Maureen O'Brien

Photo: Michael Moulds

MAUREEN O'BRIEN is an accomplished actor who has starred on stage in the West End and throughout the country and on television where her roles range from Vicki in Dr Who to Elektra in the Oresteia. She has twice won the Sony Best Actress award for her work on radio and also has awards for audiobooks of which she continues to record a huge range. In 1987, encouraged by the production of a radio play Going On, she wrote her first novel Close Up on Death, and since then she has combined both careers.

O'Brien directed Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle at Ottawa University, Canada, in the 70s and in the 80s she taught acting workshops in the USA and shows on the London Fringe. Her production of Mike English's Getting In in 1986 was Time Out's Critic's Choice.

Her play The Cutting (Bush Theatre) was nominated Best Play (London Fringe Awards) and Best Newcomer (Evening Standard Drama Awards) and is about to become a feature film. Her last novel, Unauthorised Departure, was published in January 2003 by Little, Brown in the UK and by St. Martin's Press in New York and her latest novel, the seventh, Every Step You Take was published in December 2004 by Time Warner.

Every Step You Take

George married young. It was a flop. George was big and awkward; Marje was small, pretty and blonde and she left him for another man. George threw himself into work, passed his accountancy exams and is now a partner in a small City of London firm. But the firm merges with a conglomerate and suddenly George's world is falling apart. He sees a little blonde girl running down a South Norwood street. She looks so like Marje he becomes obsessed with her, follows her, waits for her. But things get very weird. Are there two girls or one? And when one of them is killed which one is she? John Bright, who was friends with George at school, has to intervene to get George out of very bad trouble. And in the process he makes some important discoveries about himself.

EVERY STEP YOU TAKE is Maureen O'Brien's seventh novel, only five of which have so far been made available in the US. Five of her mysteries feature Detective Inspector John Bright. O'Brien's writing is fast paced, intelligent, and thrilling though she does not depend on sensationalism, violence or fear to plot her mysteries. Both male and female characters are well developed and have depth and plausibility. O'Brien is multi-talented, and her writing reflects her skill and experience in the theatre, television and radio and it would be easy to imagine her works on the large or small screen. Maureen Battistella, www.reviewingtheevidence.com

Publication: ISBN: 0316725455 Time Warner, 2004; ISBN: 0751534749 Time Warner Paperback, 2005

Another of O'Brien's ominous novels which fill the reader with foreboding about what horror might be encountered on the next page but is written so grippingly that the pages demand to be turned. DI John Bright, a London cop, is worried his girlfirend, Jude, may be in danger as a consequence of threatening letters he's receiving. So he takes off on holiday to rural France and gets entangled in the murder of the village's sultry lady of mystery. A suspect himself, he works with the local prosecutor to track down the culprit. He succeeds, but only after further disturbing murders. And right at the end, when those threatening letters have almost been forgotten, revelation of their origin provides a further sickening shock. Gerald Kaufman, The Scotsman

Good books set in unfamiliar places should make you reach for your phone to inquire about fares and hotels. I've never been to the the part of France known as The Jura but after reading O'Brien's latest my bags are packed ... Chicago Tribune

Triumphs through raw energy and an intuitive understanding of the darkest and perhaps most basic aspects of the human psyche ... Bright is an interesting and complex character, a touching blend of vulnerablitiy and vigour, a good man at home with the wicked. Knotty, stubborn and valient, he is, without doubt, a real creation. Camden New Journal

A wonderfuly atmospheric and engaging suspense novel. Bright's experience in France from its seductions to its terrors is absolutely magnificent, as are the characters of Folin, Jude and Bright. Hope Dellon, New York

Sleek mystery with great pace and an abundance of well-written dialogue. Kirkus Reviews

Thrilling mystery, heavy with nuance and and ambience. Highly recommended. New Mystery Reader Magazine

Publication: ISBN: 075051437X Magna Large Print Books, 1999; ISBN: 0316859435 Time Warner, 2003; ISBN: 0312316003 St Martin's Minotaur [USA], 2003

Unauthorised Departure

Revenge

Murder Mile - this is what the Police call Kentish Town Road. A gangland murder of a witness takes place in the builder's yard next to Jude's house. Jude is designing a garden for jouranlist Lee Han and also sharing his bed but she's married to architect Dan who, deeply depressed, has neglected her for years. When Lee's flat burns down it looks like there are gangland and Chinese connections. John Bright is assigned the case. Nothing is what it seems in this complex thriller that takes Bright to Hong Kong and almost loses him his life.

Up there with Ian Rankin. The dialogue crackles in way rarely found in British novels, her inspiration comes from the U.S. John Bright's scary because he's always alert, never misses a thing ... good banter between real cops ... funny ... the best police procedural I've read this year. Phil Rickman, BBC Radio

Lots of surprises, stunning denouement. Gerald Kaufman, The Scotsman

A cracking murder mystery. There's definitely a sequel in the spark that ignites between Bright and Jude. Image

Crime writers who maintain a consistently high standard in each successive novel are rare ... the ones who can are well worth looking out for ... stunning. The Scotsman

Publication: Little, Brown, 2001; Time Warner Paperback, 2002; Magna Large Print

The body of a fifteen year old girl has been found near a railway in the Totterdown area of Bristol ... Kate Creech hears the news report with horror - her niece Maisie is fifteen and lives in Totterdown. Kate's an actress, about to do As You Like It at the Bristol Old Vic. John Bright, close to Kate, manages to get himself detailed to the case. The chief suspect is Maisie's dad, an ex-hippie, guru to his students who congregate in his flat in a boat-house down by the docks. But who's the weirdo keeping a diary about the killing of young girls?

Elegantly written ... uncommon depths of feeling and compassion. Birmingham Post

Centred round a trick worthy of Agatha Christie at her most cunning. The Scotsman

The reader is swept along. Donna Leon, Sunday Times

Publication: ISBN: 0750515430 Time Warner Paperbacks, 2004; ISBN: 0750515430 Magna Large Print Books; ISBN: 009479250X Constable and Company Ltd, 1999

Dead Innocent

Mask of Betrayal

Kate Creech has been playing Medea at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. She returns to her little house in Kentish Town to find a body in her bath. It has been liquefying in her bath for six weeks. John bright is in charge of the case and another actress in his life he does not need. Kate fears she knows who the body is and therefore who the chief suspect will be. He's the one great love of her life and she, unable to live in her contaminated house, goes drive-about in her ancient yellow Beetle to solve the case for herself. Her odyssey takes her to Bristol, Glastonbury and the depths of rural Dorset. Bright gives her a lot of rope - she'll lead him in the right direction. The dangerous relations between Kate, her past lover and Bright become the centre of this story.

The very model of what a mystery should be ... captivatingly well written, full of interesting characters, loaded with suspense, with a real humdinger of a solution. The Scotsman

A superb, intelligent book, haunted by troubling moral implications and by the horrible image of a corpse. Express

O'Brien is a real talent. Donna Leon, Sunday Times

Publication: Constable, 1998; ISBN 075051437X Magna Large Print Books; ISBN: 0751534722 Time Warner Books, 2003

Jen's a librarian at Kentish Town Library in North London. Her life's empty and when she meets Thomas, a beautiful, good, kind Dane whose wife has just left him she falls hook, line and sinker. Certain things disturb her - Thomas's secrecy about his family, the strange "wedding in the mirror" at his house in Epping Forest - but when Thomas wants to introduce her to his family in Denmark she doesn't hesitate. But her friends in Kentish town get worried when John Bright reveals that the disappaearance of Thomas's wife is being treated as a suspicious death ... The dreadful story climaxes in an ancient church on a clifftop overhanging the sea in a distant region of Denmark.

An escalation which gathers horrid and chilling momentum. Frances Fyfield, Evening Standard

Elegantly written, remorseless chiller. Manchester Evening News

Some of the most extraordinary characters ever created by a thriller writer ... real depth and heart-stopping suspense. There isn't a literary novelist alive who can match O'Brien for psychological verity. Mat Coward, Morning Star

Publication: Headline 1993; Paperback Headline Review; Swedish Edition Wahlstrom & Widstrand; Movie Script by O'Brien for Geoff Reeve Films; BBC Worldwide Audiobook

Deadly Reflection

Close Up on Death

Millie Hale finds the body in an empty house in Belsize Park, North London. It's her best friend, Liza Drew, famous, beautiful TV star. A CID inspector turns up, small, dark. dressed in a scruffy leather bomber jacket, looks more like a crook than a copper. He's DI John Bright. The story hinges as much on the sizzling relationship between Bright and Millie as it does on who killed Liza Drew.

More than just a crime novel - the love interest is beautifully handled too, making this a gripping, hypnotic read. Woman's World

Unusual, excellent, really enjoyable debut. Spectator

Tight drama. A stunning debut. Mail on Sunday

Publication: Headline, 1989; Paperback ISBN:0373280270; Trade paperback; St Martin's Press ISBN:0312033060 NY USA; Magna Large Print

Les fleurs sont faciles à tuer

L'inspecteur John Bright enquête sur le meurtre de Liza Drew, star de la télévision. Il soupçonne ses proches…

Une intrigue impéccable. Un début fracassant. Mail on Sunday

Publication: éditions HB, 2006; Traducteur: Traduit de l'anglais (GB) par Lalla Lenda.

Structures

Brunel standing in front of the giant winch chains of the ss Great Eastern

In April 2005 O'Brien directed Structures, a play by Janet Goddard about the near-death experience of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and how his wife Mary, a highly structured lady, saved his life with her even more highly structured corset. It's a quirky show which uses street-dance, light,video, and extraordinary sound by Lin Sadler - it's a small-scale spectacular.

The brochure for a spring tour in 2006 is being developed and the venues are being finalised. A new producer to help with fund-raising is being sought.

It opened at the Elgiva Theatre, Chesham, on April 12th, and played there for a week as a showcase to raise funds for a tour around the route of the Great Western Railway, one of Brunel's major engineering achievements, in 2006, Brunel's bi-centenary year. We already have commitments from many West-Country theatres and plan workshops for school kids and students. But we're putting much effort into fund-raising - as small-scale theatre events always have to do.

Brunel is one of this country's great heroes and regarded with special affection by O'Brien and by Goddard as both their dads were engineers and loved Brunel.

IMAGINATIVE and thought provoking - that in a nutshell is what Structures is. This play, by Chesham playwright Janet Goddard, may not be to everyone's taste but I thought it was superb. It tells the story of a crisis in the life of Mary Brunel, wife of celebrated Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He accidentally swallows a coin while playing with his children in the nursery, the nett result being he is slowly suffocating to death. Meanwhile, downstairs Mary (played by the wonderful Jemma Churchill) tells the audience of her life with Brunel as she waits for news. She starts out quite reserved, every inch the Victorian lady, but over the course of the play her poise unravels - both mentally and physically as she sheds her clothes to reveal the corset of the title, which is needed to save Brunel. Jemma's performance is quite simply mesmerising. She commands the stage and the audience's attention from the start. Her co-stars also hit the right note. Saul Marron plays Samuel Taylor, a country lad who is helping the doctor to treat Brunel and gets a little too familiar with the lady of the house; and Peter Kyei (Robert the footman) who provides steady (and totally silent) support for his mistress. The remaining cast members are never seen, but their voices bring the characters to life. Robert Hulse, curator of The Engine House (The Brunel Museum) in Rotherhithe, portrays Brunel, while Nigel Anthony voices Dr Brodie.

Maureen O'Brien keeps the direction tight and gets the best out of the actors. But nothing could be achieved without the words provided by Janet, which are moving, vibrant and help bring alive an era of innovation. Estelle Sinkins, The Buckinghamshire Examiner

The Cutting was first produced at the Bush Theatre London in 1992. It was nominated for the London Fringe Awards (Best New Play) and the London Evening Standard Awards (Best Newcomer). The following year it entered the repertoire of the National Theatre of Finland in Helsinki where it ran for a year, and had a separate production at the Kemi City Theatre in the north west of Finland in 1994. In 1996 there was an acclaimed Italian production at the Taormina Theatre Festival in Sicily and in 1997 another at Teatro Per L'Europa in Rome. The most recent production of The Cutting was in Austria at the Vienna Theatre Project in January 2004. There's an excellent German translation by Inge Greifenhagen (Agent Per Lauke) and the play has recently been optioned for an English-speaking feature film, script by Arend Agthe.

Judith is in prison on remand suspected of killing her mother. She is also in the prison of her own silence. From the moment the police came to question her she has not spoken. As a last resort, Alex, a psychiatrist who has had great success with mutism in chidren, is called in to make a psychiatric assessment. He battles against her entrenched and lonely silence until at last he breaks the dam. An extraordinary story pours out, her life revealed, her imprisonment broken. This woman speaks directly to another human being, probably for the first time in her life.

Be prepared to get excited ... a gem of inner discovery ... gripping theatre that should appeal to a huge audience - undoubtedly commercial but also uncompromisingly intelligent and unsentimentally moving. Mark Drouet, London Theatre Record

Compelling. Michael Billington, Herald Tribune

Rivetting two-hander, subtle and claustrophobic ... a duet of fear and compassion. John Peter, Sunday Times

Like Beckett's "Not I" or Tom Murphy's "Bailegangaire", two other Irish writers concerned with the power of words to hint at an unvoicable story ... Recommended. Jeremy Kingston, The Times

The appeal of a mystery without the gimmicks. John Gross, Sunday Telegraph

A remarkable first play. Mail on Sunday

SURPRISED BY JOY ... O'Brien writes powerfully about the transfiguring nature of sexual love ... how an oasis of joy in a dour life can be almost intolerable ... strange shifts of power as doctor and patient change roles ... not afraid of humour ... A beautiful play beautifully done. Claire Bailey, What's On In London

Publication: ISBN 184002321X Oberon Books 2003

The Cutting

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