STAR INTERVIEW
JUSTICE FOR ALL
Eva Dolan creates popular crime novels with social justice at their heart, as Tina Jackson discovers.
Tina Jackson
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To read an extract from One Half Truth
If you like your crime writing cosy and nostalgic, step away now. But if your idea of a cracking contemporary crime novel is one that interrogates the wrongs society commits against the overlooked and underprivileged, then check out Eva Dolan – outstanding crime writer as social justice warrior.
For example, the issue of land contamination doesn’t sound a promising premise to base a novel on, let alone one as gripping as Eva’s latest, One Half Truth, the latest in her DI Zigic and DS Ferreira series. But in her hands, investigating the murder of a young journalist exploring the web of crime and corruption that spins out from a shady property deal creates a propulsively thrilling read that illuminates the ripple effects social injustice has on people who’ve already been clobbered by profiteers.
‘The crime on the surface is representative of the deeper narrative in society,’ explains Eva.
‘Looking at deeper levels of crime is exactly what I want to do. You can write about anything you want in crime fiction as long as you get to a murder. I’m thinking, someone will kill over this. We have literally book after book where a woman is killed – so how to get people to understand that land contamination is something people could kill about? That’s very different. Yeah, we’re living on contaminated land, breathing contaminated air – you need to get people to see how high the stakes are.’
One Half Truth is Eva’s seventh novel, and the sixth in the Zigic and Ferreira series. She wrote it in the first few months of lockdown. ‘It’s a world that feels very real in my head,’ she says.
She’s friendly and fiery and an absolute pleasure to talk to – and happy to admit that beneath her welcoming manner, she is, yes, seething.
‘There’s so much to be angry about,’ she says. ‘Crime fiction is a chance to hold a mirror up to parts of society. I understand why people are looking for escapism but it can do so much more.’
In Eva’s talented hands, it does – without ever forgetting that the human stories are what draw you in to understand the bigger issues that are often overlooked. ‘With crime you can tell stories other people don’t want to tell,’ she says. ‘You make a decision – I’m comfortable with telling the truth and writing about things most people would turn away from. It feels important to me to talk about things other people didn’t want to discuss and dig into.’