Books by Claire Kilroy

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mileHe made a crooked deal and he blew a crooked pileHe dug a crooked hole And he sank the crooked isleAnd they all went to hell in a stew of crooked bile.The Devil I Know is a thrilling novel of greed and hubris, set against the backdrop of a brewing international debt crisis. Told by Tristram, in the form of a mysterious testimony, it recounts his return home after a self-imposed exile only to find himself trapped as a middle man played on both sides - by a grotesque builder he's known since childhood on the one hand, and a shadowy businessman he's never met on the other. Caught between them, as an overblown property development begins in his home town of Howth, it follows Tristram's dawning realisation that all is not well.From a writer unafraid to take risks, The Devil I Know is a bold, brilliant and disturbing piece of storytelling.

Set in the Dublin of the mid 1980s - gripped by a heroin epidemic and light years from the post EU economic boom of today - All Names Have Been Changed tells the story of a small group of mature students on a writing course at Trinity, who become dangerously obsessed with their tutor, a notorious writer.Brilliantly exploring the shifting group dynamic, as events spiral ever further out of control, this is a novel of considerable verve and ambition. Following earlier forays into the worlds of art restoration and classical music, it is further evidence of a writer with a natural gift for narrative and atmosphere.

Eva Tyne, an Irish violinist living and working in New York, collapses after her solo debut and is rushed to hospital. Still dazed after the incident, she finds herself embarked on a chaotic and dangerous odyssey. Haunted by the ghost of her father, and racked with jealousy, Eva soon finds herself playing a desperate psychological game.

In a wonderfully unsettling first novel, Claire Kilroy manages to combine beautiful, poetic prose with the menacing atmosphere of a thriller as she explores themes of memory, violence, art and escape. 'A compelling read.