Just painted a picture of the king, Elvis, my all-time hero; it’s the second portrait in what will eventually be a triptych. To see the rest of my paintings, plus half a dozen new ones, click on the ‘painting’ tab at the top of this site. Love to know what you think.
KT
The Tara Bones
Those of you on Kindle might like to know that ‘THE TARA BONES’, KT McCaffrey’s 8th Emma Boylan book is now available as an e-book. They offer the first 3 chapters for free if you’d like to get a flavour of what’s on offer.
Click link below for details concerning The Tara Bones – Kindle link on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/The-Tara-Bones-ebook/dp/B00B1TBK8A
THANKS
I would like to thank all of you who turned up to view my paintings in the Toradh Gallery ( 22nd Jan – 21 Feb 2013). Truthfully, I was overwhelmed by the huge turnout and the positive response given to my artwork. A special thanks to the Arts Office at the Meath County Council for organising the exhibition and ensuring that every aspect of the show went without a hitch. To those who purchased paintings I am most grateful. It is indeed flattering to know that in these days of austerity people are willing to pay good money to own a piece of work created by yours truly. Most uplifting. All in all, the event has encouraged me to work even harder in preparing works for my next exhibition. Watch this space. So, until then, thanks to all of you for making this exhibition such a success and for making this hard working artist the happiest man on the planet.
KT (25th Feb 2013)
After a number of young women go missing, investigative journalist Emma Boylan explores the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. When one of the articles, focusing on the release of a sex offender, is published, it incites a vigilante-style protest in his neighbourhood.
Accused of irresponsible journalism and condemned by the forces of law and order, Emma is undeterred and unearths some terrifying secrets, discoveries that expose her to a fate similar to those she seeks to investigate.
Art Exhibition
I’m taking time out between books to put together a collection of paintings for an exhibition, 
details as following:
TORADH GALLERY, Ashbourne Cultural Centre, Killegland Street, Ashbourne Co Meath
From Tuesday 22nd January until February 21st.
Opening Hours:
Monday 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Tuesday 10.00am – 8,30pm
Wednesday 10.00am – 5.00pm
Thursday 10.00am – 8.30pm
Friday 10.30am – 5.00pm
Saturday 10am – 5.00pm
I’m looking forward to meeting all my friends there and having a chat.
KT McCaffrey
The eagerly awaited follow-up to ‘The Cat Trap’ and ‘No Curtain Call’ has finally arrived. THE TARA BONES, the 8th crime fiction novel featuring Emma Boylan comes out July 2012, published by Robert Hale London.
The Plot. Over the past two decades several young women from the Leinster area have gone missing, the circumstances mysterious.
One of the biggest police investigations ever mounted in the state has failed to locate any of the women.
The Tara Bones holds up a mirror to the real-life scenario described above.
When a number of young women go missing, investigative journalist Emma Boylan is given an assignment to delve into their backgrounds and explore the circumstances surrounding their disappearances. An article written by her focuses on the release of a sex offender into the community and unintentionally incites a vigilante-style protest in his neighbourhood.
Emma is accused of irresponsible journalism and roundly condemned by the forces of law and order. Undeterred, and with single minded determination, she unearths a series of terrifying findings, discoveries that in turn expose her to a fate similar to those she seeks to investigate.
In THE TARA BONES, readers are offered an insight into the lives of the victims and those shadowy characters hovering menacingly in the background. The reader is taken on a voyage of unexpected twists and turns, exposed to the abuse meted out to the ‘missing women’ until finally, in a startling nail biting denouement, the mystery is resolved.
Along the way, the plot involves itself with, among other things:
The abuse of children in state-run institutions.
The reparation commission set up to compensate victims.
The release of sex offenders into the community, and
The controversy surrounding the Tara bypass.
SALES
Available from 31st July, it can be ordered from
or
Forgive me if I include a little praise received for previous books
‘Excellent … KT McCaffrey maintains the suspense throughout, and casts a cold eye on the gloss of modern Ireland.’ Irish Independent
‘A welcome addition to the ranks of superior crime writers.’ The Observer
‘Absolutely fantastic … I had never heard of KT McCaffrey before but I am now a definite fan of both him and his brilliant writing.’ Verbal Magazine
‘A well plotted book with strong momentum and an engaging heroine.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A really good read, this thriller gripped my attention from page one and held it till the end … The pace is fast and the tension is constant throughout.’ Books Ireland
‘KT McCaffrey writes like a dream: Elegant and witty, but with a heart of coldest steel.’ Ken Bruen
This picture shows yours truly in front of my latest painting, a work based on a detail from Harry Clarke’s (1889-1931) stained glass work, ‘The Meeting’. I’ve concentrated on the mermaid image and attempted to represent it in oils on canvas while retaining the rich and vibrant colours so much a part of Clarke’s original stained glass rendition. The painting forms part of my ongoing homage to Clarke, a self-imposed project that I’ve been engaged in for the past decade – when I’m not busy with my crime fiction writing.
My interest in the works of Harry Clarke began when I attended the National College of Art and Design, the same school of art where Clarke attended as a student and later as a teacher, known in his time as the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.
It never ceases to amaze me how historians, for the most part, overlook Clarke when recording Ireland’s twentieth-century cultural renaissance, content instead to focus on the country’s literary exponents. Because of the nature of stained glass, it is less accessible to the general public, something that might help explain his relative low profile. For my part I am determined, in my own small way, to promote an interest and awareness of the great man’s work by revisiting his works and interpreting them in oils.
(click on picture to enlarge painting.)
KT McCaffrey
Good title for a crime novel? Well, maybe not. You see, I’ve just finished reading a wonderful book – title: The Goodbodys, by Michael Goodbody. The subtitle reads – ‘The story of an Irish Quaker Family.’ so any notion of finding dead bodies, good or bad, is not very likely. Although, wait, there is a murder connection – but more about that later on. As a native of Clara Co. Offaly, my interest in the Goodbodys goes back to my days growing up in the midland town where Goodbody’s Jute factory was virtually the only source of employment. In this book Michael Goodbody traces his family’s roots back to when they first settled in Mountmellic and brought about the development of the local economy
Robert Goodbody arrived in Clara in 1820 and set up a flour milling business and, later, the jute factory. As employers, and being 
Quakers, the Goodbodys provided houses, pensions and medical care for the workers. We are told that Quakers did not gamble, drink alcohol or engage in lavish spending on houses or clothing but it seems the town of Clara, even back in those days, had a pub – which we’re told put pressure on the strict rules that applied to the society’s membership.
As a schoolboy in Clara in the 60s I used to go on Goodbody’s annual train excursion to Galway to spend a day on Salthill beach. (For reasons that escape me now, Mass servers – of which I was one – were invited to join with the children of the factory workers.) Later, during my secondary school days, Mrs Goodbody from Ashmount, Clara, along with some friends, took me under her wing and saw to it that I got tuition in art classes in Tullamore – which eventually allowed me to enter the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
Sad to say, the flour milling business, after being bought over by Ranks, no longer exists and the Jute factory closed its doors in the 1970s after succumbing to competition from the Far East. And what of the murder I mentioned earlier? One of the Goodbody houses (Kilcoursey House) has become better known in recent times as the scene of the brutal murder of Fr Niall Molloy in July 1985. His murder remains unresolved to this day. I should point out that by then the property was no longer in the hands of the Goodbody family.
For anyone with an interest in the role the Quakers played in the development of the social and industrial history of Ireland this is a most absorbing read.
KT
Ken Bruen’s latest offering on the crime-fiction front, HEADSTONE, is a terrific read – his best since he first introduced readers to his multi-flawed protagonist PI Jack Taylor in ‘The Guards’. I’ve enjoyed each of the Jack Taylor books that followed but feared that in one or two of the more recent additions the author appeared to be running out of steam, crusing on autopilot, so to speak. But thankfully, ‘Headstone’ proves me wrong. All the old energy, enthusiasm, bile and excitement is slap bang back on each page. Bruen is back to his brilliant best … and when he gets it right, there’s not another crime writer in the world
that can touch him.
Once again Taylor, while wallowing in his self-destructive boozing, pill-popping, and generally pissing off just about everybody, friend and foe alike, finds time to confront an evil gang of young thugs whose intent is to rid Galway City of it’s social misfits. Bruen’s idiosyncratic prose, caustic wit and social commentary forms a backdrop to the darker deeds and terror that propel the narrative along at a breathtaking pace. The plot, as with all Bruen’s output, takes second place to the writing style. Indeed, it’s fair to say that the author has created a genre all to himself … and all the better for it.
So, yes, I really enjoyed this one and strongly recommend you get hold of it. You’ll thank me … I promise. Rating 5* * * * *
KT
(KT McCaffrey’s eight Emma Boylan mystery, ‘The Tara Bones’ will be available in July. Details later.)
I’m reading Erik Larson’s epic book ‘The Devil in the White City’ which tells the extraordinary story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and follows the lives of two disparate men whose fates are linked: one, an architect Daniel H. Burnham, the other, a serial killer named H.H. Holmes, a handsome doctor who lures scores of young women to their deaths. I’m only half way through it but I must say I’m finding the mixture of history and entertainment totally compelling. I shall talk more on this when I’ve finished it.
To give my brain a rest in-between bouts of reading Larson’s tome, I’m flicking through a delightful book by Willie Nelson – yes, that Willie Nelson, the singer. I’m a fan. I went to see him some years ago in a concert in what used to be called The Point. He was part of a tour that included Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristoffersen. Best concert I ever 
attended. This book, though, by Willie, titled ‘The Tao of Willie’ – A Guide to the Happiness in your Heart, is the singer’s way of sharing a little of what he’s picked up in his seventy-plus years of making music. The ‘TAO’, Willie tells us is a philosophy of life based on a Chinese text called the ‘Tao Te Ching’, or The Way and its Power. It contains the work of several writers who were inspired by the teachings of a guy named Tao Tzu, who lived about six hundred years before Christ. But, according to Willie, the ideas behind the Tao are older still and were very likely derived from some of man’s oldest teachings.
But rather than get any deeper into Tao here right now I’d like to retell one of the many jokes Willie tells us along the way.
A priest and a nun are playing golf.
The priest takes a huge swing at the ball, whiffs it, and says, ‘Shit! I missed.’
The nun looks up sharply and says, ‘Father, you’d better watch your language!’
A couple of holes later, the priest whiffs it again and says, ‘Shit! I missed.’
And the nun says, ‘Father, God is going to strike you dead if you keep swearing like that.’
On the next tee, the priest whiffs it and once again says, ‘Shit! I missed.’
At that moment the sky turns black, the clouds begin to rumble, and a gigantic bolt of lightning comes down and strikes the nun dead in her tracks.
And then a voice from the sky says, ‘Shit! I missed.’
Cheers for now – KT
ktmccaffrey 