大象传媒 One's new psychological crime thriller Dublin Murders is adapted from Dublin鈥檚 leading crime novelist Tana French by Sarah Phelps, who is well known for her adaptations of Agatha Christie's works, including And Then There Were None. Sarah introduces the main characters, describes how she became involved and explains her own connection to Ireland and how important the sense of place is to the story.
How did you come to be involved in Dublin Murders?
Kate Harwood and Noemi Spanos of spoke to me and said they were working on acquiring 鈥檚 books. They gave me the first two to read, with a view for me to be involved should everything go ahead. I loved every sentence. I was very compelled and drawn into the world of each individual character. I also liked what she was writing about, which was about a country trying to come to terms with a modern identity but through the prism and the bell jar of the past. It felt like a really interesting place to be. What I wanted to do in my adaptation was to write about modernity but also about fairy tales, myths and folklore.
What connection do you have with Ireland?
I've got Irish ancestry as my grandfather was born in Dublin, but his family was from Down. That borderland was something that was very interesting to me. My God, has there ever been a time since the where the notion of the border, the abstract meaning of the border and its reality has ever been more in focus, more in the news and more in our minds?
Ireland is a country that has been through an unimaginable history. It had that huge wave with the , and then this appalling recession and then it comes back again. I'm writing that story through these characters, because we begin in 2006. If we get to go forward with the other books, which I sincerely hope we do, those stories will chart that modern history of Ireland from the boom to the absolute bust and on to the recovery.
Can you introduce us to the two lead detectives in Dublin Murders?
The lead characters are Rob Reilly and Cassie Maddox. When you look at them, you see that they're on the front foot, they're ambitious, they're super smart and they're really good at their jobs. They work together with a very particular intimacy and they understand each other very well. They're also friends and it鈥檚 not a sexual thing - they trust each other and they're professional.
This case will unpeel the thing that they have in common and share, the pact they have made with each other. I can't say too much about it because there's a huge spoiler, but there is something deep and dark about them that they share. It is something tragic and highly personal that has dogged them all of their adult lives. This story is about how they are going to be able to get on with the serious, difficult dirty business of just living with it.
The series has a very strong sense of place, would you say so?
I鈥檓 glad you have said that because we worked incredibly hard on creating that absolutely specific world. One of the first things I kept thinking about when I got into this was how the title of the book, In The Woods, uses the word 鈥榳ood鈥� - which is a very old word for madness. There are still some little pockets of regional England where you can hear people say, "Oh, yes, they went woody," meaning they went mad. It's in Chaucer as well. It鈥檚 the idea that when you go into the wood, you go mad and when you come out, you're changed. That was the thing that fired me up a lot when I was writing.
In the books a different detective becomes the focal point with each novel. Does that mean you鈥檝e been preparing supporting characters for their roles in potential future series?
I know where everybody is going to be at the end. All the time, you're planting tiny little bombs for what could happen in the future. I find that really exciting, but maybe that comes from . There all the time you're putting down pots of gold, planting little story bombs so that at any given point you can just pick one up and go.
Dublin Murders is a co-production with in the US. Do you think about who and where your audience is when you鈥檙e writing?
I honestly don't think you can write like that. Most of the time I think if you're trying to satisfy one group of people, you're never going to satisfy them. This is because you don't know what questions they're asking. I think if you try to be universal, you're never going to be universal ever. You have to be utterly specific. Utterly specific to these people, utterly specific to this place and utterly specific to their story. Then you get to universality.
What Dublin clich茅s were you looking to avoid?
All of them. Unless a character is specifically an English person, we've got an all-Irish cast. When we're talking about accents and just about the right way to be, they know how to do that best. If you go to Ireland people don't suddenly burst out of their house with bright red hair and the shamrock in their teeth. They're just people getting on with their lives. Trying to live a good life. Trying to not get swallowed up by the thing that consumes them.
You鈥檝e adapted Agatha Christie and now this. What is it that draws you to crime writing?
When it comes down to the Christies, I'm less interested in the murders than the lies people tell around them. That鈥檚 the thing, that is about human nature, motives, character, desires and all the things that make people behave in an unconscionable way. I'm less interested in the blows to the back of the head than I am in the path there. Then, once that body is on the floor, you've got to honour it because that person has a story as well. I鈥檓 interested in the questions like, why do we do this? What lies have we told? Who are we? Who have we become now we鈥檝e done this deed?
Watch Dublin Murders on 大象传媒 One from Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th October 2019 and on 大象传媒 iPlayer