Fifty-Fifty, to be released in September, follows the case of two sisters suspected of murder who accuse each other of the crime.

Mr Cavanagh told The Irish News that he deliberately chose to set his books in New York to avoid drawing directly from his practice in Ireland.

Although he uses his legal knowledge and extensive research of US criminal procedures to inform the story, he said he prefers to avoid writing “anything that is dry or procedural”.

Born in Lisburn, Mr Cavanagh – whose real name is Stephen Mearns – studied law in Dublin and was involved in a number of civil rights cases and criminal cases.

In 2010, he represented a factory worker who suffered racial abuse in the workplace and won the largest award of damages for race discrimination in Northern Ireland’s history.