“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Charlie Stella

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.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
The supposedly well-hung Santino Corleone.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
If only Glee were a book ...

Most satisfying writing moment?
First sale.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Ken Bruen’s THE DRAMATIST.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
The same (DRAMATIST).

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst = money.
Best = fans (all 16 of them).

The pitch for your next book is …?
A retired organized crime cop drops his wife off at an arts and crafts weeklong program on an island off the coast of New England (Star Island, where I’m doing my MFA actually) and spots someone he knows is in the witness protection program. The retired cop is unhappy at home and thinking maybe he should sell the rat back to the mob and enjoy his last few years on planet earth with gusto.

Who are you reading right now?
David Carroll, ALBERT CAMUS THE ALGERIAN

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Honest, humorous, ugly.

Charlie Stella’s JOHNNY PORNO is published by Stark House.

Tangled Up In BLUE

The paperback of Eoin McNamee’s ORCHID BLUE has finally arrived, and a very handsome piece of work it is too. It also features, and for the very first time to the best of my knowledge, a pull quote from one of my reviews on the back cover, during the course of which I described ORCHID BLUE as ‘A stunning meditation on the nature of justice’ (Irish Times, Top Ten Thrillers 2010).
  Chuffed? Yes, and particularly because ORCHID BLUE is a superb novel from one of Ireland’s finest living novelists. It raises more questions than it answers, as all the great novels do; in fact, I’m very tempted to open it once more, and get tangled up in its haunting web of lies all over again.
  I reviewed the novel at length late last year, and found myself writing this kind of thing:

McNamee has described the noir novel as a very ‘Calvinist’ kind of storytelling, with its undertones of implacable fate and predestination. What hope is there for a person if he or she has been fingered by Fate before they’re even born? And what hope if the ultimate arbiter of justice - God, for the most part, although McNamee’s arbiter of justice in ORCHID BLUE is Justice Lance Curran - is already prejudiced against the person in the dock?

  For the full review, clickety-click here …
  I also got to interview Eoin, last November, in which he waxed lyrical about the ethics (or otherwise) of writing novel-length fictions based on true-life crimes. To wit:

“You’re always walking a moral tightrope,” he agrees, “to a certain extent. Looking back it seems quite easy, the story is what it is. But when you start talking about historical fact, you’re not really talking about the facts at all, you’re talking about the historical record. And that’s a different thing entirely to what the facts were.
  “So you are making judgements all the time, asking yourself where you should take it, wondering if you’ve taken it over the line. But it’s an artistic line you don’t want to cross, if I can put it that way. If you get it wrong in the moral sense, then you get it wrong. But I’m a writer, not a priest. And as a writer, you answer to the god of fiction.”

  For the full interview, clickety-click here …
  Incidentally, Eoin’s contribution to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS is a very fine essay called ‘The Judge’, in which he explores his personal take on the historical and moral backdrop to ORCHID BLUE, and the murder of Pearl Gamble. In my humble opinion, it’s a piece of writing about crime fiction that’s worth the price of admission alone. The book will be officially launched on June 7th in the Gutter Bookshop, Dublin, with a further launch in No Alibis, Belfast, on June 18th, with the bulk of the contributing authors appearing at both launches. If you fancy a sneak peek at GREEN STREETS prior to that, just clickety-click here …

We Love Lucy

The Ireland AM programme over on TV3 has been very supportive of Irish crime writers over the last few years, even going so far as to sponsor the Crime Fiction gong at the annual Irish Book Awards bunfight. Brian McGilloway was on the couch recently, talking about his latest offering, LITTLE GIRL LOST - which is terrific, by the way - and discussing the challenge of switching horses midstream, particularly when you’ve established a critically acclaimed series character like Ben Devlin, to write a standalone. The good news is that it sounds as if there’ll be more to come from DS Lucy Black, the heroine of LITTLE GIRL LOST who dabbles in the Freudian darkness of fairytales, even if Brian is currently working on a brand new Devlin. Mr McGilloway, with these very fine novels you are surely spoiling us …
  For the six-minute interview, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and staying with Ireland AM, the programme has been kind enough to invite Eoin McNamee and yours truly onto the couch on Wednesday morning, June 8th, to chat about our mutual love of horoscopes, unicorns and toe jewellery. I can’t speak for Eoin, but I’ll be doing my damnedest to shoehorn in a mention of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, which launches the night before in the award-winning Gutter Bookshop, Temple Bar, Dublin, where all will be made very welcome indeed. As it stands, the authors attending include John Connolly, Arlene Hunt, Tana French, Eoin McNamee, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan, Jane Casey, Kevin McCarthy and Niamh O’Connor, an array of talent so stellar that the Gutter Bookshop may well develop its own gravity and collapse into a black hole, thus wiping out an entire generation of Irish crime writers in one fell swoop, and leaving the field free for yours truly, who will have nipped outside for a crafty smoke just as gravity starts to suck them all in. A cunning plan? I like to think so …

Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Fowl

I sat down with Eoin Colfer (right) last week, to interview him about his new novel, PLUGGED. The result reads a lot like this:

“I started writing stories before I could actually write,” says Eoin Colfer. “Which sounds strange, but I would scribble on a blackboard, these nonsensical lines, and in my mind I was writing a story, I knew what the story was about.”
  The adult Eoin Colfer is just as happy to let his imagination run riot. A phenomenal best-seller with his young adult Artemis Fowl novels, he turned last year to sci-fi, when he penned the latest instalment in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This year it’s adult crime fiction. PLUGGED is a comedy caper featuring an ex-Irish Army man, Danny McEvoy, deranged by baldness and set loose on the unsuspecting suburbs of New Jersey.
  Writers are advised to write about what they know, but Colfer presents himself in the Fitzwilliam Hotel with a full thatch of greying hair and a neatly trimmed beard, looking not unlike Al Pacino’s younger brother. The quietly spoken one, who doesn’t need to shout and beat his chest, who has nothing left to prove.
  “I really wanted to write PLUGGED for myself,” he says, “because I’d been writing for kids for ten years. But also I wanted to prove - mostly to myself, but to my friends too - that I could write for adults. Because there is a stigma attached to kids’ books, people say to you, ‘When are you going to write a real book?’ That said,” he laughs, “there’s a stigma attached to crime writing too. But maybe not so much.”
  Colfer has come a long way since the days when his children’s books were so successful that he decided to stop writing.
  “It was a tough time,” he says. “My wife had stopped teaching to open a shop, which we put all our savings into, and she wasn’t taking any salary - there wasn’t any salary to take (laughs). And I was teaching, and in the evenings I was minding the baby, putting the baby to bed, and then I’d try to write for a few hours. My early books all went to number one in the charts but I was only earning a couple of hundred quid per book. So something had to go, and the only thing that could go was the writing.”
  Cometh the hour, cometh the Fowl.
  “Well, boys have always liked an anti-hero, but when I finished the first Artemis, I thought, ‘I’m going to be murdered for this.’ This guy is feeding his friends drink, he’s a thief, a bad guy, he shoots his dad at one point … Luckily, in modern children’s fiction, he was the only one of his kind. Since then, there have been quite a few like him, and I’ve even been sent a couple of them to blurb, which I think is funny. I think the best one was a blatant mixture of Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter, it was kind of a criminal genius academy, with magic (laughs). It was actually quite good.”
  With a best-selling career in children’s books established, Colfer struck up an unlikely friendship with Ken Bruen, the hard-boiled laureate of Irish crime fiction. Bruen persuaded Colfer to contribute a short story to his collection of short stories, ‘Dublin Noir’, which was published in 2006.
  “I was never able to read that story at any of my events,” he says, “because it was always kids attending, but I did one late-night cabaret in Wexford a year ago and I read that story, and everyone was howling with laughter. Right up to the first swear-word I didn’t know whether I was going to chicken out, but then the first one went down so well, and I enjoyed reaction that very much. But I knew I couldn’t sustain that kind of nutcase humour for a whole book, it would get wearying, so I toned it down for the novel.”
  The result is PLUGGED. “I just wanted to go for it, cut loose. I’d been working with kids’ stories for ten years, and as a writer you want to show what you can do.”
  The story started out as a straight revenge thriller, with Lee Marvin movies a reference point, but quickly took on comic aspects.
  “I just find it difficult to write ‘straight’,” he says. “I think there’s an element of that kid in class who just can’t stand the silence, and bursts out laughing in the middle of a serious situation. I guess I don’t like it when I feel the reader might be reading something of mine and maybe getting fed up. So it’s a little bit of a lack of confidence, that you can’t just trust that your prose is going to hold up, that you have to throw in a few one-liners.
  “I’m still determined that some day I will write a serious book, but I have tried a few times already and it hasn’t worked out, so I just go back to the jokes. But at the same time, I think that’s a valid style. As long as you have a good story, any style is fine.”
  In PLUGGED, Colfer does play it straight with Dan McEvoy’s army experience.
  “That’s the one thing I didn’t want to mess with,” he acknowledges, “because the Irish army’s experience in Lebanon is something we’re very proud of as a country. So I didn’t want to start dicking around with that. But I sat down with a friend of mine who served over there, Declan Denny, and he told me some very interesting stories. Just interesting things like how during the day they’d meet the Christian militia on the road, and swap biscuits for milk, that kind of thing. And then the guy would say to Declan, ‘Okay, thank you. I won’t shoot at you tonight. I shoot, but not at you.’ And that kind of living, that day-to-day lunacy, and how they actually get used to it while they’re there, it’s amazing. So I tried to be respectful of that.”
  If PLUGGED lives up to sales expectations, we’ll be seeing Dan McEvoy again, very probably prowling the mean streets of Dublin.
  “Obviously,” he says, “I could write Artemis Fowl books for the rest of my life, that’s where the money is. But without challenging myself, the books would just plummet in quality, I think.”
  As for how PLUGGED will be received, Colfer’s own expectations are pragmatic.
  “It’s not Shakespeare, y’know? But I’m not trying to be Shakespeare. I’m just trying to have fun with a crime novel. And I think if you’re a real fan of crime fiction, this book is for you.”

  Eoin Colfer’s PLUGGED is published by Headline.

  This interview was first published in the Evening Herald.

He Steals Souls

I interviewed Stuart Neville a couple of weeks back for an Irish Times interview, during which Stuart had this to say about his forthcoming novel, STOLEN SOULS, his third offering after THE TWELVE and COLLUSION:

“STOLEN SOULS is a much more streamlined thriller. Because the first couple of books, whether it was intentional or not, both have this very strong political slant, I really wanted to make a very definite step away from that. And I wanted too to give a nod to some of the thrillers I really enjoyed reading when I was younger. I was a big fan of those thrillers that were maybe 200 pages long and were just punch-punch-punch, that go full tilt from first to last page, no flab. So STOLEN SOULS really does hit the ground running, and doesn’t let up until the last page. There are far fewer organisations with three-letter acronyms, for starters (laughs). It can be hard to keep track of that kind of thing. It’s much more of a ticking-clock kind of thriller, and I hope that it’ll work for readers.”

  Intriguing stuff, with Stuart citing ’70s-set novels such as William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN as one inspiration. For the full interview, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, Stuart has contributed a short story, ‘The Craftsman’, to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS. As I said to him at the time, if ‘The Craftsman’ is indicative of his new direction, we’re in for a defter, more subtle novel than the propulsive THE TWELVE and COLLUSION. For an audio version of ‘The Craftsman’, click here for the BBC iPlayer …
  STOLEN SOULS, by the way, is published in October by Soho Crime.

Down These Green Streets: Niamh O’Connor on John Banville and Pat McCabe

Being the latest in Crime Always Pay’s erratic series to celebrate the publication of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, in which contributors to the collection nominate their favourite Irish crime novel. This week, it’s Niamh O’Connor:

“For me, it comes down to the choice between Pat McCabe’s THE BUTCHER BOY and John Banville’s THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE. Both were shortlisted for the Booker because both voices are so strong, reading either is like being in a vacuum. Both achieve that Holden Caulfield effect of managing to slightly warp the readers’ own view of the world. To pick one over the other, I had to ask myself who is more terrifying? Francie - a troubled boy with a suicidal mother, and an alcoholic father; or Freddie - a scientist, husband, and father who in the cold light of day makes a clinical confession that is as logical as it is conscience free. Who poses the greater threat to society? Frankie is a victim of his circumstances, intent on wreaking his revenge. Freddie is beyond hope of redemption, a man who has managed to master the maze of his own mind. Ultimately I think the answers, combined with the fact that THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE is based on the chilling true crime case of double murderer, Malcolm McArthur, the same case which prompted Charlie Haughey to coin the GUBU (Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unprecedented) phrase, gives the Banville book the edge.” - Niamh O’Connor

  Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN is published by Transworld Ireland.

Paint It Black

The Big Question: why do authors, when choosing a nom-de-plume as an Irish crime writer, go for Black? Ingrid Black, Benjamin Black, Sean Black … Why not Green? I’d pay good money to read the ‘entertainments’ of an Aloysius Greene.
  Anyhoo, Sean Black - who is about as Irish as haggis, but a good bloke with it; and anyway, he lives here - publishes the third in the Ryan Lock series of thrillers this August, GRIDLOCK, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

Adult movie actress, Raven Lane, is one of the most lusted after women in America, with millions of fans to prove it. But when a headless corpse turns up in the trunk of her car, she realises that fame carries a terrible price. Fearing for her life, and with the LAPD seemingly unable to protect her, Raven turns to elite bodyguard, Ryan Lock for help. Lock stops bad things happening to good people, but can he stop the tidal wave of violence now threatening the city of Los Angeles as Raven’s predator targets - and kills - those closest to her? As events spiral out of control, Lock is drawn into a dangerous world where money rules, where sex is a commodity to be bought and sold, and where no one can be trusted, least of all his beautiful new client. But what he cannot know is the terrifying price he’s about to pay - just for getting involved ...

  Hmmm. Already this year we’ve had Casey Hill’s TABOO, which features a protagonist called Reilly Steel, which isn’t that far removed from real-life ‘adult movie actress’ Reilly Steele; and now Sean Black’s GRIDLOCK stars ‘adult movie actress’ Raven Lane. Is there a trend developing here? And can I jump the bandwagon early, thus belatedly justifying my lifetime’s research of the ‘adult movie’ industry? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell …

Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Clare O’Donohue

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?
For true crime, I’d love to take credit for IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote. It is, hands down, one of the best crime books I’ve read – fiction or non-fiction and has put me off ever writing true crime, since mine would be crap in comparison. For a novel, I’d be happy to have written the worst thing Donald Westlake ever wrote, because even his worst (if such a thing exists) is still really good.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Nora Charles in Dashiell Hammett’s THE THIN MAN. She was smart, funny, and could handle her liquor.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Porn. And quilting magazines. And recently I reread James Crumley’s THE LAST GOOD KISS for about the twentieth time.

Most satisfying writing moment?
I love it when I think I’ve written myself in a corner and I have no idea what my character will do. And then, while I’m driving, or trying to sleep or something, suddenly it comes to me – the way out of the mess and it all makes perfect sense and is completely right. It feels as though I’ve unlocked the secrets of the universe – until the next time I write myself into a corner.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I’m no expert on the subject, but I loved THE GUARDS, by Ken Bruen and Brian McGilloway’s Inspector Devlin series. I haven’t read any of Tana French’s book yet, though they are massively popular and on my ‘to read’ list.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Damn, that’s a hard question. I think there are so many dark, atmospheric Irish crime novels out there that it may be the next Sweden.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is the money, the uncertainty, empty book signings, and wondering why someone else’s load of crap is doing better than my book. The best is the joy of writing itself, the hours, hanging out with other writers, and finding some other author’s book that is so off-the-charts good that I get inspired all over again.

The pitch for your next book is …?
I’m working on the second in my Kate Conway series. In this one, Kate, an American TV producer, is doing a documentary in a prison outside Chicago, talking with guys who are serving LWP sentences. An LWP is life without parole, which means they die there. Kate is generally a sarcastic type, not prone to excessive human interaction, but she finds herself entangled with these men, and with the mistress of her late husband. It leads to a lie, a murder, blackmail and who knows what else since I still have about eighty pages to write.

Who are you reading right now?
I’ve been reading two books. THE PSYCHOPATH TEST, by Jon Ronson, and STILL LIFE, by Louise Penny. Louise is one of those off-the-charts good writers who inspire me.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
God is a cruel duck. It’s like choosing between breathing and blinking my eyes. I guess I would choose writing. I love to read, but I have to write. (And despise saying it like that since it sounds so pretentious and annoying.)

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Way past deadline.

Clare O’Donohue’s MISSING PERSONS is published by Plume Books.

Stella: Reassuringly Expansive*

Charlie Stella (right), and especially JOHNNY PORNO, remains one of the glaring gaps in my reading over the last few years, not least because he appears to be something of an American Ken Bruen, beloved by his peers as a writers’ writer. That’s something I’m going to have to remedy in short order, because Charlie, unprompted, has gone the extra mile on behalf of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. To wit:

“Clever writing is something I enjoy. So is smart writing. Add some black humor to the mix, dialogue that smacks you with a smile and a genuine sense that the author knows well the surroundings/history, etc., of which he (or she) writes and you have a perfect storm of terrific reading. Harry Rigby is a “research consultant” (clever in itself) ... a self-loather of the first ilk, but one with a sense of justice balanced by pragmatism; you do what you can when you can do it. He’s got a particularly nasty brother he hasn’t seen in four years, a wife who doesn’t love him/nor he her, but they share a son they both love dearly. Trouble brews when the wife of a prominent politician offs herself (except she didn’t -- it look more like murder) ... one of Harry’s few friends has the pictures ... there’s the beautiful Kate (brother, did I want a date with her--proving I have some of this self-loathing thing in me as well because her comebacks rival Rigby’s) ... treachery abounds and it’s Christmas, for fucks sake. No spoilers here, but this is terrific writing that shouldn’t be missed; something my compassionate friend Doc will thoroughly enjoy for sure (his being a Jack Taylor fan and all).
  “Harry Rigby, the ultimate anti-hero, fights his own demons (including a death wish except for protecting his son) and some of the corrupt and powerful in and around his home town when murder comes a knockin’ at Christmas ... nothing short of brilliant writing is the highlight of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE ... absolutely brilliant writing.” - Charlie Stella

  Funnily enough, I’d been chatting with someone else a couple of days ago about EIGHTBALL, and saying that it makes the classic first novel mistake of throwing the kitchen sink (and the rest) at it, in the hope of making a decent impression. Then I got home to find Charlie’s take on it waiting for me. Just goes to show, there’s no second-guessing how someone’s going to read your book …
  Anyway, bless your cotton socks, Charlie Stella.
  If you’d like to take a punt on Harry Rigby, the Kindle version of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE can be found here on Amazon US, here on Amazon UK, and here on Amazon Germany. And hey, if you like it, don’t be shy about letting me know. Such are the tiny triumphs that make this writer’s life worth living …

  * If you haven’t seen the ‘reassuringly expensive’ Stella beer ads of recent times, feel free to ignore this headline.

Down These Green Streets: Kevin McCarthy on George V Higgins

Being the continuing stoooooooory of a quack who has gone to the - whoa. Different blog. This is the latest in an irregular series in which contributors to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS pick their favourite Irish crime novel. Last week it was Ken Bruen on (koff) EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. This week, it’s Kevin McCarthy, the author of PEELER, on George V Higgins’ THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. To wit:

“STRETCHING things a little, I have chosen George V Higgins’ THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE as my favourite Irish crime novel. Born in Boston to Irish immigrant parents, Higgins served as a federal prosecutor in the US District Attorney’s office, writing novels in his spare time. It is said that he had written 16 before his first, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, was published to great acclaim in 1972. Drawing on his experience as a prosecutor - Higgins worked many notorious mob cases in New England - the novel charts the progress of gun dealer Eddie Coyle as he brokers and buys weaponry for a crew of bank robbers, touts to cops and feds, and confides in his bartender friend Dillon. All this is as one might expect from a serving federal prosecutor, but stylistically - and this is where Higgins is particularly Irish - the novel owes more to Joyce than Chandler. From the opening page, the story is told almost entirely in dialogue:

Jackie Brown at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he could get some guns. ‘I can get your pieces probably by tomorrow night. I can get you, probably, six pieces. Tomorrow night. In a week or so, maybe ten days, another dozen …’

  “Eddie and his friends ramble, digress, yarn and almost inadvertently add to the dense weave of the narrative. It is a novel that demands careful reading and faith in the novelist. It is dense, gripping, gritty and sad. It’s hard work that repays the reader with a smeared glimpse of how crime works in the real world, driven by self-interest, self-preservation and more than a little self-loathing. And that’s only the cops and feds ...” - Kevin McCarthy

  Kevin McCarthy’s PEELER is published by the Mercier Press.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Blitz

Based on Ken Bruen’s novel of the same name, Blitz (18s) opens with a very Irish swagger, as rogue London copper DI Brant (Jason Statham) confronts three young car-jackers while wielding a hurley. A hurley, he tells them, is used in an Irish sport called hurling, which is halfway between hockey and murder. His off-beat credentials established, along with his role as vigilante cop, Brant proceeds to investigate the serial killing of London cops by a killer calling himself ‘the Blitz’ (Aiden Gillen), aided by his new superior, Porter Nash (Paddy Considine), who is himself an outsider within the force, due to the fact that he’s gay. A satisfyingly meaty tale, Blitz is directed with no little verve by Elliott Lester (‘Love is the Drug’), who blends idiosyncratic characters, a blistering pace and an intriguing whiff of right-wing polemic to create a fascinating thriller. There’s more than a touch of Dirty Harry about DI Brant, but Statham’s understated take on the role, and some very neat comic timing when delivering deliciously black one-liners, give the character a fresh feel. Considine provides strong support, as does David Morrissey as a reptilian tabloid journalist, while Gillen visibly relishes the opportunity to go full-tilt bonkers as the sociopathic killer. A sub-plot concerning itself with one of Brant’s colleagues, WPC Falls (Zawe Ashton), could have been excised, but otherwise Blitz is a powerful thriller that delivers a scabrous social commentary alongside the sturm und drang of Brant’s self-destructive force of nature. Oh, and watch out for a neat little cameo from Ken Bruen himself, as a - what else? - priest officiating at a funeral. - Declan Burke

  Blitz goes on general release from May 20th.

Make Mine A Neat Scotch

As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, I’ve been banging on at some length recently about DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, which is a collection of essays, interviews and short stories about Irish crime writing by the Irish crime writers themselves, with yours truly as editor. Happily, great and / or deranged minds think alike, for lo! News comes from Scotland of a tome called DEAD SHARP, edited by Len Wanner and published by Two Ravens Press. To wit:

So much more than just a collection of in-depth interviews with Scotland’s bestselling crime writers, DEAD SHARP is also a distinctive and edgy investigation of Scotland as a changing nation. Brimming with pithy, witty and sometimes just plain weird revelations, these interviews provide a unique and unforgettable insight into how writers think, and into the professional secrets of some of the genre’s greatest exponents. Includes interviews with:

Ian Rankin
Stuart MacBride
Allan Guthrie
Karen Campbell
Neil Forsyth
Christopher Brookmyre
Paul Johnston
Alice Thompson
Louise Welsh

“Len Wanner is the perfect interrogator, subtle, accommodating and incisive, and these interviews elicit many layers of deep, dark and vital intelligence.” – John Banville, author of The Sea

“This is fascinating reading and a real treat. A rare insight into the minds of a diverse group of crime writers, writing in one genre, living in proximity, but all with utterly different, individual voices.” – Peter James, author of Dead Like You

“These interviews cut to the very marrow of Scottish crime writing, deep, incisive and bloody. Bloody good fun too.” – Colin Bateman, author of Mystery Man

“Time was, the best and brightest author interviews were contained in three books: John Williams’ Badlands, and Craig McDonald’s Art in the Blood and Rogue Males. But blasting into the Zeitgeist is Len Wanner’s amazing, in-depth, funny and compassionate collection, showing a side of these authors previously unseen. A stunning, dark jewel in the library of great interviews.” – Ken Bruen, author of London Boulevard and Blitz

“Incorporating a comprehensive range of Scottish author interviews, all of them possessing a different slant on the business of professional writing, Wanner has compiled a must-read anthology of the witty, the wise, the weird and the wonderful. Wanner has encouraged his interviewees to illuminate, edify, entertain and amuse us, and yet has also persuaded them to give us something of real worth. Not only for the aspirant, but also for the weatherworn professional, there is a refreshing vitality and energy present in the text, as if we were right there listening, as if this was for our ears only. Highly recommended, not only as a fascinating peek behind the Oz curtain, but also as a journal of achievement from some of our brightest and best.” – R.J. Ellory, author of A Quiet Belief in Angels

A graduate of University College Dublin, Len Wanner holds an honours degree in German and English, an MA in Modern English, and is currently completing a PhD on Scottish Crime Fiction at the University of Edinburgh. As founder and editor of the online journal thecrimeofitall.com, he has conducted over 450 interviews with international crime writers. He has also been a juror for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and a freelance translator for Irish author Ken Bruen.

  Sounds like a cracker. The book is scheduled for release in August, by the way, so form an orderly queue now …

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

He’s a nice guy, Eoin Colfer. I sat down with him last week to interview him about PLUGGED, and was more than a little disconcerted to realise that he looks - with a new and neatly trimmed beard (not pictured, right) - not unlike Al Pacino’s younger brother. The quietly spoken one, who doesn’t need to beat his chest and hoo-yah! every five minutes.
  The result of that conversation will be turning up one these pages in a couple of days from now, but as always, many important things got left behind on the cutting floor when the interview went to press. Here’s Eoin on Ken Bruen, to whom PLUGGED is dedicated:

“The story I tell is that he’s the only writer I’ve ever written a fan-letter to. This was before I knew him. When I read THE GUARDS, I just couldn’t believe it, because you’re expecting one thing - and you get that - but you also get so much more. What I like about Jack Taylor is that he doesn’t really do anything, he just kind of walks around and goes to the pub, and things just happen to him. On occasion he’ll make the effort, but you’re basically rambling around Galway with this guy, and yet it’s incredibly entertaining and also touching, and you just know that it isn’t going to end well. It’s a bitter-sweet thing. If you read that series of books and someone comes into it you like, just don’t get attached to them, because if Jack likes them, they’re doomed. So it’s a weird way to read a series. It’s a bit like the way Dickens wrote about London, when people were afraid to like his characters, in case Charles decided to kill them off (laughs). So yeah, I’m a huge Ken fan. It’s just a nod, but then I wouldn’t want to copy him, even if I could. He’s copied so much now, and that’s when you know you’ve made an impact. He’s a real writers’ writer. I travel around the States a lot, and every crime store you go to, they love him. People here don’t realise how popular he is. Everybody loves Ken. An incredibly generous man, too, with his praise and his time, and his willingness to work with other people.”

  Hard to argue with that. I liked PLUGGED a lot, by the way. Here’s an excerpt from the review I wrote for the Irish Times:

“The result is a gloriously ramshackle comedy crime caper; as a narrative vehicle, the story is a getaway car careering downhill and losing wheels at every corner. Colfer, however, is too experienced a storyteller to get carried away himself. The propulsive chaos masks a palpable appreciation of the crime novel itself, not simply in terms of his playful subversion of the genre’s tropes, but also in Colfer’s willingness to warp the parameters of what is essentially a conservative narrative form.”

  Anyway, after the interview was finished, Eoin asked if I’d like a signed copy of PLUGGED to give away on Crime Always Pays. Erm, yes, please. To be in with a chance of winning said tome, just answer the following question:

PLUGGED is Eoin Colfer’s first foray into adult crime fiction. What non-crime author would you like to see turning his or her hand to crime writing, and why?

  Answers via the comment box, please, leaving a contact email address, using (at) rather than @ to confound the spam monkeys. The closing date is noon on Friday, May 19th. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Welcome To Ireland, Ma’am

Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Ireland today, and naturally there’s more of a fuss being made of her visit than if she were the Queen of Sweden, say, or Swaziland. Eight hundred years of oppression, the Famine, the Black and Tans, Bobby Sands, yadda-yadda-yadda. I know that some handful of headbangers are apoplectic about the fact that the Republic of Ireland is welcoming the Queen of England to our country, and I also know that there are people who are fairly a-quiver with excitement at the prospect. Most people, as far as I can make out, are pretty blasé about it all - history is a fine thing, certainly, but it don’t boil no potatoes.
  It’ll be interesting to hear what the Queen has to say when she visits Croke Park, for sure, and there’s no doubting the historic importance of the optics of her visit, but really, very little will change. Ireland will go on treating Britain like some kind of older sibling, vaguely resentful of the bullying that went on years ago, a little envious perhaps of its self-confidence, all the while stealing its clothes and playing its games and supporting its teams - unless, of course, it’s England that looks like winning a World Cup - and tapping it up for jobs and the odd five billion now and again.
  As an Irishman, it should go without saying that if I could wave a magic wand, as Declan Kiberd said during the week, and erase the colonialism, the Famine, the Partition and the Troubles, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t. The world is the way it is, and what’s gone, to paraphrase the song, is gone and lost forever. The question is whether we want to live in the past or look to the future. Some people are happier wallowing in the mire of history, given the certainty of its prejudices; some people are happier looking forward. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m one of the latter.
  I’ve liked most English and / or British people I’ve met, and I love the culture - I support Liverpool FC; I love The Stones and The Beatles, The Smiths and Joy Division; I love the novels of David Peace, Lawrence Durrell, William Golding, John Fowles, Graham Greene, and many, many more. I grew up on a steady diet of Enid Blyton, Match of the Day and Top of the Pops. Any time I’ve visited Britain, I’ve been treated with the kind of courtesy and good manners that the Irish are supposed to be famous for. I’ve never been particularly interested in the monarchy, and I’m opposed in principle to the idea that people are born to rule, even in a titular sense; but that’s neither here nor there for the next few days.
  The Queen of England has come to visit the Republic of Ireland, and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be treated with the same respect and courtesy she offered Michael Fagan, when she chatted with him for ten minutes when he dropped by her bedroom unannounced. Welcome to Ireland, Ma’am - I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay.

Summertime, And The Killing Is Easy …

Yours truly had a rather nice surprise today, when the post arrived and the latest offering from Benny Blanco, aka Benjamin Black, dropped out of an envelope. A DEATH IN SUMMER boasts a fabulous cover and has all the makings, if the blurb elves are to be believed, of being a rather neat satire on ye olde Big House mystery. To wit:

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.

  I’m already taking away three Irish crime novels on holiday as part of my freshly patented ‘100% Only Top Quality Books And Suffer No Fools On Holiday’ campaign, said tomes being FALLING GLASS by Adrian McKinty, THE RAGE by Gene Kerrigan and BLOODLAND by Alan Glynn. But I’m extraordinarily tempted to slip A DEATH IN SUMMER into the bag too, not least because the blurb is very suggestive of an Agatha Christie homage / pastiche. But that’ll make it 27 books in the bag, and who the hell can read 27 books in a fortnight? I mean, seriously, 26 is my absolute limit …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: McGilloway, Paretsky, Nadelson, Hiaasen and Fitzgerald

The latest of my monthly crime fiction columns for the Irish Times appeared yesterday, featuring Brian McGilloway, Sara Paretsky, Reggie Nadelson, Carl Hiaasen and Conor Fitzgerald. It ran a lot like this:

Brian McGilloway has established a strong reputation with his Donegal-set series of Inspector Devlin novels, but LITTLE GIRL LOST (Macmillan, £12.99) is a standalone set in Derry, featuring DS Lucy Black of the PSNI. While investigating a case of a missing teenager, Black discovers a younger girl wandering through a snowstorm in her pyjamas. Her reward is an unwanted transfer to the Public Protection Unit, although Black has more pressing, personal concerns: she is the prime carer for her father, a former RUC officer who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, while her ultimate superior is her mother, who walked out on Lucy’s family some decades previously. Effortlessly blending Black’s personal woes into her professional life, McGilloway weaves a taut police procedural in an unadorned style that belies the story’s complexity. With a backdrop provided by the PSNI’s ongoing evolution as a police force, and the tension inherent in the force’s attempts to police a vibrant Derry that is in the process of shaking off the shackles of its recent history, McGilloway has tapped into a fascinating and febrile setting. Black, meanwhile, is reminiscent of Jane Casey’s DC Maeve Kerrigan, a painfully self-conscious but thoroughly competent young woman whose ability to do her job has very little do with her gender. All told, it’s an impressive statement of intent from an author whose reputation grows with each successive release.
  BLOOD COUNT (Atlantic Books, £12.99) is the ninth in Reggie Nadelson’s series of Artie Cohen novels, in which the hardboiled cop investigates a series of unusual deaths in an upmarket Harlem apartment building. The fact that Artie’s on-off love interest Lily appears to be implicated in the deaths complicates matters, and renders Artie something of an ambiguous narrator, which in turn gives the reader a delicious frisson of being party to the subversion of both law and morality Nadelson unveils. It’s an issue-driven novel, as Nadelson invokes the recent history of the Soviet Union’s collapse, sleeper agents, and the complicated relationship between Communist Russia and the historically dispossessed African-Americans. The story takes place in the wake of Barack Obama’s election, which has the benefit of investing the historical elements with a contemporary immediacy, but there are times when Nadelson forsakes Artie Cohen’s hardnosed realism in order to hammer home a political message. The net result is a potentially enthralling snapshot of melting-pot New York that is at times undermined by the author’s digressions into the realms of polemic.
  Sara Paretsky is no less issue-driven in BODY WORK (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99), the 14th novel to feature her iconic private eye, VI ‘Vic’ Warshawski. An artist’s right to portray herself onstage as she sees fit leads to the murder of a young woman, and Warshawski’s investigations subsequently uncover a conspiracy of silence generated by corporate giant Tintrey, a firm which offers security consultancy in Iraq. The consequences of sending unprepared and poorly outfitted men and women to war becomes a major theme, but Paretsky is too canny to allow her political concerns to dominate the narrative at the expense of pace, story and character. Warshawski, nearing 50, is a self-described feminist and street-fighter, a very modern woman who nonetheless harks back to the classic knight errants of private detective lore, as originally created by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. The mix is a potent one, and BODY WORK confirms, yet again, Paretsky’s status as one of the great crime authors of her generation.
  STAR ISLAND (Sphere, £14.99) is Carl Hiaasen’s 12th adult crime novel, a blackly comic caper that features his recurring anti-hero Skink, the former Florida governor who now lives half-wild in the Everglades. A multi-character tale, it centres on wild-child pop star Cherry Pye and her ‘undercover stunt double’, Ann DeLuisa, who impersonates Cherry when the star is too befuddled with drugs and booze to function. Blackmail, kidnap and violence enter the picture when a sleazy paparazzo gets Cherry in his sights, and soon Hiaasen is merrily plumbing the sludgy depths of modern America as he pops off deadpan zingers at a host of targets, most notably the puddle-shallow cult of celebrity. Despite the many and (deliberately) implausible twists and turns, STAR ISLAND sticks to Hiaasen’s tried and trusted formula, delivering a polished comedy that will delight newcomers and satisfy established fans.
  Set in Rome, featuring an American-born Italian police detective, and written by an Irishman, THE FATAL TOUCH (Bloomsbury, £11.99) is Conor Fitzgerald’s sequel to last year’s debut, THE DOGS OF ROME. Commissioner Alec Blume investigates the murky world of art forgery, aided and abetted by his colleague Caterina Mattiola, former policeman Beppe Paolini, the mysterious Colonel Farenelli, and the memoirs left behind by a dead forger, the Irish artist-in-exile Henry Treacy. Beautifully written, the story proceeds at a stately pace which disguises an exquisitely complex plot, as Blume delicately negotiates the labyrinth that is Roman policing. Blume himself is a loner, an outsider and a potential alcoholic, but Fitzgerald cleverly reworks the police procedural’s conventions, much as the forger Treacy pays homage to the Old Masters, and makes a distinctive hero of Blume, particularly in terms of his ability to not only adjust to the corruption that is integral to Italian policing, but to employ it on his own terms. Chief among Blume’s virtues is his laconic sense of humour, which gives rise to deliciously dry and deadpan observations on virtually every page, most of them at Blume’s expense. Meanwhile, Treacy’s memoirs provide a secondary narrative strand that is equally compelling, and which neatly feed into the main story despite Treacy’s penchant for baroque and self-serving prose. The blend results in a scintillating novel that confirms and enhances Fitzgerald’s burgeoning reputation. - Declan Burke

  This column first appeared in the Irish Times.

Tough As Theak

Wot? No Tana French? The Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year longlist was published yesterday, and featured four Irish crime writers: FIFTY GRAND by Adrian McKinty, THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville, WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn, and THE HOLY THIEF by William Ryan. Curiously - or perhaps peculierly - there’s no sign of Tana French’s FAITHFUL PLACE, even though said novel has so far this year been nominated for an Edgar, an Anthony and an LA Times’ gong.
  Anyway, great news it is to see four fine Irish novels so represented, and I’d hate to have to be the one to drive a cigarette paper between them for quality. Best of luck to all concerned; for the full longlist, check out Eoin Purcell’s rather fine interweb lair …
  The longlist, by the way, will be whittled down to a shortlist by public voting, with the shortlist to be announced on July 1st. You can vote for your favourite novel here …
  Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Adrian McKinty, you can catch an extract from his latest offering, FALLING GLASS, here …
  And while we’re on the subject of extracts, there’s a snippet of John Connolly’s HELL’S BELLS to be found here …
  Finally, Sean Patrick Reardon was kind enough to host yours truly for a Q&A over at his Mindjacker blog; if you’re interested in yet more half-demented blatherings, you can clickety-click here ...

Irish Laws And Irish Ways

Cora Harrison is one of those writers who seems to slip under the Crime Always Radar, possibly because such new-fangled inventions don’t work for 16th Century novels set in the remote and beautiful Burren of County Clare. Anyway, Cora’s latest offering, SCALES OF RETRIBUTION, got a rather fine write-up from Publishers’ Weekly, which suggests we should be paying closer attention. To wit:

The threat of Henry VIII’s English army looms over Ireland in Harrison’s outstanding sixth historical featuring Mara, “the Brehon” (or judge) for her community of the Burren in the west of Ireland (after 2010’s EYE OF THE LAW). With her royal husband, King Turlough Donn, away battling the Earl of Kildare in Limerick, Mara survives a difficult pregnancy to deliver a premature but healthy boy. While Mara is still recovering from her ordeal, the unpopular local physician, Malachy, whose estranged 14-year-old daughter, Nuala, assisted in the birth of Mara’s son, dies of poisoning. The arrival of a young legal scholar who could handle the inquiry into Malachy’s death gives Mara the chance to step back and regain her strength, but she has misgivings about entrusting the peace of her people to a stranger. Few will anticipate the solution. Harrison combines meticulous period detail with a crafty puzzle and a sage, empathetic sleuth. (June)

  Meanwhile, and despite being busy collecting all kinds of awards for her Young Adult novels, Cora was kind enough to pen a few words marking her contribution to the DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS collection. It runs a lot like this:

“I’ve recently bought a Kindle from Amazon.com and like all new Kindle owners justify my frivolous and impulsive purchases by pointing out all the books which I have downloaded for free or for a few cents.
  “Last week I downloaded James Hardiman’s history of Galway for eighty cents – and despite the strange formatting, with footnotes appearing at random in the middle of sentences, it’s worth a hundred times that. Hardiman was the first librarian at Galway University College and like all good solid Victorians, he didn’t sit around playing the 19th century version of ‘Free Cell’ or ‘Chess Titans’, but in his spare time embarked on a history of his native city and a good, solid, exhaustive job he made of it too.
  “Some of it is dull, but a lot of it is surprisingly interesting and one keeps finding little gems, like the early sixteenth century quote in the title (NEITHER O NOR MAC SHALL STRUT NOR SWAGGER), showing that Galway had its troubles with rowdy behaviour even back in those late medieval times. And then there is the mind-boggling amount of wine imported into the port. Wine was Galway’s main import and ships brought in huge supplies – a single ship from Bordeaux brought in almost 28,000 gallons of wine one day in the early sixteenth century, which, given the tiny size of the city at the time, seems a lot even to a wine drinker like myself. Over fifty years ago, when I was a university student, I can remember the late-night drinking in Galway city and it seems that it was following in a long tradition.
  “In the early sixteenth century, the time of my crime novels, Galway city was ruled by the ‘law of the King and of the Emperor’ - in other words, common law, based on Roman law. The Burren, only twenty miles away and the location of my books, was ruled by Brehon, or early Irish law.
  “The main thing about Brehon law is that it was a law administered with the consensus of the people – in other words there were no prisons, no hangman, no birch, no treadmills. Brehon law was purely concerned with finding the truth and allocating a suitable compensation to the victim, or, in the case of murder, to the victim’s relatives. So a murder committed by a person living on the Burren in the early sixteenth century would have incurred a very large fine – so large that in most cases the clan would have been involved in paying it; whereas a murder committed in Galway would have meant
the death penalty.
  “This was so rigidly adhered to that, according to my friend James the industrious librarian of Galway University College, the mayor of Galway actually hanged his own son for the killing of a young Spaniard in a jealous rage over the Spaniard’s attentions to young Lynch’s girlfriend. The boy was popular in the city and most people believed it was just a young man’s quarrel that had gone wrong. Feelings ran so high that the hangman refused to do his duty, so the boy’s father did it for him.
  “My Mara, Brehon of the Burren, would have sorted that matter out with great tact and mercy.” - Cora Harrison

A Picture Tells 80,000 Words

As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, yours truly has a novel on the way: ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which will be published by Liberties Press this coming September. Yesterday was one of those very nice days in the pre-publishing process, when three potential covers arrived for my delectation. But which to choose? I’d be happy with any of them, I think, although I’m particularly impressed by one, and I’m keen to know if your opinion - yes, YOUR OPINION - matches mine.
  By the way, and for those of you who aren’t one of the Three Regular Readers, AZC is a black comedy about a hospital porter, Karlsson, who takes it upon himself to blow up ‘his’ hospital. Hence the medical references in the cover art.
  And now over to you, dear reader. Which of the covers below strikes your fancy most, and why? Would any of those covers put you off buying the book? And how important, in the grand scheme of the overall book, is cover art?

Number 1



Number 2



Number 3

  The comment box is open, people …

Down These Green Streets: Ken Bruen On Declan Burke

Exciting times for DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, folks, with the behind-the-scenes word suggesting that the finished article will be returning from the printers this coming Friday, or possibly Monday. Either way, I’m experiencing those midwife-style thrills of anticipation and pangs of dread: you’re hoping that all goes well, obviously, and that the book is a beauty; by the same token, you’d be happy just so long as it has all its metaphorical fingers and toes.
  Anyway, and continuing the latest of CAP’s erratic series, in which GREEN STREETS contributors nominate their favourite Irish crime novel, Ken Bruen was kind enough to give yours truly a plug. Now, you’ll appreciate that modesty was an issue when it came to running this up on the blog, but hell, it’s Ken Bruen, and he’s earned the right to say his piece. To wit:

“It’s a joy to be spoilt for choice in choosing my favourite Irish crime novel.
Vying for that are
Stuart Neville
Bateman
Alan Glynn
Brian McGilloway
Seamus Quinn
So here’s a .......... cop out
I’m going for the crime novel that gave me the most hope
back before Irish crime became a world player.
I was sent EIGHTBALL BOOGIE by a new imprint, Sitric, and read the novel with absolute joy.
Here was a new Irish voice.
Sassy
Smart as hell
Elmore Leonard-ish without any apology
and with a story that moves like Jameson on tap.
I saw the future and wow, has that future arrived with attitude.
Declan Burke ushered in the genre that wiped the dreaded chick lit off the Irish landscape.” - Ken Bruen

  All of which is very nice indeed, and I thank you kindly, sir.
  Meanwhile, in other EIGHTBALL-related news, Seth Lynch took the time to pen a few thoughts about said tome over at Salazar Books, with the gist running thusly:

“It’s dark, it’s gritty, and it’s funny … It feels like reading a novel by Raymond Chandler – had he stayed in Ireland rather than going back to the States … ‘If I fell into a barrel of tits I’d come out sucking my thumb’ – that line alone is worth the entrance fee.” - Seth Lynch

  Said entrance fee, by the way, is $2.99 on Amazon US, or (roughly) £2.50 on Amazon UK. And if you don’t fancy splurging for it sight unseen, you can download a sample of the first few chapters roundabout here …
  Finally, David Wiseheart at Kindle Author Blogspot was good enough to afford me the space to waffle on to my heart’s content about EIGHTBALL, the craft of writing and e-publishing in general. If you have five minutes to spare, clickety-click here …

On Putting The ‘Boo!’ Into TABOO

I had an article on female crime writers published in the Irish Times last week, which gloried in the title ‘Why Women Writers Rule the Crime-Ridden Night’. Oooh, spooky. Anyway, it kicked off like thusly …

Casey Hill is a marketing dream. TABOO, the debut novel, presses all the commercial buttons: it’s a police procedural featuring a feisty young woman, the forensic investigator Reilly Steel, who travels from her native California to the mean streets of Dublin only to find herself the target of a resourceful serial killer, the tale given a frisson of sexual tension via Reilly’s relationship with Garda Detective Chris Delaney.
  So far, so good, but Casey Hill has more to offer. ‘Casey Hill’ is the open pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing partnership Kevin and Melissa Hill. Young, attractive and media-friendly, the pair have an unusually strong publishing platform for debutants, given that Melissa Hill is the (self-described) author of eight best-selling chick-lit novels.
  So what’s a chick-lit author doing dirtying her hands with crime fiction gore?
  The easy answer to that question is, ‘Capitalising on her established audience.’ That may sound perverse, given that the perceived wisdom of commercial publishing is that when it comes to genre fiction, women prefer books that feature pink sparkly covers and kitten heels, whereas men tend to go for mayhem and murder.
  The perceived wisdom couldn’t be further from the truth …

  To get to the truth, or at least my version of it, just clickety-click here …
  If you can’t be bothered doing that - and really, who could blame you? - you can find an extract from TABOO here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Andrew Pepper

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?
RED HARVEST by Dashiell Hammett – the original hard-boiled crime novel and still the best. David Peace’s Red Riding Quartet – four astonishing novels that made me feel physically ill by the time I’d finished them (in a good way). THE POWER OF THE DOG by Don Winslow is a thing of awe and wonder – visceral, finger-chewing stuff and the last word on the lamentable ‘war on drugs’ and the limitations of American power. Anything bleak and angry that asks the right questions but knows not to try and provide answers. Newton Thornburg’s CUTTER AND BONE is another novel I’d loved to have written. Failure and despair are all but inevitable but that doesn’t mean you have to give up. And each time I read the part where Cutter tries to ‘park’ his car I weep with laughter.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Chief Bromden played a cagier game than McMurphy and managed to side-step the lobotomy.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Student essays.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Whenever you know you absolutely should be doing something else and yet you still feel somehow compelled to sit in front of the screen and type away – and before you know it an hour, two hours, four hours, have passed since you last thought to check the time.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE ULTRAS by Eoin McNamee. It’s spare, terse, poetic; it disorientates you and never lets you settle; it delves deep into minds of its characters but never gives you the answers you expect; it tells a gripping and gut-churning story about complicity and state violence without succumbing to political posturing or cliché.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn – I see Richard Gere channelling his best ‘Jackal’ voice for the part of Paddy Norton and Julia Roberts reprising her star turn from ‘Mary Reilly’ in the role of Gina Rafferty.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best: Monday 10.37am – everything is great, you’re great, what you’re writing is great, not just great, it’s going to blow every other crime novel ever written out of the water. Great is a word, daring is another, because what you’re doing is ripping up the genre into tiny little pieces and letting them fall where they may on the page …

Worst: Monday 12.13pm – you’ve spent the last half hour picking up those pieces of paper and carefully sellotaping them back into some kind of recognisable order. The result is a piece of writing so dreary and predictable, so utterly moribund, that it could creosote Alan Shearer’s shed and still have time to put in a full shift at the call centre. Not only does it suck, you suck, you’re a fraud, and worse, a coward, and just when you think you can’t sink any lower you’re watching a repeat of ‘Bargain Hunt’ which you know is a repeat because you’ve seen it before …

The pitch for your next book is …?
I slip into the leather booth and when the movie producer asks this same question, I lean across the table and whisper, “Karl Marx meets ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’.” The producer smiles to reveal teeth as white as Belfast (circa 1997) and says, “I saw a Karl Malden movie once.” Not listening, I reply, ‘He was German.” He says, ‘In ‘On the Waterfront’?” I grimace a little and remember to thank him for the first-class flights and the suite at the Chateau Marmont. “Who’s going to play the Marlon Brando role?” says he. I frown. “It’s a searing indictment of the ills of global capitalism.” He checks his phone. “Have you thought about Justin Bieber?”

Who are you reading right now?
Jonathan Franzen’s FREEDOM. I always feel uplifted when I read proper literature.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
First I’d ask God to do his Morgan Freeman impression. Then I’d ask him about the Old Testament and what happened to his sense of humour. Then I’d select the latter option. Anyone can write. Reading is for the chosen few.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Be. Less. Shit.

Andrew Pepper’s BLOODY WINTER is published by W&N.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer, as they say, has form. Best known for his young adult series of novels featuring the teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, Colfer has also written HALF-MOON INVESTIGATIONS (2006), in which 12-year-old Fletcher Moon is a pre-teen private eye who mimics the iconic heroes created by Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.
  In the same year, Colfer made his first foray into adult crime fiction, contributing ‘Taking on P.J.’ to DUBLIN NOIR (2006), a collection of short stories edited by Ken Bruen.
  Colfer’s first adult crime novel, PLUGGED, concerns itself with Dan McEvoy, an ex-Irish Army sergeant who is a veteran of peacekeeping tours of the Lebanon. Now living in voluntary exile in Cloisters, New Jersey, McEvoy’s life as a casino bouncer is shattered when his on-off girlfriend Connie is murdered in the parking lot on the same day his best friend Zeb, a cosmetic surgeon, goes missing from his surgery. Forced to kill in self-defence when confronted with a knife-wielding gangster, McEvoy taps into his soldier’s survival instincts as he races to stay one step ahead of a posse composed of corrupt cops, a vengeful Irish-American mobster boss, and a megalomaniac lawyer with homicidal tendencies.
  Colfer dedicates the novel to Ken Bruen, and PLUGGED is in part an homage to the author credited with a radical reimagining of the role of the first-person protagonist in the contemporary crime novel. Colfer goes so far as to adopt some of Bruen’s narrative strategies, including an anarchic and frequently implausible plot, surreal flights of fancy, and a story that blends frenetic action sequences with an internal monologue that regularly digresses into the realms of the absurd.
  The result is a gloriously ramshackle comedy crime caper; as a narrative vehicle, the story is a getaway car careering downhill and losing wheels at every corner. Colfer, however, is too experienced a storyteller to get carried away himself. The propulsive chaos masks a palpable appreciation of the crime novel itself, not simply in terms of his playful subversion of the genre’s tropes, but also in Colfer’s willingness to warp the parameters of what is essentially a conservative narrative form. Successfully blending the sub-genres of comedy crime caper and hard-boiled noir is no mean feat, as those who have read Donald Westlake’s pale imitators will confirm, and Colfer’s exuberance in this respect will delight the connoisseurs jaded by crime novels which insist on adhering to an established and predictable norm.
  Colfer isn’t the first Irish crime writer to incorporate comedy, of course. Ruth Dudley Edwards, Garbhan Downey and Colin Bateman are among those who sugar the pill for appreciative readers, and PLUGGED has more than its fair share of gags, puns, prat falls and punchlines. Colfer works from a particularly dark palette throughout, such as when he parodies the genre’s penchant for the verbose antagonist:

“Thank God for grandstanding killers. Back home my squad were once brought in to hunt for an IRA kidnap squad who had crossed the border. We only caught them because they delayed a scheduled execution so they could film it from a couple of angles. Everyone wants their moment.” (pg 82-83)

  The county of Sligo, incidentally, previously lampooned in AND ANOTHER THING … (2010), Colfer’s contribution to the Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy series, takes another lick here when Colfer sidesteps a sexist joke “that there is no place for in the modern world, except perhaps in County Sligo, where they love a good mysognism.”
  Humour aside, and given that the novel unfolds as a first-person narrative, the story stands or falls on Colfer’s ability to convince us that Dan McEvoy is a man worth following. Here Colfer has an unerring instinct for the genre’s most conventional hero, the good man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. McEvoy ticks all the boxes in this respect, yet he is sufficiently deranged, and simultaneously conscious of his foibles, to make him a character worth the reader’s investment of time and emotion.
  Scabrously funny, furiously paced and distinctively idiosyncratic, PLUGGED ultimately comes to a belated reconciliation with the genre’s conventions, but only after a titanic and entertaining struggle that suggests Colfer’s first adult crime novel will not be his last. - Declan Burke

  This review first appeared in the Irish Times.

  Meanwhile, Eoin Colfer had a chat with Barry Forshaw over at Crime Time, where he explains his reasons for writing PLUGGED, with the gist running thusly:

“PLUGGED is a slice of modern noir fiction where I have tried to genre-bend a little by introducing a Walter Mitty internal monologue and large sections of black comic humour. What I am trying to achieve is a sense of ‘pleasant surprise’ in the reader where they get a little more than they had expected. So perhaps the reader expects a straightforward ‘gorgeous dame walks into a PI’s office’ yarn and they get something slightly more frenetic. Of course, what you don’t want to do is give the reader an unpleasant surprise where they really wanted the dame/P.I. yarn and you have ruined their day - so the humour is built around a standard noir skeleton where a guy’s girlfriend is murdered and the finger is pointed at him because of his past.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Down These Green Streets: Gerard Brennan on Adrian McKinty

As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY will be published later this month by Liberties Press, with yours truly responsible, in my role as editor, for all gaffes therein. Inspired by Stuart Neville’s big-up of Gene Kerrigan’s latest novel, THE RAGE, I thought it might be a nice idea to ask some of the GREEN STREETS contributors to nominate their favourite Irish crime novel. Last week it was Adrian McKinty on Flann O’Brien’s THE THIRD POLICEMAN. This week: Gerard Brennan on Adrian McKinty’s DEAD I WELL MAY BE:

“When asked to name and explain my favourite Irish crime novel I panicked a little. There are so many of them out there and I can barely choose my favourite author at the best of times. The more I think about it the harder it is to narrow down. And even now that I’ve made a decision that I’m somewhat happy about, I kind of want to cheat and name my favourite trilogy rather than my favourite book. That would be the Dead Trilogy by Adrian McKinty. But damn it, I need to learn to be more decisive. So I’m picking the first McKinty book I read. DEAD I WELL MAY BE. From that ‘Belfast Confetti’ opening, I was hooked. McKinty’s debut crime novel has a gangster vibe going for it that would appeal to those who guiltily rooted for Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), Omar White (The Wire) and/or Walter White (Breaking Bad). Also included -- top notch writing, a badass protagonist and some of the most terrifying prison scenes I’ve ever read. And to the best of my knowledge, nobody gets called a Sligo cow-fucker in the first book, which has got to mean something to Declan Burke, right?” - Gerard Brennan

  Erm, no. I know nowt about cow-fuckers, in Sligo or anywhere else. Mooo-ving on swiftly …
  Staying with GREEN STREETS, the very generous folk at Shots Magazine are currently hosting a competition / giveaway for two copies of said tome, and the best bit is that you don’t even have to answer any pesky questions. Clickety-click here for your chance to win a copy …
  In other news, I wandered along to the Gutter Bookshop last night to hear Brian McGilloway and Sean Black read from their new tomes, LITTLE GIRL LOST and GRIDLOCK, respectively. Well, that was the plan, but Sean Black refused to read at all, given that his American hero Ryan Lock might come off a little mid-Atlantic if rendered in a Scottish accent. All good clean fun it was too, with the McGilloway-Black double-act very neatly marshalled by resident MC Guttershop Bob, who’s not entirely unlike Sideshow Bob, with a tad less hair. Kevin McCarthy of PEELER fame dropped by, as did Arlene Hunt of Arlene Hunt fame, and a very pleasant evening was had by all. Well, by me, anyway. Best news of the night came twice, as it happens, when I was approached, separately, by two gentlemen wishing to inform me that they would be publishing novels in the very near future, both of which sounded like pretty impressive prospects. We’ll name no names as of yet; suffice to say that already it looks like the Irish crime writing debut quota is well on is way to being filled.
  While we’re on the subject of impressive prospects: Ava McCarthy’s forthcoming title, the third in the Harry Martinez series, will be called HIDE ME. It’s due in October, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

Harry Martinez, ace hacker turned private eye, is hired to expose a casino cheating crew in the Basque country. Her native Dublin no longer feels like home and her already fragile relationship with her mother has broken down for good. So she figures it’s time she escaped to explore the Spanish side of her identity. Her client is Riva Mills, head of a casino empire who believes someone is using computers to cheat her roulette wheels. The head of the crew conning the casinos is Franco Chavez, and once upon a time, Riva meant the world to him. But now she’s his target and he’s out to exact a bitter revenge. When the crew’s expert hacker is brutally murdered, Harry is pulled in as a replacement. As a dangerous criminal underworld opens up for her, Harry begins to see that for Chavez, cracking the casinos is just pocket change. She is so desperate to hide away and deceive even herself, that she gets trapped in a world of global corruption, where the stakes are sky-high and the currency is death…

  ‘The currency is death’? Hmmm, sounds like an ECB / IMF bailout. Anyhoo, Ava McCarthy is just one of the panellists who’ll be taking part in an event at next weekend’s Kildare Readers’ Festival, on Saturday, May 14th, where she’ll take to the podium in the company of Alex Barclay and the aforementioned Arlene Hunt, with yours truly doing his level best to bring some badly needed glamour to the occasion and asking the occasional question. For all the details, clickety-click here …
  Another potentially intriguing crime writing event is Murder in the City, which takes place on Wednesday, May 11th, under the umbrella of the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature. Quoth the PR elves:

Enter the murky world of crime and murder as writers from Czech Republic, Finland, France, Italy and Scotland read and discuss their works. An atmosphere of suspense and intrigue will be created by musicians from Dublin Institute of Technology. Crime journalist and writer, Niamh O’Connor, will introduce this exhilarating cast of contemporary crime writing talent.

  Sounds like it could be a cracker. For all the details, you know what to do …