Prize in 2006, the Philida Award in 2022, and her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal. The Cleaner is her worldwide adult debut.

A.J. WEST

CHRIS WHITAKER