The Same Ear
One novel began with Berlioz. The other began in a Cork taxi with a driver named Pat Winning. Both came from the same place—a composer’s ear that can’t stop listening for what isn’t being said.
Writing Process
The Seeds Poe Planted in Paris
Eleven real Poe stories are hiding inside the novel, woven into the Paris of 1830. A reader’s guide to the Easter eggs—and the game of finding them.
Just Buy the Book
I told my friends I wanted to write an opera. One of them said, “Just buy the book.” I took that as a challenge. Two operas, two novels, and a trilogy later, I still haven’t bought the book.
No One Yet
Nine words. That’s all it took to find the novel’s voice. Why The Year of Shadows begins with a man who hasn’t become himself yet—and why that matters.
Murder in the Shadows…
Both men were outsiders, romantics, obsessives. Both transformed personal anguish into revolutionary art. Putting them together in 1830 Paris—solving murders while the seeds of detective fiction take root—felt inevitable