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 a casino in New York, stone mason, soldier in Óglaigh na hÉireann (the official army of the government of Ireland), newspaper reporter in both Ireland and the UK, nurse’s assistant in a major hospital, airline baggage handler, construction worker, security man, bookseller, shop assistant, cleaner, station foreman with the London Underground, market stall holder, waiter, night porter, and – lastly – civil servant for thirteen years with the Irish police, An Garda Síochána. ‘I was useless at school, mainly because I attended a technical college, known locally as the tech,’ he adds. ‘My friends went there, so I followed. I’m absolutely hopeless at anything technical, so that was never going to end well. I failed all my exams and left.