Robert Craven's blog

Kitchen Confidential (2000) I have a framed autograph over my writing desk, signed by Bourdain. I happened to be sitting with my family in the departure lounge of Charles de Gaulle in 2013, after a week in EuroDisney. He too, it turns out ,was flying to Dublin to shoot an episode of his TV show, The Layover . They say you should never meet your heroes, but he was gracious and modest, in a certain light, he had the measured gumshoe cool of a...

Moby Dick (1851) What is left to be said about Moby Dick ? Not much at this stage, In Melville's lifetime it only sold a handful of copies. It wasn't until 1917 as America entered WW1 that the book's popularity took hold. It became a staple read with US troops crossing the Atlantic. Its revival in the early 20th century long after Melville's death earned it the reputation as one of the Great American Novels , I came very late to this book, I...

Ingenious Pain (1997) My father died on the 28th of January 1998. No matter what age you are, the death of a parent is a hammer blow; the first crack in the secure pillars of life. Also, not long after, I went through a painful break up. I needed to just get away. I tallied up that I had nearly 30 days leave to use and looked around for a package. By sheer chance, passing a travel agent along Dublin's quays, I saw a three city rail journey from...

The Constant Gardener (2001) Scott Fitzgerald once said, "There are no second acts in American lives" , the 4th book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to write , The Constant Gardener , proves that in literature, this isn't the case. Le Carre's incredible return to form opens with the brutal murder of a British national, Tessa Quayle and her driver, Noah, in Nairobi. Her husband, Justin, is a diplomat who sets out to find out what...

Kolymsky Heights (1994) The American poet, Kenneth Koch once said ,"You cannot not be influenced by great writing", and this book was one of those 'turning points' in my writing. Steven Spielberg, before filming, always watches John Ford's The Searchers , when I start planning to write, I always read Kolymsky Heights . I think its the best thriller ever written. Kolymsky Heights is the third book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to...

Legion (1983) Long before it became a tourist attraction, Dublin's Temple Bar in the 1980's was a ramshackle collection of dilapidated warehouses, earmarked for demolition. The area was hidden behind a stockade of music postered hoardings. Along the street amid the buildings was a bookshop called The Alchemist's Head (sadly gone now). It was a long, narrow shop with shelves full of fortean magaines. movie magazines and a healthy stack of sci-fi...

Salem's Lot - (1975) Salem's Lot is the first book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to write . This was my first 'grown up' book, a battered trade paperback found in a second-hand bookshop in Dublin's long-gone 'Daffodil Market', I paid £0.60p for it in 1983. The premise like JAWS, parks an unspeakable threat into a small American town and its corrosive impact on the locals. Salem's Lot was a gateway book for me to the works of John...

I am currently reading Peter Swanson's excellent 'Eight Perfect Murders' and a thought occurred to me; What 8 novels inspired me to write? I gave it some time and came up with (in this instance), 9 novels that inspired me to write. The rule of thumb for these books is that once I reached 'THE END', I flipped through the pages back to the beginning and re-read them. In several instances over 10 times. So each day (or week), depending on how lazy...

How Dublin’s coastline inspired my writing during the Covid pandemic Growing up in Drimnagh in the 1980s the sea seemed very distant. To go for a walk along a beach meant taking buses and trains, and you would be away for the entire day. My mother would reminisce about her childhood holidays in Rush and in 2001, unable to afford anything closer to the city, my wife and I bought a house there. All we knew about Rush beforehand was that it was the...

A KIND OF DROWNING The man standing at the funeral in bubble-gum pink hair is P.J. Crowe. His career as a detective is in tatters - he's facing dismissal, vilified by the press, and his wife's about to leave. Lying low in a small seaside town he spots a ‘Help Wanted’ ad in the kitchen of a local café. It offers him an escape from the public and his spiraling mental health - and it's where Thea Farrell worked – until she was found dead at sea...