Q&A with Carlene O’Connor, Author of Murder in Galway

Carlene O’Connor is
the USA Today bestselling author of
the four-book (and growing) Irish Village Mystery Series; the latest entry, Murder in an Irish Pub, was released in
February. She comes from a long line of Irish storytellers, which includes her
great-grandmother, who emigrated from the Emerald Isle. Ms. O’Connor divides
her time between Chicago and Ireland, and counts a real-life walled town in
County Limerick as the inspiration for her fictional Kilbane, County Cork. Her most
recent novel, Murder in Galway
(available April 30, 2019), marks the launch of a new series; the book will be
available exclusively from Barnes & Noble until April 30, 2020.

Recently, the author kindly indulged
questions pertaining to conceptualizing a new series, drawing upon her own
experiences to inform her character’s travels, maintaining credibility with an
amateur sleuth, the benefits of real-life vs. fictionalized settings, and how
family tradition informs her storytelling. She also teased what comes next,
both as Carlene O’Connor and the pseudonymous Mary Carter.

Murder in Galway is the first book in a new series. What are the challenges of conceptualizing a story that both stands alone and sets up an ongoing arc?

When writing a series, you always know that the specific
mystery will be solved, but what continues are the characters and setting that
you are building. As long as I’m true to building the world, and character, I
don’t have to worry beyond the first book. I was also told that it would be two
years before the next book was released since for this first year it’s an
exclusive with Barnes and Noble, and the second year it will go through all the
regular outlets, so book two wouldn’t be out until the year after that. But because this protagonist has a
job sourcing architectural items, it will allow her to travel all over Ireland
so there will never be a shortage of mysteries to solve.

Your protagonist, Tara Meehan, is a New Yorker who travels to
Ireland to fulfill her mother’s final wishes. How were you able to draw on your
own experiences with splitting time between NYC and the Emerald Isle to develop
her character – and do you find that where you are in the world influences your
state of being?

Now I live in Chicago, but I did live in New York City for fifteen years and hope to work my way back in the near future. Although I make several trips to Ireland every year, I would love to extend that time as well. But I did draw upon my time as a New Yorker when developing Tara’s character as well as my trip to Galway and the Aran Islands, which was a magical time for me—and I was thrilled to work some of my experiences/observations into the book. Writers are always mixing real life in with their fictional worlds—or at least I am—although by the time the book is finished, my life is much less recognizable as the fictional world takes on its own shape.

When Tara arrives at her uncle’s cottage, she discovers a suspiciously dead body at the threshold – and that Johnny is missing. How does this motivate her actions as an amateur sleuth – and in what ways do you endeavor to balance an underlying sense of credibility with the readers’ willing suspension of disbelief?

Maintaining credibility with amateur sleuths is my biggest challenge with writing cozy mysteries, although thankfully the readers love them and are willing to suspend disbelief. Ireland doesn’t have many murders at all, which is the first alternative reality I’m working with. But just like I was always willing to watch another episode of Murder, She Wrote week after week, there is an understanding that we’re breaking some norms to keep this adventure ongoing. That doesn’t mean that anything goes—it’s still on the writer to work within that scope and to make it as authentic as possible. It always helps to give the character a personal and compelling reason to get involved—in this case, trying to find her missing uncle—and at the same time noticing the local guards are quick to decide that her uncle is the guilty person before a thorough investigation is even underway. Tara surprises herself by feeling a sense of familial obligation of protecting a family member—even one she’s never met, especially since it comes at the time when she’s just lost her mother—and the last real family connection she had. And the fact that everyone seems to want her to go away ignites a stubbornness in her that’s both a New York and an Irish thing. Lastly, as a designer, she’s used to thinking in creative ways which helps her put together the pieces of this case.

While your first series is set against a fictional backdrop,
Galway is a real place. What are the pros and cons of utilizing an actual
locale – and how can a setting become its own character within the story? 

The pros of an actual locale are of course drawing on the
wealth of information that’s already available about the place, and Galway is
such a vibrant, cool city. My first hour in the city I was roped into throwing
knives up to a man on a unicycle and for those who read the book, that might
ring a bell. I also took a trip out to the Aran Islands, which is also featured
in the story, and as I was writing the novel, I could picture everything
clearly. It’s also big enough that I can tweak here and there—there is no
salvage mill in Galway, at least not the one I created, and on the flip side
there are details that a local person would have added that I am not privy to,
so within the city of Galway I’ve taken some creative license. But Irish
settings are so unique, vibrant, and charming that the place does become a
character, a backdrop, a strong foundation. It’s hard to visit and not get the
“Irish bug.”

You come from a long line of Irish storytellers. How has family
tradition informed your creative sensibilities – and how have you honed these
talents into a career?

My mother and my grandmother weren’t writers, but they were
both big readers and both fantastic storytellers. I’ve always been better at
writing than orally telling a story, so I’m always awed by the other skill. And
I’m sure if you asked either of them how they became so good at telling a
story, they wouldn’t have a quick answer, or may not even know the answer. But
the Irish I know are always good at telling tall tales or embellishing,
dramatizing for their audience. The “gift of gab”, you might say. I was reading
and writing at an early age, so it almost seems as if it was just in the blood.

Leave us with a teaser: What comes next?

Still to come this year is Christmas Cocoa Murder (September 2019) which is a Christmas-themed
mystery anthology along with novellas from Maddie Day and Alex Erickson. Mine
will feature the characters from my Irish Village Mysteries. Meanwhile I’m hard
at work on the fifth book in The Irish Village Mystery Series, Murder in an Irish Cottage. Here’s a
two-word teaser for that one: Vengeful
fairies. I am also working on turning a novel I wrote under Mary Carter
into a screenplay along with my sister who is a screen and television writer in
LA. It will be based on my novel The Pub
Across the Pond that I wrote under Mary Carter. Ironically, it takes place
in a fictional town just outside Galway—it’s about an American woman who wins a
pub in Ireland. And yes, book two in the Home
to Ireland series featuring Tara Meehan is just over the horizon.

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