EXCLUSIVE: Australian author Dervla McTiernan, whose last two novels were international bestsellers, is making a splash on these shores with The Murder Rule, a thriller novel being published

tomorrow by William Morrow. McTiernan has just optioned the novel to FX.

The book focuses on an idealistic law student, who is an outsider to her peers. Working with her elite campus’ prestigious Innocence Project represents the high point of everything she’s

sacrificed for, but in a twisted mother/daughter story, she soon reveals that underneath her do-gooder image lies rules pounded into her by mom. The last one is, make them pay. The author’s