Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE INVENTION OF MURDER by Judith Flanders

Cain invented murder, of course, but Judith Flanders’ splendidly lurid title is entirely appropriate. What makes THE INVENTION OF MURDER: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime a compelling read is not the grisly murders Flanders documents in such meticulous detail, but the grotesque appetite the Victorians developed for fresh blood.
  This is Flanders’ fourth book on Victorian society, and the pages teem not only with black-hearted murderers, devious poisoners and outrageous miscarriages of justice, but also with the minutiae of day-to-day Victorian life. Thus the book is not simply a list of the most famous murders of the period (John Thurtell, Burke and Hare, Jack the Ripper) but also provides a comprehensive dissection of Victorian society, and particularly its evolving understanding of crime, class, justice and policing.
  Flanders’ theme, however, is the representation of murder. She quotes, approvingly, Thomas de Quincey’s ironic commentary on the public appetite for gore in her opening chapter, ‘Imagining Murder’: “‘Pleasant it is, no doubt, to drink tea with your sweetheart, but most disagreeable to find her bubbling in the tea-urn.’ … But even more pleasant, he thought, was to read about someone else’s sweetheart bubbling in the tea urn … for crime, especially murder, is very pleasant to think about in the abstract …”
  There are no cases documented here of sweethearts bubbling in tea urns, but it wasn’t for a lack of imagination on the part of the Victorian chroniclers of crime. The first major case Flanders deals with is that of John Thurtell, a decadent playboy who murdered his associate Joseph Weare over a gambling debt in 1823. Thurtell was no criminal mastermind, and the evidence against him amounted to a cut-and-dried case, but what is shocking to the modern mind is the extent to which the media was allowed to comment on the case. Flanders is excellent on the development of ‘broadsides’, cheap pamphlets hawked on street corners for the delectation of a blood-thirsty working-class. But even the most prestigious of the era’s newspapers were happy to print the kind of unfounded allegations and prejudicial rumours that today would have seen Thurtell walk away from court a free man, unable to obtain a fair trial.
  Thurtell’s guilt might have been plain for all to see, but where Flanders excels is in her excavation of cases in which conviction (and the almost inevitable public execution) were preordained, regardless of the evidence. Eliza Fenning, a servant girl who was accused of attempted murder by poisoning in 1815, is probably the best example. “Her terrible story was inextricably bound up with class anxiety, with fear of the mob, with hierarchy and social structure,” writes Flanders. Fenning, who was undoubtedly innocent of the charge of attempted murder, was convicted on a mish-mash of hearsay and confused testimony, a victim of paranoia and prejudice. Flanders’ account of the tawdry episode is a superb example of the complex interplay of forces - rudimentary policing, social change, a system of justice in dire need of transparency and accountability - which doomed many of those who appeared before men who prided themselves on their reputation as ‘hanging judges’.
  Fenning became notorious after the event, the subject of ‘broadsides’, acres of newspaper print and theatrical productions. In fact, if there’s a caveat to this book, it’s one of repetition: determined to explore each case to its fullest extent, Flanders is meticulous in exhaustively detailing the consequences of each case. Her devotion to her subject cannot be faulted, but once the pattern is established (murder, trial, representations in various media), the reader may well find him or herself skipping whole chunks of Flanders’ research.
  Curiously, the real murder rate was relatively low. In 1810, for example, the murder rate in Britain was 0.15 per 100,000 people; for comparative purposes, the murder rate in Canada in 2007-2008 was 0.5 per 100,000. Nonetheless, crime-influenced theatre was massively popular for the Victorians: “in 1866 there were 51,363 nightly seats in twenty-five London theatres,” Flanders writes, a figure which only applies to legitimate theatre. Queen Victoria herself attended a production of Dion Boucicault’s ‘The Colleen Bawn’ three times in one fortnight.
  The evolution of policing from a rudimentary arrangement of nightwatchmen prowling a particular parish into a more sophisticated organisation devoted to detection as well as prevention provides Flanders with another sub-plot. That development is reflected in the embryonic crime novel, with Flanders crediting Charles Dickens as one of the genre’s early leading lights, alongside Wilkie Collins.
  By then the Victorian lust for blood, further sharpened by the likes of Conan Doyle’s fictional Sherlock Holmes, and the horrifyingly real crimes of Jack the Ripper, was firmly established, allowing Flanders to conclude thusly: “By the start of the new century, therefore, a love of blood could be indulged in safely and securely, without any fear of an ugly reality bursting in. Instead, oceans of blood could cheerfully be poured across the stage, across the page, in song and in sermon. Murder was, finally, an art.” - Declan Burke

  This review first appeared in the Sunday Business Post.

TAKEN, Not Stirred

Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN, the follow-up to her debut IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN, isn’t out until May, but already I’m feeling a tad queasy. I know I’m supposed to be a hard-boiled crime writer and all the rest of it, but stories about abducted kids send me weak in the guts these days. That said, TAKEN should make for a rollicking read. Quoth the blurb elves:

It’s a cold wet winter night when a car pulls into a service station on Dublin quays. Strapped on to the back-seat is a three-year-old boy. Asleep. Five minutes later he’s gone – kidnapped in the time it’s taken his mother to pay for her petrol. Distraught and fearing for his safety, she has only one option. DI Jo Birmingham. One of the few female senior officers on the Dublin police force, Jo has a keen reputation for solving crimes and righting wrongs. Her search for the little boy takes her into a dark world of lies and corruption, where hard cash is king, where sex is a commodity to be bought and sold – and where the lost and vulnerable are in terrifying danger …

  She’s done very nicely for herself, has Niamh O’Connor, since the publication of her debut. The quote adorning the cover of TAKEN is from Tess Gerritsen, and suggests that Ms Gerritsen is well impressed: “Gripping, terrifying … If you like Martina Cole, you’ll love this.” Very nice indeed …
  Actually, it’s shaping up to be an interesting year of offerings from the ladies of Irish crime writing. Casey Hill’s TABOO is a debut courtesy of husband-and-wife writing team Melissa Casey and Kevin Hill, and is either available now or coming in July, depending on what interweb source you prefer. Ava McCarthy returns to the fray with her third thriller, THE DEALER, in October; Tana French’s BROKEN HARBOUR will be with us in August; Jane Casey’s third offering, THE RECKONING, will be thumping down on a bookshelf near you in July; and - intriguingly - Arlene Hunt leaves QuicK Investigations behind to present us with a standalone novel, which is currently rejoicing in the working title of FAIR GAME and is set in the US.
  I kid you not, folks, it’s a marvellous time to be writing about Irish crime fiction …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Sam Hawken

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Probably Dave Zeltserman’s PARIAH, as it’s gotten consistently rave reviews from everyone who’s read it and is emblematic of the quality of his overall output. It’s a book that would make me look really good, like I know what I’m doing.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Peter Pan. I get to live forever and never grow old, fight with pirates, hang out with Indians and mermaids and fairies and be the leader of my own little band of ne’er-do wells? That’s a good life.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
It’s not so much of a who as a what. I don’t have any go-to authors for my “junk” reading, but I’ll pick up a Star Wars novel and consume it with gusto when I need a palate cleanser.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Selling THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ to Serpent’s Tail. I sweated blood writing that thing and was glad to see it out of my hands. Having it sell as quickly as it did, to such an enthusiastic reception by the publisher ... that made it worthwhile.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question. My only exposure to Irish crime novels has been via Ken Bruen, who said some very nice things about THE DEAD WOMEN, so I would probably dip into his back catalogue to make my selection. A cop-out answer, I know.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
LONDON BOULEVARD would make a good movie. What? They’re already making it? Never mind, then.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing about being a writer is the actual writing process. I hate writing, but I love having written. That’s the best part: being able to present to the world a completed work that lives up to your expectations. It may not live up to other people’s expectations, but it’s a good feeling while it lasts.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A story of the US/Mexican border and those who would sacrifice anything to make it to the Land of Opportunity. Told in three parts, from the perspectives of three very different people.

Who are you reading right now?
I’m actually reading a Star Wars novel by Sean Williams right now. And before that I read another novel in the same series from Sean Williams. I’m in a junk-food reading phase at the moment.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Oh, I would definitely read. As I say, I detest writing, so giving it up wouldn’t be a sacrifice for me at all. I’d still have stories I’d want to tell, but I would keep them to myself.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Spare. Functional. American.

Sam Hawken’s THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ is published by Serpent’s Tail.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: The Irish Times’ Crime Beat

Frank Parrish is a NYPD detective in RJ Ellory’s SAINTS OF NEW YORK (Orion, £12.99, pb), a man who becomes obsessed with the murder of teenage girls. Parrish is initially a conventional character, a hard-drinking loner who subverts the justice system, but it’s hard not to share his obsession, particularly as the young women are being killed for the purpose of snuff movies. Parrish is also haunted by his father’s reputation as one of the eponymous saints, a legendary cop who played a major part in breaking the Mafia’s stranglehold on organised crime in New York, although Frank is convinced that his father was a Mafia pawn. A pleasingly methodical and realistic police procedural, ‘Saints of New York’ is equally impressive as a psychological study of a man on the edge of the abyss, and Ellory invests his gripping plot and strong characterisations with an existential angst that at times makes for harrowing reading.
  Last seen in GONE, BABY, GONE (2008), Dennis Lehane’s private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro return in MOONLIGHT MILE (Little, Brown, £15.99, pb). The pair have given up their dangerous lives, and have settled into domestic bliss, but Patrick finds himself dragged back into the squalid world he once knew when Amanda McCready, the four-year-old girl he returned to her unfit mother in GONE, BABY, GONE, goes missing again. Likeable but lethal Slavic mobsters provide the narrative tension, and Lehane maintains a page-turning pace courtesy of Patrick’s laconic narration, a downbeat and blackly humorous style that is entirely appropriate for Lehane’s depiction of the banality of evil. Oddly, however, there is a sense that danger is always kept at arm’s length. Recently a father, as is Lehane himself, Patrick prioritises his family over his self-imposed duty to the missing girl. While this may well be an eminently pragmatic way of dealing with drug-fuelled killers, and further subverts the fictional private eye’s time-honoured but implausibly noble instincts to solve a case at all cost, it does have the effect of blunting the novel’s impact.
  Teresa Solano’s A SHORTCUT TO PARADISE (Bitter Lemon Press, £8.99, pb) is a Barcelona-set comic crime offering which heralds the return of the non-identical detective twins Borja and Eduard. The pair are commissioned to investigate the murder of Marina Dolc, bestselling populist writer, on the night she received a prestigious literary award. Was one of Dolc’s rivals the killer? The reader knows from the outset that the hapless novelist (and runner-up) Amadeu Cabestany wasn’t responsible for Dolc’s death, but Cabestany affords Solana ample opportunity to loose comic barbs at the literary snobbishness that denigrates genre fiction in general and crime fiction in particular. The joke wears thin after a while, but Solano also has important things to say, albeit in a deceptively light and humorous fashion, about the global economic downturn, and how formerly upstanding citizens can be driven to criminal actions by forces beyond their control. Given that one of crime fiction’s most important functions is social commentary, Solana’s novel offers a valuable insight into contemporary Spanish life.
  Susanna Gregory’s A BODY IN THE THAMES (Sphere, £19.99, hb) offers an equally fascinating glimpse of a particular time and place, in this case Restoration London. The sixth outing for professional intelligencer - aka spy - Thomas Chaloner, it takes for its backdrop the peace negotiations between the English and the Dutch during the long, hot summer of 1664, as both countries, in theory at least, strive to avoid war. Chaloner investigates the death of his former brother-in-law, Dutch diplomat Willen Hanse, who may well have been murdered by war-mongering hawks from either delegation. Wonderfully researched, the novel is pungent with historical detail, nuggets of which provide any reader who is even vaguely familiar with modern London with plenty of material to delight in. Unfortunately, Gregory’s prose, and particularly her dialogue, is rather stilted, while most of the characters - although based on historical personages - are little more than stiffly drawn ciphers for greed, power and lust.
  Sam Hawken’s debut THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ (Serpent’s Tail, £10.99, pb) offers another compelling setting, Ciudad Juarez on the US-Mexican border, a city in which locals believe the number of women who have disappeared since 1993, probably murdered, exceeds 5,000. The novel opens with punch-drunk American boxer Kelly Courter attempting to trace his missing girlfriend, Paloma, although the issue is complicated by the fact that Paloma is the sister of Estéban, Kelly’s friend and sometime partner in illicit drug-dealing. These facts are known to Rafael Sevilla, a Juárez police detective, who also takes an interest in Paloma’s disappearance, an interest that is as personal as it is professional. Hawken trades in gritty realism and a haunting sense of loss and hopelessness, and while the novel is very much a singular achievement, it does bring to mind favourable comparisons with Richard Ford’s THE ULTMATE GOOD LUCK (1981).
  The latest in Joseph Wambaugh’s series of ‘Hollywood’ novels, HOLLYWOOD HILLS (Corvus, £16.99, hb) brings together a colourful collection of LAPD cops who work out of the notorious Hollywood Station, splicing their more bizarre tales of working the La-La-Land beat with those of scammers, thieves and reprobates. The multiple storylines and initially bewildering cast of characters may leave some readers disorientated at the beginning, but Wambaugh is a masterful storyteller (this is his 18th novel), and it’s not long before the various elements coalesce into a dazzling mosaic that offers caper-style comedy, downbeat heroics, heartbreakingly authentic detail and unconventional but effective police procedural work. For those unfamiliar with the ‘Hollywood’ novels, Elmore Leonard may prove a useful reference point, with the crucial difference being that Wambaugh’s characters understand that Hollywood is a surreal stage, and that each must play their part to the hilt. - Declan Burke

  This column was first published in the Irish Times.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE LEOPARD by Jo Nesbo

Suffering the professional fall-out from his last case, when he tracked down the serial killer known as the Snowman at great personal cost, Oslo Crime Squad detective Harry Hole has absconded to Hong Kong, there to wallow in the squalor of an opium haze. When fellow Crime Squad detective Kaja Solness finally tracks him down, she has bad news: not only is Harry’s aged father dying, but another serial killer appears to be at large in Norway. Can Harry find it within himself to rise to the occasion once more?
  THE LEOPARD is the eighth of Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole novels, and the first thing to be said about it is that it’s a very big book indeed. At 624 pages it’s rather more than a door-stop; it’s a small suitcase, and will account for most of your carry-on luggage should you decide to take it away on holidays for a beach read.
  If you do take it away, it’ll make for a very good beach read indeed, albeit a rather dark one. Nesbo sets up THE LEOPARD in the initial stages as a conventional serial killer novel, with Hole in pursuit of a particularly fiendish murderer. Indeed, there’s a quasi-gothic feel to the opening section, in which the opium-raddled Hole (shades of Sherlock Holmes) investigates murders which have been enacted by a device called a ‘Leopold’s apple’, which originated in the colonial days of the Belgian Congo. A metal ‘apple’ is placed in the victim’s mouth; when a string is pulled, 24 spikes shoot out of the ‘apple’ and into the victim’s head. Death isn’t necessarily instantaneous; one of the victims, for example, drowns while choking on her own blood.
  There’s a disjointed feel to the opening 100 pages or so, as Nesbo re-establishes Hole in Oslo. This is in part because there’s a political aspect to the novel, as the very existence of the Crime Squad is threatened by Kripos, led by Mikael Bellman. Bellman, for reasons not fully explained, wants Kripos to take over all the murder cases in Norway, and Bellman becomes as much of a nemesis to Harry as the killer he is investigating.
  Another reason for the stop-start momentum in the early stages is Nesbo’s insistence on mythologising Harry. Hole is already a legend in Norwegian policing, the man who brought down the terrifying Snowman, along with other high profile criminals, as established in previous novels. To a large extent, Hole is a conventional protagonist in the police procedural sub-genre: a loner, a rebel against the system, a hard-drinking addict to justice for its own sake, a man wounded by life and carrying a torch for a lost love, a man not noticeably handsome yet irresistible to women. On page 91, for example, the world-weary Harry finds himself attracted to his co-worker, Kaja Solness:

It was pathetic, but his heart had been beating a bit faster while he waited for her. Fifteen years ago that would have annoyed him, but he had resigned himself and accepted the banal fact that a woman’s beauty would always have this modicum of power over him.

  There’s something irritatingly trite, almost adolescent, about Nesbo’s insistence that one of the fundamental drives of any man should be ‘banal’, and that beauty has only a ‘modicum of power’ over him. Harry believes he should be above what he perceives as the petty messiness of life and love; Nesbo wants us to believe that Harry is a kind of super-man. Again, on page 63:

Harry jumped up so quickly he went dizzy, grabbed the file, knew it was too thick, but still managed to tear it in two.

  Another aspect of the early stages of the novel that’s a little hard to swallow is Harry’s relationship with Katrine Bratt, a former fellow police detective with Crime Squad, now in a mental institution after her brush with the Snowman in Nesbo’s previous novel. Naturally, there is a sexual attraction; what’s less convincing is that the recovering Bratt proves to be something of a whizz at uncovering essential information on the internet whenever Nesbo needs the plot to move forward, despite the fact that she can only access a communal computer in the mental institution’s day-room.
  Once the novel settles into its stride, however, and providing you’re happy to accept Harry’s high-falutin’ notions of himself, THE LEOPARD quickly becomes an enjoyable sprawling epic. It’s a globe-trotting tale too, moving from Hong Kong to Norway and on to the Congo and Rwanda, although most of the action and investigation takes place in Norway. Nesbo delights in unleashing a whole shoal of red herrings, although to be fair he does put the reader on high alert from the early stages, when a character we believe to be a sinister sociopath, and possibly a killer, turns out to be a victim. From that point on it’s wise to take nothing for granted, and Nesbo even goes so far as to have the great Harry himself deceived on a number of occasions.
  It’s to Nesbo’s credit that THE LEOPARD is a hugely ambitious novel; given his success to date (five million books sold, and counting), the easy option would have been to simply repeat his formula. Yet THE LEOPARD offers much more than the conventional police procedural; while the investigation itself is realistically pain-staking, and subject to a number of reverses, there are other dimensions to the story, such as Harry’s relationship with his dying father. That relationship, almost inevitably, given Hole’s persona, is characterised by conflict, but it also adds a poignant touch that at times borders on the sentimental, and provides a neat counterpoint to the rigidly professional way Harry goes about his investigation.
  His relationship with Kaja Solness offers another aspect, although this one is less convincing. Solness is hauntingly beautiful, as fictional policewomen tend to be, and is an interesting character in her own right, given that her own motives and ambitions don’t always chime with Harry’s. It’s probably not giving away too much to reveal that Harry and Kaja are drawn to one another, and the conventions of the novel almost demand it; that said, their attraction, when it finally blossoms into the white-heat of lust, becomes too emotionally intimate and profound to be convincing. Again, there’s the sense that Nesbo is shoe-horning his characters into a particular situation in order to move the plot along.
  That said, THE LEOPARD is largely an enjoyable read. Harry eventually exerts the gravity of a black hole, providing you’re willing to play along with his self-reverential opinion of himself; the characters are for the most part well drawn and fully fleshed, although Harry’s policeman nemesis, Mikael Bellman, is a little too crudely constructed, being a philanderer and potential if not actual sexual deviant, and a man willing to betray all and sundry in order to further his career. Meanwhile, large chunks of the novel take place in the ‘wastelands’ of northern Norway, a virtually lawless place reminiscent of the old Wild West, and Nesbo’s descriptions of the physical landscape are brilliant at communicating their bleak, haunting beauty.
  The cover of THE LEOPARD comes complete with a stamp declaring Nesbo ‘the next Stieg Larsson’, a statement that may well be true in terms of Nesbo’s future popularity, although even the most casual reading will confirm that Nesbo is by far the superior writer. THE LEOPARD is easily as complex and ambitious a novel as any of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, but it’s a much more enjoyable read, not least, I suspect, because of the excellent work by Don Bartlett, a regular translator of Nesbo’s work novels. Personally, I preferred THE SNOWMAN, Nesbo’s previous offering, on the basis that it was tauter and more streamlined, but there’s no doubt that fans of Stieg Larsson will find plenty to enjoy here. - Declan Burke

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

Tony Black regularly gets raves from the likes of Ken Bruen and Irvine Welsh for his Gus Dury novels, but he’s stepped away from the persecuted Gus for his latest outing, TRUTH LIES BLEEDING. Quoth the blurb elves:

Tony Black moves away from the noir of his Gus Dury novels with this terrific police procedural featuring Detective Inspector Rob Brennan. Four teenagers find the mutilated corpse of a young girl stuffed into a dumpster in an Edinburgh alleyway. Who is she? Where did she come from? Who killed her and why? Above all, where is the baby to which she has obviously recently given birth? Inspector Rob Brennan, recently back from psychiatric leave, is still shocked by the senseless shooting of his only brother. His superiors think that the case of the dumpster girl will be perfect to get him back on track. But Rob Brennan has enemies within the force, stacks of unfinished business and a nose for trouble. What he discovers about the murdered girl blows the case – and his life – wide open.

  The good people at Preface Publishing have been kind enough to offer Crime Always Pays three copies of TRUTH LIES BLEEDING to give away free, gratis and for nuffink, and to be in with a chance of winning a copy, all you have to do is this:

Recommend for the delectation of your fellow readers another novel with a title containing the words ‘Truth’, ‘Lies’ and / or ‘Bleeding’ (bonus points for novel titles that offer combinations of said words).

  Answers in the comment box below, please, leaving a contact email address (using ‘at’ rather than @ to confuse the spam munchkins). All submissions go into my bobbly hat. Closing date is noon on Thursday, January 27th, et bon chance, mes amis.

And So To The Oscars …

Time for some badly needed glitz and glam here at grimy CAP Towers, and some crystal ball gazing in lieu of all that depressing crime fiction malarkey. Yup, it’s the Oscar nominations, and Crime Always Pays’ rather wonky take on same. To wit:

Best Actor
Javier Bardem “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg “The Social Network”
Colin Firth “The King’s Speech”
James Franco “127 Hours”

Javier Bardem was brilliant in the haunting ‘Biutiful’, as he generally is, but the chances of the Best Actor gong going to a foreign film are slim. Jeff Bridges was hilarious in ‘True Grit’, but the role lacks poignancy, and Bridges, along with Bardem, may well be too recent a winner to reward again. James Franco did a terrific job of sustaining audience empathy in what was essentially a one-man show in ‘127 Hours’, and Jesse Eisenberg was a revelation as Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’, but both may be too young to get the nod. Which leaves us with Colin Firth’s superb performance in ‘The King’s Speech’. Firth has always been a likeable actor, but he moved up a couple of gears with ‘A Single Man’ (2009), and his turn as the stuttering king in waiting should be good enough to land him the Oscar.


Best Actress
Annette Bening “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams “Blue Valentine”

I just wasn’t convinced by Natalie Portman in ‘Black Swan’. Playing the part of a ballerina struggling to get to grips with her role, she looked to me like an actress struggling to get to grips with her role. Annette Bening’s performance in ‘The Kids Are All Right’ was solid, but Julianne Moore’s was the eye-catching turn there, and Bening’s selection makes no sense. The perennially stiff and frosty Nicole Kidman was perfectly cast as the grieving mother in ‘Rabbit Hole’, and deserves her nomination, and Michelle Williams confirmed that she’s a brilliant actress in ‘Blue Valentine’ (odd that the superb Ryan Gosling didn’t get a nod for his role there). Head and shoulders over them all, however, was Jennifer Lawrence’s eye-poppingly brilliant turn in ‘Winter’s Bone’.


Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale “The Fighter”
John Hawkes “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush “The King’s Speech”

A tough one to call. The fact that the excellent heist movie ‘The Town’ got largely shut out means you’d like to see Jeremy Renner get the nod, but John Hawkes was superbly sinister in ‘Winter’s Bone’. Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo was the best thing about ‘The Kids Are All Right’. In reality, it’ll come down to Christian Bale’s “squirrelly as fuck” turn as Dickie Ekland in ‘The Fighter’ and Geoffrey Rush’s laconic subversion in ‘The King’s Speech’. My heart says Bale, especially as the character of Dickie is the most fascinating aspect of ‘The Fighter’, but my head says Rush.


Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver “Animal Kingdom”

It’s entirely probable that Amy Adams and Melissa Leo will split the vote for ‘The Fighter’; and I haven’t seen ‘Animal Kingdom’ yet, so I have no opinion on Jacki Weaver. That leaves us with Hailee Steinfeld in ‘True Grit’, which is an odd nomination, given that she is in fact playing the lead role in the movie; that she’s terrific as the heart and soul of the movie, though, is beyond argument. Too much, too young? Probably. I’ve never really warmed to Helena Bonham Carter as an actress, but she mutes the shrill button as Bertie’s supportive wife in ‘The King’s Speech’, and may well be due an Oscar for services rendered to the industry.


Animated Film
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Toy Story 3”

Only two things to be said here. One, it’s a crying shame that both ‘Megamind’ and ‘Tangled’ didn’t make the list. Two, ‘Toy Story 3’ is a locked-down, cast-iron plunger for the Oscar.


Best Director
Darren Aronofsky “Black Swan”
David O. Russell “The Fighter”
Tom Hooper “The King’s Speech”
David Fincher “The Social Network”
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen “True Grit”

Firstly, it’s a crying shame that Debra Granik isn’t here for ‘Winter’s Bone’. Otherwise, it’s terrific, as always, to see the Coen brothers up for another Best Director gong, but ‘True Grit’, marvellous fun though it was, just didn’t deliver the truly great movie I was expecting. Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’ can’t be faulted for lack of ambition, but I still can’t decide whether Aronofsky deliberately allowed the film to mutate into an overblown gothic melodrama for the last half-hour in order to reflect Nina’s disturbed mental state, or if he simply bit off more than he could chew and let it all run away from him. David O. Russell’s ‘The Fighter’ is a solid and hugely enjoyable boxing flick made in the image of its hero, slugger Micky Ward, but it would have been a far more interesting film had Micky’s brother, crack addict and failed contender Dickie, been the focus. David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ is superbly executed, and a far more entertaining film than any movie about Facebook has any right to be, but Tom Hooper’s ‘The King’s Speech’ has an emotional resonance that should play well with the Academy.


Best Picture
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Extending the Best Picture category to accommodate ten nominations is a farce, and takes a lot of the tension out this particular choice. The hype surrounding ‘Black Swan’ threatens to take it all the way to the podium, but it’s proving divisive with critics and audiences alike, and will probably stumble. ‘True Grit’ isn’t strong enough to make it worth the Academy’s while rewarding the Coen brothers again, and so soon after ‘No Country for Old Men (2007). ‘The King’s Speech’ and ‘The Social Network’ are both strong contenders, and there’s a very good chance that the buzz surrounding ‘The King’s Speech’ will peak at the right time. For me, the two best movies of the year were ‘Toy Story 3’ and ‘Winter’s Bone’, and I’d be equally happy to see either win, not least because it’d suggest the Academy was finally starting to think outside the box; and if I had to choose one over the other, I’d plump for ‘Winter’s Bone’.

Finally, congratulations to Ireland’s own Michael Creagh, who was nominated in the Short Film category for ‘The Crush’. Nice one, squire.

Molto Benny

Benny Blanco, aka Benjamin Black, returns to the fray this year with A DEATH IN SUMMER, which sounds like it could be terrific fun. Quoth the blurb elves:

When newspaper magnate Richard Jewell is found dead at his country estate, clutching a shotgun in his lifeless hands, few see his demise as cause for sorrow. But before long Doctor Quirke and Inspector Hackett realise that, rather than the suspected suicide, ‘Diamond Dick’ has in fact been murdered. Jewell had made many enemies over the years and suspicion soon falls on one of his biggest rivals. But as Quirke and his assistant Sinclair get to know Jewell’s beautiful, enigmatic wife Françoise d’Aubigny, and his fragile sister Dannie, as well as those who work for the family, it gradually becomes clear that all is not as it seems. As Quirke’s investigations return him to the notorious orphanage of St Christopher’s, where he once resided, events begin to take a much darker turn. Quirke finds himself reunited with an old enemy and Sinclair receives sinister threats. But what have the shadowy benefactors of St Christopher’s to do with it all? Against the backdrop of 1950’s Dublin, Benjamin Black conjures another atmospheric, beguiling mystery.

  All of which sounds like a tongue-in-cheek Agatha Christie homage and / or parody, which would be no bad thing. And, given that John Banville toiled for many years with ink-stained fingers among the great and good of Irish journalism, it’ll be interesting to see if ‘Diamond Dick’ is modelled on any of said great and good.
  Meanwhile, and not wanting to waste a cheese-tastic Italian headline pun, Conor Fitzgerald publishes the second in his Rome-set Alec Blume series, THE FATAL TOUCH. To wit:

In the early hours of a Saturday morning, a body is discovered in Piazza de’ Renzi. If it was just a simple fall that killed him, why is a senior Carabiniere officer so interested? Commissioner Alec Blume is immediately curious and the discovery of the dead man’s notebooks reveals that there is a great deal more at stake than the unfortunate death of a down-and-out ... What secrets did he know that might have made him a target? What is the significance of the Galleria Orpiment? And why are the authorities so intent on blocking Blume’s investigations?

  I thoroughly enjoyed Fitzgerald’s debut, THE DOGS OF ROME, and I wasn’t alone. “A powerful and hugely compelling novel. Dark, worldly and written with tremendous style and assurance,” reckoned William Boyd. “The American-born Blume is an engaging hero who might just have to potential to fill the gap left when Michael Dibdin’s death ended his Italian detective Aurelio Zen’s investigations,” vouchsafed the Sunday Times. “Blumein’ marvellous,” Crime Always Pays barely restrained itself from quipping.
  Conor Fitzgerald as the new Michael Dibdin? I’ll buy that for a dollar …

Sugar And Spice And All Things Nice …

… that’s what little girls are made of. Brian McGilloway’s LITTLE GIRL LOST, on the other hand, appears to be made of rather sterner stuff. Quoth the blurb elves:

During a winter blizzard a small girl is found wandering half-naked at the edge of an ancient woodland. Her hands are covered in blood, but it is not her own. Unwilling or unable to speak, the only person she seems to trust is the young officer who rescued her, Detective Sergeant Lucy Vaughan. DS Vaughan is baffled to find herself suddenly transferred from a high-profile case involving the kidnapping of a prominent businessman’s teenage daughter, to the newly formed Public Protection Unit. Meanwhile, she has her own problems: caring for her Alzheimer’s-stricken father, and avoiding conflict with her surly Assistant Chief Constable – who also happens to be her mother. As she struggles to identify the unclaimed child, Lucy begins to realise that this case and the kidnapping may be linked – by events that occurred during the blackest days of the country’s recent history, events that also defined her own girlhood. LITTLE GIRL LOST is a devastating page-turner about corruption, greed and vengeance, and a father’s love for his daughter.

  Fans of McGilloway’s Inspector Devlin may be disappointed to learn that LITTLE GIRL LOST is not the latest in that particular series, but is instead a standalone novel (or very possibly the first in an entirely new series). For what it’s worth, I’m always intrigued when a writer decides to stretch him or herself by stepping out of their comfort zone. The Devlin series is a critically acclaimed one, and has nabbed a number of short-list nominations for McGilloway, so I’m sure it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to stick with the tried and tested, especially as he’s still a relatively young writer. Kudos to him, then, for striking out in a new direction; and kudos too to his publisher for embracing the change, particularly as the current climate in mainstream publishing is characterised by caution and conservatism.
  The bottom line, I suppose, is that a good writer is a good writer, regardless of his of her characters, themes or settings. In the past I’ve heard John Connolly declare that the way to build a successful publishing platform is a number of novels that deliver ‘the same again, only different’ - which advice may be slightly tongue-in-cheek, given that Connolly himself is prone to diversions such as THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS and THE GATES (the former, incidentally, will be getting a mass paperback release in the US this year, while the latter gets a sequel, HELL’S BELLS, in May).
  As an occasional author myself, I like to mix it up. EIGHTBALL BOOGIE was / is a first-person private eye novel; THE BIG O was / is a multi-character crime caper; and BAD FOR GOOD (aka THE BABY KILLERS) was / is … well, I’m still not entirely sure what that sucker is, although it does revel in the subtitle ‘A Gonzo Noir’. Meanwhile, I’ve written a sequel to THE BIG O, and I’ve written two more first-person private eye novels, but the idea of getting locked in to one character or type of story is not something that appeals; the story I’m ‘working on’ now is as different to the stories I’ve already written as BAD FOR GOOD was different to THE BIG O. I suppose it comes down to the fact that, as a reader, I like to read widely, in all genres and none; so it’s hardly surprising that when I do turn to writing, that I prefer to write different kinds of stories too.
  The Big Q here, though, is whether Brian McGilloway’s fans will be happy to take the new direction on board when LITTLE GIRL LOST is published in May. If a new Chandler novel, for example, was discovered, would I be delighted or disappointed to learn that it wasn’t a Marlowe novel? The question, I suppose, is whether we read an author for the author or for his characters. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how McGilloway, a very highly rated writer here at CAP Towers, handles his new material. Roll on May …

Wicka Wicka Wild West

I’ve no idea what it is they’re putting in the water over there these days, but the west coast of Ireland, if what we’re seeing on screen is to be believed, is going to hell in a hand-basket. RTE’s acclaimed TV series about a lone rural cop, ‘Single-Handed’, recently had its fourth run; Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS was adapted as ‘Jack Taylor’, starring Iain Glen; now comes ‘The Guard’, which this week opened the Sundance Festival World Dramatic Competition. To wit:

‘The Guard’ is a thriller-comedy set on the west coast of Ireland where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a small-town cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to his door.

The film is written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, brother to playwright and film director Martin McDonagh (‘The Lonesome West’ et al, ‘In Bruges’), who doubles up here, along with Don Cheadle, as executive producer. The big attraction for me here is Brendan Gleeson, though, an immensely likeable and always watchable actor, and by all accounts a thoroughly nice bloke to boot. Variety likes him too, with the gist of its Sundance review running thusly:

“… it’s Gleeson who rightly owns the screen as a beer-swilling, crotch-grabbing, Derringer-firing crusader with one hell of a filthy mouth to go along with his heart of gold,” while the director John Michael McDonagh’s “filmmaking crackles with energy.”

According to Element Pictures, the movie will be getting a summer release here in Ireland. Should be a cracker.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Sean Cregan

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Assuming it counts as crime, as it’s a bit of an oddball, then China Mieville’s THE CITY AND THE CITY, no question. The writing’s top notch, Inspector Borlu is a great character, and the weaving of the story, which looks on the surface like a run of the mill murder mystery, through such a unique setting is fantastic. Awesome book.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Spider Jerusalem. (I’ll let people who don’t know the name google it, and recommend that they buy the graphic novels.)

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t think I have any. At least, no “guilty pleasures” in the sense of reading - there’s all the other stuff, with the animals, and that Hawaiian nun, and the rubber masks, but there’s no reading involved in that.

Most satisfying writing moment?
In recent times, ignoring all the “moment of being first published” stuff, probably reading my notes for a finale that read, with only the names redacted: “X rappels in by helicopter. Y arrives by hovercraft. Z crashes a burning car through the wall.” The middle of the three was especially hard to include in an ostensibly serious urban thriller, rather than a James Bond tie-in. I’m clearly very easily entertained.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I’d be amazed if anyone claimed it was anything other than THE BIG O ...

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
If AMERICAN SKIN counts as an Irish crime novel, I’d say that. Though it’s going to take the movie industry a long time to work through Ken’s whole back catalogue.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The pay and the hours, respectively? More seriously, having to go over your own stuff so many times that you’d rather claw your own eyes out than read anything you’ve ever written, and having the freedom to come up with all that future boredom in the first place, ideas running free.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Ha! Now that’s a tricky one in the circumstances. A couple of weeks ago it would have been: “A wanted American assassin, a motorcycle gang member and a thief in hiding from his own guilt as much as his former employers go searching for a kidnapped child in a vast, abandoned Manila neighbourhood where the air’s toxic and the ground floods every high tide. They’re up against one of the world’s richest men, an insane unit of Filipino soldiers and every small-time villain in the city.”

Who are you reading right now?
I’ve just finished Justin Cronin’s THE PASSAGE, just starting on China Mieville’s UN LUN DUN.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Easy. I write, then stick to watching movies. I’ll just have to avoid the ones with subtitles.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
“Confused, plotless schlock”. Or “stylish, tight and exciting”. Much like the trousers I’m wearing.

Sean Cregan’s THE RAZOR GATE is published by Headline.

21st Century Boy

I have no idea of when it’ll go live, but at some point today Mulholland Books will begin serializing a new novel by Sir Kenneth of Bruen (right). It all sounds splendidly Dickensian, albeit in a 21st century kinda way, and would be even more Dickensian were it a Jack Taylor novel exploring the squalor of recession-hit Galway (sorry, Galway), with soot-blackened urchins being shoved up chimneys to discover corpses and whatnot. Anyway, you can clickety-click here for more …
  In other news, yesterday I received a long awaited decision on the future of my own current tome, which is at the moment languishing under the improbable title of THE BABY KILLERS. The news, disappointingly, was a negative, although the disappointment has less to do with the fact that the book won’t be published any time in the near future (I’m well used to that at this stage) as it has to do with the potential publisher, a small but perfectly formed press with some radical ideas on the future of publishing. It’s a pity, but there it is; upward and onward.
  It now looks very much like I’m going to self-publish THE BABY KILLERS, aka BAD FOR GOOD, aka A GONZO NOIR at some point later this year. I’ve had a good scour around the interweb for self-publishing deals, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t in all conscience, given these straitened times and the need to put food on the table, etc., pump even a relatively modest sum of money into a project just for the sheer vanity of being able to hold an actual book. And so I’ll be e-publishing THE BABY KILLERS, and pretending that I’m doing it to be on the cutting edge of technology, especially in the context of Amazon claiming that they’re now selling more Kindles than McBurger sells cheeseburgers, etc, yadda-yadda.
  For those of you who’ve been keeping an eye on this project, the principle behind it will remain the same: any monies accruing will be donated to charity. That won’t amount to much more than a hill of beans, and probably a lot less, because the price of the book will probably be in the $1 range. Still, it’s the thought that counts.
  As to what I’ll do once THE BABY KILLERS is out there, I really have no idea. I’ve a couple of stories I’d really like to write, and one in particular that simply won’t go away, so I have plenty of material to work with. Whether or not there’s an actual point to writing it, or them, is another matter entirely. Yes, it’ll be that uniquely perverse kind of masochistic fun that is writing, which is roughly 90% of the reason I write; but I can only delude myself for so long, and eventually the other 10% - actually presenting the story to other people for the purpose of reading it, if for no other reason than to justify the time you’ve wasted writing the bloody thing - will kick in. And where do I go then, with my oh-so-precious m/s clasped in my clammy hands? Being practical, there’s only so many times I can tell the Three Regular Readers of ye olde blogge that good times are just around the corner; at some point they’re going to lose interest, or worse, start pitying me. Better perhaps to just accept that I’ve had a good enough run at this point, a better run than I’d even allowed myself to imagine starting out, and simply fall on my sword.
  We’ll see. Right now my priority is to get DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS to the publisher on deadline, and see it ushered onto a bookshelf near you in all its pomp and glory; and once that’s done, I’ll crack on with e-publishing THE BABY KILLERS, and apologies in advance to all of you who, like me, prefer actual books to the electronic version. After that, well, who knows? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell.

Truth vs Fiction: And The Winner Is …

Barry Forshaw, reviewing Eoin McNamee’s ORCHID BLUE in last weekend’s Sunday Tribune, asks an interesting question. To wit:

How legitimate is it to plunder real-life crime as grist for a fiction writer’s mill? And how long an interval should be left before picking over the bones of a murder? Celebrated crime novelists who have transmuted grim reality into uncompromising books include James Ellroy, who fictionally confronted his own mother’s murder in THE BLACK DAHLIA, and David Peace, who controversially used the Yorkshire Ripper’s reign of terror in the Red Riding Quartet. Eoin McNamee steps into this dangerous territory with ORCHID BLUE – less visceral than these predecessors, but equally provocative, as he deals with the last hanging on Irish soil …

  I was asked a similar question - How legitimate is it to plunder real-life crime as grist for a fiction writer’s mill? - during a panel discussion last year, when the mood seemed to suggest that such ‘plundering’ wasn’t a good idea at all, although that was in the context of Edna O’Brien’s IN THE FOREST. At the time I’d recently read ORCHID BLUE, though, so it all seemed a pretty good idea to me. And, in general, I’d tend to believe that the writer’s obligation is to write the story as well as he or she can, with all other considerations trailing in a poor second. But that’s just me.
  Anyway, it was a good weekend for McNamee in terms of reviews. Jake Kerridge gave ORCHID BLUE the thumbs up in The Telegraph, and was very approving of Jane Casey’s THE BURNING into the bargain; while yours truly had reviews of ORCHID BLUE, The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman’s DR YES and Benjamin Black’s ELEGY FOR APRIL in the Sunday Independent.
  Meanwhile, both McNamee’s ORCHID BLUE and THE BLUE TANGO (2001) featured Lord Justice Curran, who presided over the trial of Robert McGladdery (ORCHID BLUE) despite the fact that his own daughter was murdered 10 years previously in very similar circumstances (THE BLUE TANGO). Word is that McNamee is planning a third novel to feature Justice Curran; ‘legitimate’ or not, I for one can’t wait.

William Golding, Rapunzel And Me

One of my favourite quotes about writing comes from William Golding, in an interview in which he was asked about his writing schedule was like. “Well,” he said, “when I’m writing …”
  Whoa! ‘When I’m writing …’? You’re saying you don’t beat yourself up for not putting down 500 words minimum every day? Nice one, sir.
  I’m not writing right now. Haven’t written a single sentence of fiction in weeks. Took a break for the Christmas holidays and haven’t gone back since. It’s marvellous.
  There’s a few reasons for such sluggardly laziness. One is that I’m a lazy sluggard. Another is that I’m torn between a couple of stories I’d like to write, and I can’t decide which one I’d prefer to follow through on - although that suggests that maybe neither one has sufficient gravity to pull me in. Another reason is that I have a book under consideration at the moment, and it’s getting past the point where a decision will be made, and I find it very difficult to write with the guillotine blade creaking overhead. There’s also the fact that (actual paying) work is keeping me quite busy, and that we’ve turned the last bend into the final furlong on the DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS project, and it’s sapping all the spare energy I have to pretend I’m not a carthorse among thoroughbreds.
  There’s also the fact that I have been busy telling stories, to a captive audience, and revelling in the feedback, and if there’s anything more likely to undermine your drive to write, I really don’t know what it is. These stories tend to get told around about 8pm every night, to a sleepy little girl who demands one last story before she’ll close her eyes, and feature princesses, dragons, castles, dark forests, pink magic (pink magic is good, green magic bad), trolls, witches, fairy godmothers, mermaids, et al, although the most crucial element tends to be a feisty heroine called ‘Lily’, who is invariably to be found wearing a ‘bootiful swirly-twirly dress’. Last night it was Rapunzel’s turn to get an outing, and the little girl listened in wide-eyed silence, only interrupting to correct her daft old dad when he got a detail or six wrong, as he generally does; and then, once everyone was living happily ever after, the sleepy little girl announced, as she generally does, “My turn.” For the 55-second, stripped down, all-you-need-to-know version of Rapunzel, roll it there, Collette …

  I’m biased, obviously. But if Ray Chandler himself were to rise from the grave and read one of my stories, and declare it a third-rate knock-off but not bad, all things considered, it still wouldn’t be a patch on the buzz I get from telling Lily stories and hearing her version in return. A bit of a closed feedback loop, it’s true, and highly unlikely to set me on the path to fame, riches and glory. Still, when it all boils down, the whole point of this writing malarkey is for the pure joy of telling stories. Right?
  Apologies for the sentimental interlude. Normal cynical service will be resumed as soon as possible …

Don’t Mourn. Organise.

Yesterday I read yet another well-meaning op-ed piece in the Irish Times on the current state of this benighted isle, which claimed that the Irish peopled feel ‘humiliated’ by recent economic events, which culminated in the EU / IMF bail-out of Ireland.
  Now, the first thing to say about that is that Ireland wasn’t bailed out by the EU / IMF. The Irish banks were bailed out, so as to save the lily-white asses of those European bankers who loaned vast sums of money to Irish bankers without first checking to see if the Irish bankers were possessed, at the very least, of the wit to use an abacus. The Irish people will pay for it, certainly, and will continue to do so until such time as we get a government with the cojones to tell the EU / ECB to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, tell the gamblers who took a punt on Irish banks that they lost, and that the casino is now closed for essential repairs.
  The second thing, arguably more important, is that no one I know feels even remotely ‘humiliated’ by the economic wreckage. Why should they? They had nothing to do with dodgy lending practices, and certainly didn’t benefit from same. No, everyone I know is angry at the fact that the country was (and still is) being run by a greedy, corrupt and cretinous golden circle of politicians, money-men and sundry fuckwits who treat the place like their personal fiefdom. I can’t and won’t speak for exactly how everyone else is feeling, but I can tell you how I feel: a cold, black, poisonous rage.
  I’ve been reading reports that suggest that the Fianna Fail meltdown in the coming election could be so profound as to result in as few as nine FF TDs being returned to the next Dail. In my opinion, that’s not nearly enough. The coming election is the best opportunity the Irish people will ever get to wear Fianna Fail down to the very nub, and with the grace of all that is sacred, wipe it out entirely. Nits, as they say, grow into lice. Or, in the last words of Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn. Organise.”
  All of which is to say that Gene Kerrigan’s latest offering has the perfect title: THE RAGE. Gene’s previous novel, DARK TIMES IN THE CITY, was a brilliant slice of urban noir, and was nominated last year for a CWA gong; as a journalist, Gene Kerrigan has been reporting for more years than he cares to remember on the (putting it politely) follies and foibles of our governing class, and I’m already sweaty-palmed at the prospect of discovering exactly what he has to say, in the guise of fiction, about what’s happened to Ireland in the last couple of years. Quoth the blurb elves:

Vincent Naylor is a professional thief, as confident as he is reckless. Just ten days out of jail, and he’s preparing his next robbery. Already, his plan is unravelling. While investigating the murder of a crooked banker, Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey gets a call from an old acquaintance, Maura Coady. The retired nun believes there’s something suspicious happening in the Dublin backstreet where she lives alone. Maura’s call inadvertently unleashes a storm of violence that will engulf Vincent Naylor and force Tidey to make a deadly choice. THE RAGE is a masterpiece of suspense, told against the background of a country’s shameful past and its troubled present.

  Gene? Bring. It. On.

People In Glass Books Shouldn’t Throw Grenades

To the best of my knowledge, which is fairly limited at the best of times, there are no glasshouses in Adrian McKinty’s forthcoming tome, FALLING GLASS. Very probably no grenades, either. Although there’s very likely some people. And glass, falling. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that today’s headline makes even less sense than usual because my synapses are going off like a trailer park 4th of July at the prospect of a new McKinty novel. Quoth the blurb elves:

Richard Coulter is a man who has everything. His beautiful new wife is pregnant, his upstart airline is undercutting the competition and moving from strength to strength, his diversification into the casino business in Macau has been successful, and his fabulous Art Deco house on an Irish cliff top has just been featured in Architectural Digest. But then, for some reason, his ex-wife Rachel doesn't keep her side of the custody agreement and vanishes off the face of the earth with Richard’s two daughters. Richard hires Killian, a formidable ex-enforcer for the IRA, to track her down before Rachel, a recovering drug addict, harms herself or the girls. As Killian follows Rachel’s trail, he begins to see that there is a lot more to this case than first meets the eye, and that a thirty-year-old secret is going to put all of them in terrible danger …

  Lovely, lovely, lovely.
  It’s looking like another bracing year for Irish crime fiction, folks. My extensive research* reveals that Tana French and John Connolly will be doing the needful, as is traditional at this point, with BROKEN HARBOUR and THE BURNING SOUL, respectively (and the Dark Lord chipping in the YA HELL’S BELLS for good measure); Gene Kerrigan returns with THE RAGE; Eoin Colfer publishes his first adult crime novel, PLUGGED; Niamh O’Connor has her second novel, TAKEN, published; Alan Glynn’s BLOODLAND is on the way; Ava McCarthy’s third novel (where does the time go?) will be THE DEALER; Brian McGilloway publishes the standalone LITTLE GIRL LOST; Benny Blanco is back with A DEATH IN SUMMER; Conor Fitzgerald’s sophomore offering will be THE FATAL TOUCH; William Ryan is back with THE BLOODY MEADOW; while perennial faves Colin Bateman, Arlene Hunt, Declan Hughes have yet to show their hands, on Amazon at least. And then there’s the intoxicating prospect, as always, of debutants arriving to swell the numbers of the Irish crime fic crew.
  Last and most definitely least will be DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21ST CENTURY, a rattle-bag collection of essays, interviews and short stories about the phenomenon of Irish crime writing, by the Irish crime writers themselves, a collection that includes offerings from (deep breath): John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Niamh O’Connor, Tana French, Gene Kerrigan, Eoin McNamee, Adrian McKinty, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville, Alex Barclay, Ken Bruen, Cormac Millar, Professor Ian Ross, Cora Harrison, Paul Charles, John Banville, Ingrid Black, Colin Bateman, Kevin McCarthy, Jane Casey, and more. The book will be published by Liberties Press, in April, with your humble host as editor.
  So, a good year in prospect already, and it’s still only halfway through January. Will 2011 be the year Irish crime fiction breaks out a la Scandinavia? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell …

  * a three-minute click-frenzy around Amazon, natch.

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

The good people at Serpent’s Tail have been kind enough to offer Crime Always Pays three free copies of Sam Hawken’s THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ, a debut no less than a personage than Sir Kenneth of Bruen describes as, “A beautiful, compassionate, gruelling novel, as ferocious to read as it is soul wrenching … This book will haunt you for a long, long time.” Quoth the blurb elves:

Since 1993 over 400 women have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez. Residents believe the true number of disappeared stands at 5,000. When a new disappearance is reported, Kelly Courter, a washed-up Texan boxer, and Rafael Sevilla, a Mexican detective, are sucked into an underworld of organised crime, believing they can outwit the corruption all around. THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ follows these two men obsessed with seeking the truth about the female victims of the Mexican border wars.

  To be in with a chance of winning a copy of THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ, just answer the following question:

What one Mexico-set novel, other than Sam Hawken’s debut, should we all read before we die?

  Answers via the comment box below, please, making sure to include a contact email address (using ‘at’ rather than @ to confuse the spam monkeys). All entries go into my bobbly hat. Competition closes at noon on Thursday, January 13th. Et bon chance, mes amis …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Peter Leonard

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE by George V. Higgins. My father, Elmore Leonard, gave me the book right after it came out. He said, “Read this. You won’t believe how good it is.” And he was right.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
James Bond. Looks like he has a pretty good time.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I read ‘People’ magazine, which chronicles the comings and goings of American movie stars, important stuff like who’s dating whom, where they vacation, what clubs they frequent.

Most satisfying writing moment?
My agent called telling me St. Martin’s Press had made an offer on QUIVER,
my first novel.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE GUARDS by Ken Bruen. Jack Taylor is a wonderful character, and Ken is a hell of a writer. His prose is gritty, violent and funny. I read it in one sitting.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
IN THE WOODS by Tana French.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is probably the sting of a bad review. The best, I get paid to invent characters and tell stories. What could be better than that?

The pitch for your next book is …?
It’s 1971. A Holocaust survivor’s daughter is killed in an auto accident by a German diplomat. Harry Levin, a scrap metal dealer from Detroit, goes to Washington D.C. to claim his daughter’s body and find out what happened. A D.C. detective named Taggart tells Harry the incident has been covered up by the U.S. State Department. The diplomat, who was drunk, has been released from police custody and given immunity. Harry flies to Munich to get revenge and learns that the diplomat, Ernst Hess, figures in his past.

Who are you reading right now?
MR. PEANUT by Adam Ross.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. It’s too compelling to give up.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Character-driven suspense.

Peter Leonard’s ALL HE SAW WAS THE GIRL is published by Faber and Faber.

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS by Declan Burke

When a heist goes west, Karen and Ray head south - next stop, the Greek islands. On their trail are Karen's ex-con ex- Rossi, his narcoleptic wheelman Sleeps, jilted cop Doyle, and Melody, an indie filmmaker with an eye for the wide angle and a nose for the big score. The Monte Carlo grand prix of road-trip comedy capers, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is a furiously fast and funny screwball romp that barrels through Amsterdam and Rome in a welter of double- and treble-crosses in the company of a motley crew, all with their eyes on the prize of riding off with the loot into that glorious Santorini sunset ...

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS on Amazon Kindle US

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS in many other e-formats


Praise for CRIME ALWAYS PAYS:

“CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is part road movie and part farce, reminding me sometimes of Elmore Leonard, sometimes of Allan Guthrie, sometimes of Donald Westlake and sometimes of the Coen brothers - sometimes all at once.” - Glenn Harper, International Noir

“The end result is a little like what might be expected if Elmore Leonard wrote from an outline by Carl Hiaasen ... [It’s] about the flow, the feel, the dialog, the interactions among characters, not knowing who's working with - or against - who, the feeling that anything might happen at any moment. It’s as close to watching an action movie as a reading experience can be.” - Dana King, the New Mystery Reader

“The comparisons to Elmore Leonard's style are warranted and deserved, but Burke has managed to put his own unique spin on it ... For anyone looking for some escapism, a great read, and a lot of fun, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is for you.” - Smashwords review (*****)

“CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is a fun yet complex novel, which definitely falls under the heading of screwball ... The unique mixture of a fun cops and robbers caper and the complex plot and character relationships makes this novel highly enjoyable and worth a read, or even a re-read.” - Smashwords review (****)

“FIVE stars for sure!” - Smashwords review (*****)

THE BIG O by Declan Burke

Karen can’t go on pulling stick-ups forever, but Rossi is getting out of prison any day now and she needs the money to keep Anna out of his hands. This new guy she’s met, Ray, just might be able to help her out, but he wants out of the kidnap game now the Slavs are bunkering in.
  This is the story of a tiger kidnapping seen through the eyes of a wide cast of characters. It jumps from Karen and Ray to Detective Doyle, Frank—the discredited plastic surgeon who wants his ex-wife snatched—and Doug, the lawyer who convinces him to do it. Then there’s the ex-wife herself, who just happens to be Karen’s best friend. Can Karen and Ray trust each other enough to carry off one last caper? Or will love, as always, ruin everything?

THE BIG O at Amazon UK

THE BIG O at Amazon US

Praise for THE BIG O:

“If Elmore Leonard met Jim Thompson down a dark alley at midnight they might emerge a week later with thick beards, bloodshot eyes and the manuscript for The Big O … raises the bar on its first page and keeps it there till the last word.” – Eoin Colfer

“Imagine Donald Westlake and his alter ego Richard Stark moving to Ireland and collaborating on a screwball noir and you have some idea of Burke’s accomplishment.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Declan Burke’s THE BIG O is one of the sharpest, wittiest and most unusual Irish crime novels of recent years … Among all of the recent crop of Irish crime novelists, it seems to me that Declan Burke is ideally poised to make the transition to a larger international stage.” – John Connolly

“Burke has married hard-boiled crime with noir sensibility and seasoned it with humour and crackling dialogue … fans of comic noir will find plenty to enjoy here.” – Booklist

“Carries on the tradition of Irish noir with its Elmore Leonard-like style ... the dialogue is as slick as an ice run, the plot is nicely intricate, and the character drawing is spot on … a high-octane novel that fairly coruscates with tension.” – The Irish Times

“Irish thrillers don’t get much more hard-boiled than this gritty, violent and wildly hilarious kidnap caper.” – Irish Independent

“A plot that takes off at a blistering pace and never lets up. The writing is a joy, so seamless you nearly miss the sheer artistry of the style and the terrific, wry humour.” - Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

“With a deft touch, Burke pulls together a cross-genre plot that’s part hard-boiled caper, part thriller, part classic noir, and flat out fun. From first page to last, THE BIG O grabs hold and won’t let go.” – Reed Farrel Coleman: Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Award-winning Author of THE JAMES DEANS

“Declan Burke’s THE BIG O is full of dry Irish humour, a delightful caper revolving around a terrific cast … If you don’t mind the occasional stretch of credulity, the result is stylish and sly.” – The Seattle Times

“Delightful … darkly funny … Burke’s style is evocative of Elmore Leonard, but with an Irish accent and more humour … Here’s hoping we see lots more of Declan Burke soon.” – Kansas City Star

“Declan Burke’s crime writing is fast, furious and funny, but this is more than just genre fiction: Burke is a high satirist in the tradition of Waugh and Kingsley Amis . . . but he never forgets that his first duty is to give us a damn good read.”—Adrian McKinty, author of THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD

“Faster than a stray bullet, wittier than Oscar Wilde and written by a talent destined for fame.” - Irish Examiner

“THE BIG O is everything fans of dark, fast, tightly woven crime fiction could want ... As each scene unfolds, tension mounts and hilarity ensues.” – Crime Spree Magazine

“Burke has [George V.] Higgins’ gift for dialogue, [Barry] Gifford’s concision and the effortless cool of Elmore Leonard at his peak. In short, THE BIG O is an essential crime novel of 2007, and one of the best of any year.” – Ray Banks, author of DONKEY PUNCH

“THE BIG O is a big ol’ success, a tale fuelled by the mischievous spirits of Donald E. Westlake, Elmore Leonard and even Carl Hiassen … THE BIG O kept me reading at speed – and laughing the whole damn time.” – J. Kingston Pierce, January Magazine, ‘Best Books 2007 - Crime Fiction’

“THE BIG O has everything you want in a crime novel: machinegun dialogue, unforgettable characters, and a wicked plot. Think George V. Higgins in Ireland on speed.” – Jason Starr, author of THE FOLLOWER

“Burke shows remarkable skill at weaving a complex story from multiple points of view and pulling the strands together in an engaging fashion, and he clearly has the genius required to pull off a large-scale story.” - Spinetingler Magazine

“This is an extremely funny crime novel that takes Irish crime fiction in a whole new direction. Under the cracking comedy of the book lurks some very subtle and highly skilful plotting and prose.” - Brian McGilloway, author of BORDERLANDS

“Burke effortlessly ratchets up the tension, rings the changes of the perceptions of reality between the characters, provides an element of farce, a few choice set-pieces, some neat observations of domestic minutiae, and keeps the laughs coming.” – Euro Crime (1)

“THE BIG O has a wonderfully tight and convoluted plot that plays out like a movie … The bad guys are endearing, the good guys are wicked … A kidnap caper that is very funny, exhilarating, violent and snappy … A hell of a lot of fun.” – Euro Crime (2)

“It’s hard to praise THE BIG O highly enough. Excellent writing, great characters, superb storytelling – all played out at a ferocious tempo. By turns it’s dark, funny, moving, brutal, tender and twisted. A book that makes one hell of an impact. More Declan Burke please.” - Allan Guthrie, award-winning author of TWO-WAY SPLIT

“A kidnap caper with style and plotting more like Elmore Leonard (or maybe Donald Westlake) … a kaleidoscopic narrative that moves forward at a rapid pace … a crime farce of the first order.” - International Noir

“The deliciously complicated plotting, the wry dialogue and the sympathy Burke engenders for his cast of characters made this one of the most fun and purely pleasurable reads I’ve had in a while.” – Detectives Beyond Borders

“A polished, sharp as a tack and witty caper novel … If you’re a fan of the likes of Steve Brewer and Carl Hiaasen, you’ll devour THE BIG O ... Declan Burke is undoubtedly a writer to watch.” - Reviewing the Evidence

“Recalls Elmore Leonard’s more humorous works … It’s a perfectly realized, twisted little 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle that slowly snaps together, with more than a few surprises along the way … The humour is of the dark and wicked kind, but both it and the inevitable violence are handled in a refreshingly subtle manner, more ice pick than chainsaw.” – Mystery Scene Magazine

“THE BIG O is one big-old crazy caper with an eerie hint of Elmore Leonard and a brash, bold, ball-bustin’ tempo … As a stylist, Burke is as kick-ass Irish as the great Ken Bruen … The really big appeal of THE BIG O, however, is that there is simply nothing like it – nothing close – on the bookshelves today.” – Crime Scene Scotland

“Declan Burke writes like Raymond Chandler on crystal meth. This character-driven mystery has the velocity of Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch combined with the stylish prose and effortless dialogue of Elmore Leonard at his best.” – Tim Maleeny, author of GREASING THE PINÃTA

“THE BIG O is a fun-filled and intense joyride ... The humour’s great, but there’s a lot of poignancy too … The dialogue is wicked and the prose slick and stylish. This man’s going to go a long way.” – Crime Scene Northern Ireland

“Outstanding ... If you are a Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard fan, don’t miss this dark, wacky story of bad people plotting bad things … Burke’s dialogue is spot on, as are his characters … This is a biting, wickedly funny noir farce that builds to a knock-out ending.” – Shelf Awareness

“Declan Burke is regularly compared to Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, even though THE BIG O is only his second novel. Anyone that new receiving that kind of praise has earned a skeptical eye, just as Leonard and Westlake have earned their legends. Burke and his cast of losers are up to it.” – New Mystery Reader

“A classic underworld caper … with a freshness and often satirical edge that distinguishes it … A hell of a lot of fun to read.” – The Poisoned Pen

“A noir hybrid of murder and merriment … as if Quentin Tarantino and Buster Keaton had a love-child who could write … There have been few novelists who could plot tightly, create well-developed characters and write laugh-out-loud dialogue – Burke is a welcome new addition. – Mystery on Main Street

“Burke’s the latest – and one of the best – bad-boy Irish writers to hit our shores … the dialogue is nothing short of electric. This caper is so stylish, so hilarious, that it could have been written by the love-child of Elmore Leonard and Oscar Wilde.” – Killer Books

“THE BIG O: absolutely wonderful Irish hardboiled novel … Elmore Leonard crossed with Ken Bruen and Fredric Brown!” – Murder One

“THE BIG O is the stuff Tarantino or Guy Ritchie would make into a film, a great fun film like Snatch, Layer Cake or Get Shorty. Filled with as many great characters as Pulp Fiction … [it] would inspire a classic full of tough crooks, wisecracks, drugs, flash and boobies.” – Critical Mick

“A lightening-paced new kidnap caper … with its precision engineered plot, oodles of incident and moments of rampant hilarity, THE BIG O displays a particularly filmic sensibility, part film-noir, part Pulp Fiction – but totally entertaining.” – Verbal

“An exhilarating, hilarious and unmistakably Irish escapade in crime fiction ... a very funny thriller, packed tight with cracking moments and sizzling dialogue.” - Village

“This book is a blunt, rude, crude, politically incorrect, raucous, rumbustious, rollicking, romp of a crime caper novel.” – Crime Scraps

“The real treat in THE BIG O is the dialogue. Burke has a knack for sharp banter, and it is a rare chapter that doesn’t have a witty exchange between characters … It’s clear that he’s a writer who deserves a wider audience.” – Independent Crime

“Clips along at a tremendous pace … the dialogue is snappy, stylistic and sometimes laugh-out loud-funny … [a] slightly lunatic caper, albeit this time with a twist in the guts at the end.” – AustCrimeFiction

“Declan Burke has managed to get away with breaking all of the rules with his fun comedic thriller … THE BIG O moves quickly as it continually keeps you in stitches. This hilarious novel is filled with plenty of drugs, sex, and even a little rock ‘n’ roll.” – Nights and Weekends

“A tale that begins with criminal intent and snowballs into a messy denouement that leaves little doubt about Burke’s skills as a writer of an ironic and entertaining thriller.” – Curled Up With A Good Book

“THE BIG O is twisty, hilarious, sharp, dialogue-heavy, and a fucking breeze to read … a very real charm that is no-bullshit irresistible.” - Nerd of Noir

“THE BIG O is an absolute joy. A hangover cure, even.” - You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You?