Steve Cavanagh

Beyond Reasonable Self-Doubt

- Craig Sisterson

It was like a scene from Law & Order, or Matlock. The kind of dramatic twist that’s a regular occurrence in legal dramas, but rarely if ever happens in real-world courtrooms.

Several years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, one of Northern Ireland’s top employment and civil rights lawyers was cross-examining a witness and got him to admit on the stand that he was lying. In front of the judge and everyone else. “Eddie Flynn came to me in that moment in court,” says Steve Cavanagh, who last October won the coveted CWA Gold Dagger for The Liar, the third novel in his highly acclaimed legal thriller series.

Barely three years after his debut was published, Cavanagh was recognized by the British Crime Writers’ Association as having written the year’s best crime novel. That was a surreal night for Cavanagh, who at one stage had nearly given up any thoughts of being published. He was feted by his peers and praised from the stage by Michael Connelly, one of his writing heroes, who was in London to receive the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.

“It was an incredible night for me. I have to tell you I still can’t quite believe it,” says Cavanagh when we reminisce about the evening a few months later. “To have Michael Connelly say nice things about me is something I could never have dreamed. I was, and continue to be, completely blown away by it all. It was very special to have my wife, Tracy, there beside me. Along with my agent and publisher. These are the people that got me to that ceremony, so it was special and right to have them there.”

And some thanks, in a way, goes to that lying witness he’d faced in court years before.