This much I know: Louise Phillips

I am the biggest scaredy-cat in the world. But I understand fear. That is what gives me empathy with my characters.

I actually quite like all my killers. I deplore stereotypical good guys and bad guys. Everybody is capable of killing, it just takes the right circumstance, and that is what I want to explore. To explore humanity.

I grew up in Mount Pleasant buildings in Dublin. My mother was very protective, she didn’t want us going out to play after school, so she’d create swings and things inside the door of the flat. And my father, who I came to love deeply in later years, was an angry man back then. My mum was very entrepreneurial. She worked in the markets. My father was a roofer.