The former state pathologist is now a best-selling crime novelist and occasional reality TV star. She reflects on her newest chapters - and how she only cried once during a post-mortem
Terry O'Brien, the main character in Deadly Evidence, the new crime novel by Dr Marie Cassidy, is "probably my alter-ego", admits the former state pathologist for Ireland. But who is Dr Marie Cassidy? At the end of a lively and engaging conversation in Dún Laoghaire last week, I was none the wiser. She certainly wasn't the person I was expecting.
"I'm a conundrum," she says. "I'm not what people think. They think I'm somebody who is very confident and very self-assured. That's not me. There's a persona that I put on in the morning - high heels, lipstick and off I go.