Anthony J Quinn

I am a critically acclaimed author of ten novels, mostly in the crime fiction and historical fiction genres. My debut novel Disappeared (Head of Zeus, 2014) was a Daily Mail Crime Novel of the Year and a Sunday Times Best Novel of the Year. It was also shortlisted by the book critics of the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle for a Strand Critics award in the US, and longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in the UK. My novels have been picked by the Irish Times and the Irish Independent in their Best Crime Novels of the Year selections in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022.

One of my central literary themes is that there is no such thing as a placeless crime. Although steeped in the conventions of crime fiction, my novels also chart the moods, landscapes and complex social realities of my native Ulster. My latest novel Murder Memoir Murder deploys the conventions of crime fiction and memoir writing to investigate the problems and procedures of storytelling itself, reflected in the fictional detective’s role in piecing together lost, concealed or partial stories about the past. I have written about crime fiction academically and critically in numerous news articles and have spoken extensively on this subject at events and festivals in Britain, Ireland and Europe.

I have lectured in Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast, and have held writer in residence posts at Libraries Northern Ireland and in County Cavan. I also teach Creative Writing and mentor at the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin, and the Prison Arts Foundation. I’ve been an RLF Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. I live in County Tyrone with my wife, Clare, and our four children.