Steve Cavanagh: 'Being a civil rights lawyer was good training for becoming a novelist'
Steve Cavanagh was a civil rights and criminal lawyer for 20 years before he left the legal world to focus on his thriller novels. During that time, he represented a factory worker in a case against a former employer and won the largest award of damages for race discrimination in Northern Ireland legal history.
The working-class kid from Belfast, as Steve describes himself, went on to win high-profile cases for workers in the areas of sex and disability discrimination too, but these days he channels his law experience into writing about New York-based conman turned defence attorney Eddie Flynn.
"Civil rights lawyers don't make a lot of money so there's no real financial reward in it but it's about serving other people and telling their stories with all the skills and abilities that you have,” Steve reflects.
"In a way that that's good training for becoming a novelist because all you do every day is tell juries other people's stories and now I’m telling readers other people's stories.”
Whilst studying law at university, Steve began writing screenplays but he soon gave up after they failed to sell. It was only in his mid-thirties that the then returned to writing again, after suddenly losing his mum.
"She was the only person who ever encouraged me to write,” he says. “So I thought I would write for her and that book became my first novel (in 2015).”
For several years, he was lawyer by day, writer by night, but after the success of his fourth Eddie Flynn tale Thirteen, he decided to turn to writing full-time.
The decision paid off and now Steve is about to release his latest book One of Us Is Guilty, which is out on July 30 and is the tenth in his Eddie Flynn series.
The tale centres on power couple Patrick and Vanessa Vanderpool. When Patrick’s mistress is found brutally murdered, one of the two suspects is guilty and it’s up to Flynn to find out who.
Steve, who was inspired by Gone Girl and Succession, says: “You have the same scenes play out, once from Patrick's perspective and once from Vanessa's perspective.
"And you get to see exactly what mind games they're playing, what they're trying to hide from each other and what information they're trying to get and that power play.
“The book also examines the rich and powerful and the fact that we have a set of laws but they don't seem to apply to the rich and powerful anymore...And it examines how that works in terms of politics and democracy and fairness and justice.”
Northern Ireland-based Steve is appearing at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate today, alongside former criminal defence lawyer Nadine Matheson today.
They will both be interviewed by presenter, journalist and author Louise Minchin, who will explore how they use their legal training to great effect in their work.
On Sunday, Steve will then be at Waterstones, Meadowhall at noon for a signing to celebrate the release of One of Us is Guilty.