Putting character in conflict

Northern Irish writer Adrian McKinty has set his detective fiction in the milieu of the Troubles, says Declan Burke

ADRIAN McKinty grew up in the North during the Troubles. The writer says: “The hunger strikes were so unbelievably intense. I remember the week of Bobby Sands’ death, and funeral, almost minute-by-minute. The city was electric.

“In one way, it was an amazingly fantastic experience, because everybody felt so alive, so immersed in that immediacy — and then, as soon as it was over, I just forgot it. Didn’t process it, didn’t deal with it. And it was years later, when I was telling my wife about it, she said, ‘Y’know, that’s really, really bizarre. None of that is normal’.”