I want to thank everyone who encouraged and supported me on the road to Darkest Truth, particularly my agent Luigi Bonomi and all at LBA Books; my publisher Selina Walker and all at Cornerstone, Penguin Random House UK and Penguin Ireland especially my editor Sonny Marr (Sonny, Selina and Luigi knocked the book into shape and allowed me to be far braver than I could ever have been on my own); my copy-editor Beth Humphries, Grace Long, and cover artist Emma Grey Gelder; the judges and organisers of the Penguin Random House UK and Daily Mail First Novel competition; my friends, colleagues and clients at Finbarr Murphy Solicitors and throughout the Cork legal community (by the way, everything in the book is completely made up, including a few locations, and not based on real people or legal cases; also the errors in the book are my own – and some are intentional); Nick Daly who, with great fortitude and kindness, read chunks of the earliest version of this book as it was going along; all the members of the Ulysses Reading Group whose ridiculously positive reactions to my weekly posts boosted my confidence enormously; Cork’s amazing reading, writing and creative community and its arts and literary institutions including Corcadorca, the Munster Literature Centre and Cork International Short Story Festival, the Cork World Book Festival, the City Library, the County Library, the ‘From the Well’ competition, Fiction at the Friary, Crosstown Drift (and Cork Midsummer Festival), West Cork Literary Festival, UCC School of English and Waterstone’s Cork; Cork’s various film festivals and film organisations (especially the oldest of them, Cork Film Festival, to which the Film Festival in this book bears much resemblance, though there are some differences); my book club friends who helped me to read better; and Alison Bonomi, Ann Luttrell, Anna Kelly, Billy O’Callaghan, Brian Murphy, Carol Quinn, Carys Davies, Christine Moore, Claire Connolly, Claire Kilroy, Colm Roberts, Danielle McLaughlin, Deirdre Kingston, Diarmaid, Miah and Nora Falvey, and Mary Jones, Dr Denise Syndercombe-Court, Eimear O’Herlihy, E.R. Murray, Fin Flynn, Ger Kenneally, Harry Moore, Helen Boyle, Helen Guerin, Jane Moore and John Strachan, Jean Kearney, Joan Sheehy, Joe Kelly, Joe McNicholas, John Breen, Jon Gower and Sarah Hill, Jules O’Toole, Katie Dinneen, Kerry Dineen, Kieran O’Connor, Lily O’Sullivan, Lynn Sheehan, Madeleine D’Arcy, Maggie Kennedy, Marguerite Phillips, Maria O’Donovan, Marie Gethins, Mary Doyle, Mary Stanley, Michelle Nagle, Miriam O’Brien, Natalia Cacciatore, Norma Burke, Olan and Paul O’Donovan, Oonagh Montague, Peter, Nicola, Laura and Alex Byrne, Pat Cotter, Pat Kiernan, Patricia McVeigh, Paul McVeigh, Rachel Andrews, Sally Kearney, Sile Ni Bhroin, Siobhan Lankford, Sophie Dwyer, Stephen Darcy Collins, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin and all at Inkwell Group and writing.ie, William Wall and Zsuzsi Gartner; and my family – Marcia Kirwan and Rob, Michael and Molly Regan, and Neil, Nicola and Elizabeth Kirwan and, for everything, my parents Michael and Breda Kirwan.