MICHAEL SCANLON

In common with many other writers, Irish crime and mystery novelist Michael Scanlon had accumulated plenty of experience in the world of other work before he settled down to writing fiction. But he’d always wanted to be a novelist. ‘I’ve always written,’ he says. ‘I’ve been submitting work to publishers and literary agents for as long as I can remember. Some people showed interest in my work but, for a variety of reasons, nothing came of it.

So what about all those other jobs, then? ‘This had a lot to do with my leaving school at sixteen,’ Michael says. His Amazon page reveals that he’s worked as a barman, potato picker, black-jack dealer at