Writer Alex Barclay is a one-woman crime spree

West Cork based Alex Barclay is back with a new thriller, says Richard Fitzpatrick

HARM’S REACH, the title of Irish writer Alex Barclay’s latest novel — her fourth in the FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce series — decided what the book would be about. It was a trigger for the action.

“With a lot of my books, the title comes at the end,” she says, “but, strangely, with this one, the notion of harm’s reach — in terms of the reach an event can have, from the past all the way up to the present day — is what captured my attention. What I wanted to do was create a story that had roots in the past. Somebody can commit a violent act and feel that it happens in a tiny capsule, almost with the attacker and the victim, and that is where it ends. Tragically, that isn’t where it ends.”