Monday, November 4, 2013

The Derry Air

There’s something special in the Derry air, alright. About the only downside to the weekend’s trip to Derry for the ‘Killer Books’ festival was that I was still stuck on the M50 on the way home on Sunday evening when Sligo Rovers scored the winner in the Cup Final about three hours into injury time.
  Other than that, ‘Killer Books’ made for a very fine weekend indeed. As always, the best part of such events is meeting fellow scribes, such as Lee Child and Desmond Doherty (right and righter). I also had a couple of brief-but-lovely chats with Claire McGowan, Andrew Pepper, Stuart Neville, William Ryan, John McAllister, Arlene Hunt, Alan Glynn, Stephen Mearns and Ann Cleeves.
  On Friday afternoon I had the honour of taking part in a panel discussion on comedy crime fiction alongside Colin Bateman (who was a busy man, given that his ‘Teenage Kicks’ punk musical opened in Derry over the weekend) and Gerard Brennan, all of which was moderated in some style by the great Garbhan Downey.
  All told, ‘Killer Books’ was a huge credit to its curator, Brian McGilloway, who launched his latest offering, HURT, on the Friday evening. Here’s hoping that ‘Killer Books’ in Derry becomes an annual event …
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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.