Sebastian Barry and Liz Nugent discuss their novels featuring reclusive and lonely characters whose quiet lives are unexpectedly changed. Barry’s Old God’s Time sees retired policeman Tom Kettle pulled into the darkest currents of his past when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case. The title character of crime fiction writer Nugent’s Strange Sally Diamond becomes the centre of attention after she follows her father’s instructions to put him out with the rubbish when he dies, eventually leading to messages from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she does herself. The writers talk to Rosie Goldsmith, journalist and Director of the European Literature Network.