On the Town: If Dublin's underworld cronies were present, they kept themselves well hidden in the slick upstairs lounge at Ron Black's bar, where Liz Allen was launching her first novel, Last to Know. Formerly crime correspondent at the Sunday Independent, Allen took over the position after Veronica Guerin's murder in 1996.
It was a difficult post, not terribly conducive to romance. On her first date with her future husband, Andrew Hanlon, director of news at TV3, she interrupted the idyll of candlelight and hand-holding over the dinner table to answer the mobile.
"I've got weapons for you," she was told. Then, instead of enjoying the glories of new love, she spent the night learning how to fire a handgun.
Despite this, Allen and Hanlon did get together, and they now have two children: Elise, a toddler, and Anna, a five-week-old daughter. In her speech, Allen thanked her husband for his support in writing the book.
"He's been a constant help and critic, and the man responsible for my doing 600 sit-ups since I had the baby," she said.
Hanlon, for his part, said he admired Allen's "balls, the brass neck she had". As proof, he recalled the time she went to John Gilligan's stud farm, where hordes of journalists were camped at the locked front gates.
"She went round the back, knocked on the door, and Geraldine Gilligan invited her in for a cup of coffee," he recalled.
Allen's long-time friend and colleague, Fiona Kelly, a producer at RTÉ, turned up to cheer her on her budding career as a novelist. Also present were Breda Purdue, managing director of Hodder Headline Ireland, Colm Ennis, director of Hughes and Hughes bookshops, and fellow thriller writer Glenn Meade, whose next book, Web of Deceit, is due to be published in August.
"Thriller writers are a rare breed in Ireland," Purdue said, though this didn't seem to bother Meade.
"I can walk the streets in safety here," he said.
Adrienne Healy, Allen's sister-in-law, and her husband Gerry Healy are both eager to read the book and see who the characters are.
"I haven't recognised anyone yet in the first 10 pages," said Gerry, but he's still wondering if they'll both turn up in disguise.