Author Fiona Gartland tells us: Under Her Care is a morally charged novel about guilt and grief, the nature of justice and the choices we hope we never have to make.
Ideas for novels are illusive things and for me, pinning one down sometimes feels like trying to catch smoke or trap a butterfly with my bare hands. Once ensnared, I find I must rapidly record it on the page, before it has a chance to escape and drift toward the subconscious of some other writer.
Afterwards, when it’s written down in whatever rough form and I begin to work on it, for reasons I don’t fully understand, its origins often fade. By the time the book is finished and I’m sending it to my agent, its initial trigger may be buried so deep, I can’t bring it to mind. So when I was asked to write about where the spark for Under Her Care, my latest crime novel, came from I had a problem. I simply couldn’t recall.
Looking for Clues
I looked back at the first draft, written in my favourite author software Scrivener, for clues of its origin. It was a messy, disjointed thing. All of my first drafts are messy and disjointed. I’m not a plotter and I’ve come to terms with that. To me, first drafts are playdough; the basic material out of which during the long, long reworking process, I try to create a decent story, a believable world. When I checked out the first iteration of Under Her Care, I could see the salt and flour and water that went into it, but I couldn’t spot what caused the initial drive to create.
Another route was required. I needed to search what I might have been reading at the time. I’ve always had a great interest in the courts. Going back to childhood and watching Crown Court or Rumpole of the Bailey on TV with my mother, the law has always held a particular fascination for me.
As a journalist with The Irish Times, I covered many cases; criminal, civil and family, and afterwards retained an interest by following cases in the media. Sometimes I look through archives on line in search of an article that might trigger an idea. To find the origin of Under Her Care then, I had to go back to before 2023 when I began writing it and hunt around for online content, to see if any might have provided a spark. I used various search phrases related to the book to help me and for quite a while, I disappeared down various rabbit holes.
Late Summer Murders
Eventually though, I found what I was looking for. It was a feature in The Irish Times written in 2022 by journalist Rosita Boland and headlined: “The late summer murders: Two men on a mission to kill Irish women.”
It detailed the heinous crimes of John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans who, in the long hot summer of 1976, drove around Ireland looking for young women to rape and murder and found and killed Elizabeth Plunkett and Mary Duffy. It was not the crimes that drew me and I certainly had no interest in those two men. It was this paragraph that caught my imagination:
“Evans, then 68, died from sepsis in St Mary’s Hospital in Phoenix Park, Dublin, on May 20th, 2012. He died in a vegetative state. He had been transferred from Arbour Hill Prison to the Mater hospital for a successful heart bypass operation in December 2008. He had a stroke the following day and never recovered from a coma.”
Under Her Care: Novel Ideas
It made we wonder about the medics who look after murderers like Evans, those nurses and doctors who promise to protect life. What might it be like to provide life-saving treatment to someone who carried out such awful crimes? Of course, in practice, when a prisoner is rushed to hospital, those caring for him will probably not know his background or history. And even if they did, professionals would set aside any qualms they might have while administering treatment. And of course every person, regardless of their situation, is entitled to the best medical help available.
Yet the article set me speculating. It made me ask a question and, as every writer knows, novel ideas emerge when attempts are made to answer a self-set question. Mine had two parts. What if a doctor or nurse not only knew the reason a patient had been imprisoned, but also knew the patient’s victim? And how would that person feel providing treatment or watching her colleagues provide treatment, to a person who took the life of someone she loved?
Guilt and Grief, Justice and Choices
Enter Nurse Beth Cronin, on hand suddenly in my imagination to answer that question in her own way.
Beth has built a life around caring for others. Then Gerald Hughes, the man convicted of her mother’s murder, is wheeled into the hospital where she works. He’s weak, defenceless and at her mercy. As her father pushes for answers, a social worker circles with uncomfortable questions, Beth’s job hangs in the balance and she starts to spiral between duty and vengeance. She stands at the biggest moral crossroads of her life, with the power of life and death in her hands.
Under Her Care is a morally charged novel about guilt and grief, the nature of justice and the choices we hope we never have to make.
So where did the idea for it come from? You know now, and so do I!
About Under Her Care:
A nurse. A murderer. A choice no one should have to make.
Beth Cronin has spent years trying to outrun the night her mother was killed. Her family shattered, she grew up with a father locked in grief and an unrelenting demand for justice. Now a nurse in a busy Dublin hospital, Beth has built a life around caring for others.
Then Gerald Hughes, the man convicted of her mother’s murder, is wheeled into the hospital where she works. Weak. Defenceless. And at her mercy.
As her father pushes for answers, a social worker circles with uncomfortable questions, and Beth’s job hangs in the balance, she starts to spiral between duty and vengeance. She has spent her entire career saving lives… yet now she stands at the biggest moral crossroads of her life. Because for the first time, the power to change everything is in Beth’s hands.
But when justice and revenge collide, which voice do you trust? And what happens if you cross a line you can never come back from?
Under Her Care is a tense, morally charged thriller about guilt, grief and the terrifying choices we hope we never have to make, perfect for fans of Liz Nugent and Ashley Audrain.
Under Her Care, out on April 21st, is published by Bloodhound Books. Link: https://geni.us/UnderHerCare.
Read more from Fiona Gartland on Writing.ie here.
