The Turn Of The Screwed

There’s a touch of the old log-roll about today’s post, given that Eoin Colfer was kind enough to say nice things about THE BIG O last week, so I won’t say anything nice at all about his latest adult crime tome, SCREWED (Headline), which will be published on May 9th. The follow-up to PLUGGED, it sounds a lot like this:

Dan McEvoy doesn’t set out to get into violent confrontations with New Jersey’s gangster overlords but he’s long since found that once you’re on their radar, there’s only one way to slip off it. So he’s learned his own way to fight back, aiming to outwit rather than kill unless he really has no choice. But when Dan’s glam step-gran Edit shows up on the hunt for his dishevelled aunt Evelyn, it quickly becomes clear that family can provide the deadliest threat of all. In a city of gun-happy criminals, bent cops and a tough-talking woman detective whose inspires terror and lust in equal measure, Dan may just have reached the point where sharp wit won’t cut the mustard. But can he play the heavies at their own game?

  For a review of PLUGGED, clickety-click here.
  For an interview with Eoin Colfer to mark the publication of the final Artemis Fowl novel (‘Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Fowl’), clickety-click here.

The Life of Riley; Or, Eoin Colfer’s WARPed Sense of Humour

Eoin Colfer’s W.A.R.P: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN (Puffin) isn’t officially released until April 11, but if you’re in Oxford on Saturday week (March 23rd) you’ll be able to get along to the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, where Eoin will be launching the new tome, which is the first in a proposed series. To wit:

Join Eoin Colfer, the hysterically funny and utterly brilliant author of the internationally bestselling Artemis Fowl series, as he comes to the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival to launch his brand new series W.A.R.P: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN. Eoin will introduce you to his fantastic new villain, Riley, aka The Reluctant Assassin, a Victorian boy who is suddenly plucked from his own time into the 21st century, accused of murder and on the run. Get ready for an explosive new adventure, Colfer’s trademark wit and a villain to die for.

  For all the details, clickety-click here.
  For an interview I did with Eoin last year for the Irish Times, to mark the final Artemis Fowl novel, clickety-click here.

The Turn Of The Screwed

I do love the cover of Eoin Colfer’s forthcoming tome SCREWED (Headline), which concerns itself with the continuing stooooooooooory of Dan McEvoy, the barnet-challenged hero of Colfer’s first adult crime novel, PLUGGED. Quoth the blurb elves:

Dan McEvoy doesn’t set out to get into violent confrontations with New Jersey’s gangster overlords but he’s long since found that once you’re on their radar, there’s only one way to slip off it. So he’s learned his own way to fight back, aiming to outwit rather than kill unless he really has no choice. But when Dan’s glam step-gran Edith shows up on the hunt for his dishevelled aunt Evelyn, it quickly becomes clear that family can provide the deadliest threat of all. In a city of gun-happy criminals, bent cops and a tough-talking woman detective whose inspires terror and lust in equal measure, Dan may just have reached the point where sharp wit won’t cut the mustard. But can he play the heavies at their own game?

  SCREWED isn’t due until May, unfortunately, but if you like your crime fiction with a screwball comedy twist, you could do a lot worse than note this one in your diary, not least because PLUGGED was shortlisted for the LA Times book awards last year, and you’d have to presume that yon whippersnapper Colfer has learned his lessons and got a bit better this time out. Wouldn’t you?

On Getting Plugged At Bouchercon

One of my highlights of the forthcoming Bouchercon in St Louis - had I been able to make it - would have been the panel hosted by Peter Rozovsky, ‘Cranky Streets: What’s So Funny About Murder?’, which will feature Colin Cotterill, Chris Ewan (who appears to be on an Uncle Travelling Matt-style walkabout across the length and breadth of the planet right now), Thomas Kaufman and Eoin Colfer.

  There’s a terrific buzz building around Colfer’s PLUGGED, the first adult crime novel from the man who turned teen megalomaniac Artemis Fowl into a literary superstar. There appears to be a growing awareness that, even if Colfer branded the Artemis novels ‘Die Hard with fairies’, there has always been a criminal instinct at play in his YA offerings, as suggested in last week’s interview with the LA Times. To wit:

Colfer, 46, might not have turned his talents to adult fare had it not been for Irish crime writer Ken Bruen, who, five years ago, asked Colfer to write a short story for the DUBLIN NOIR anthology he was editing.

  “I said, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I do fairy stories,’” Colfer told Bruen, but his colleague insisted that “when you take away the leprechauns, they’re all crime stories underneath.”

  Indeed, they are. In the seven Artemis Fowl books published so far, the crime stories are just populated with nefarious mud people and trolls and other fantasy creatures. What’s different about PLUGGED is the real-world setting, the subject matter — and Colfer’s voice, which, like the many books he’s written for children, is incomparably clever and witty. PLUGGED is just more profane and violent …

  Indeed it is. Meanwhile, there’s good and bad news for Artemis Fowl fans. The good news is, director Jim Sheridan has been confirmed to helm the first movie in the series, which will be produced by the Weinstein brothers; the bad news is, the next Artemis novel, THE LAST GUARDIAN, will be the last.

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

  As for the reviews, well, it’s fair to say they’ve been of the glowing variety. Quoth, for example, the Seattle Times:

“PLUGGED is that rare book that mixes terrific suspense with laugh-out-loud humour ... [Danny] McEvoy will appeal to fans of the crime novels of Elmore Leonard and the wacky characters prevalent in the novels of Carl Hiaasen.”

  For those of you attending Bouchercon, Eoin Colfer is as funny in person as the characters he creates on the page, even if he doesn’t have any (immediate) plans for world domination, and his hair is all his own. Miss ‘Cranky Streets’ at your peril …

Landy Ho!

I do like the subtitle / strap-line to Derek Landy’s latest Skulduggery Pleasant novel, DEATH BRINGER, which runs thusly: ‘Kicking Evil Very Hard in the Face’. Nice.

  Skulduggery Pleasant, of course, is the dead / undead / skeletal private eye who takes on all comers in the battle between Good and Evil, aided and abetted by his feisty sidekick, Valkyrie. At least, that was the story in the first book in the series, SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT, which established Derek Landy as a genre-busting writer of YA crime novels par excellence, and which I thoroughly enjoyed, not least for its subversive black humour.

  I’ve been busy in the intervening couple of years, so I haven’t really been keeping track of Skulduggery Pleasant, but it would appear that I’ve been nowhere as busy as Derek Landy, whose DEATH BRINGER is the sixth in the Skulduggery Pleasant series. Yep, sixth. Quoth the blurb elves:

The sixth instalment in the historic, hysterical and horrific Skulduggery Pleasant series. Think you’ve seen anything yet? You haven’t. Because the Death Bringer is about to rise … The Necromancers no longer need Valkyrie to be their Death Bringer, and that’s a Good Thing. There’s just one catch. There’s a reason the Necromancers don’t need her any more. And that’s because they’ve found their Death Bringer already, the person who will dissolve the doors between life and death. And that’s a Very, Very Bad Thing …

  So there you have it. Given the way my mind works, and that Skulduggery Pleasant and Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl tend to play both sides of the Good / Evil line, I can’t help wondering who would triumph in a YA literary smack-down. Hell, I may even toddle along to the Mountains to Sea Festival on Sunday, September 11, when Derek Landy will be holding forth on all things Pleasant and Skulduggerish, and ask that very question. For all the details on the event, clickety-click here …

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.

On Putting The Art Into Artemis

I’m generally not too fussed about cover art, I have to say, but once in a while a book comes along that reminds me why I should be. Eoin Colfer’s ARTEMIS FOWL celebrates its 10th anniversary with a series of revamped covers, and it’s fair to say that the designer(s) earned his or her corn. Jaw-droppingly beautiful stuff, and congratulations to all involved.
  For the rest of the Artemis Fowl redesigns, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, Eoin Colfer popped up in the pages of the Irish Times last week with his contribution to World Books Day, in a feature which asked writers about the one book they think everyone else should read. Eoin picked THE GUARDS by Ken Bruen. To wit:

“I am a big fan of genre fiction. I suppose the books I like best are the ones that surprise me, which is a little ironic for someone who reads genre stuff. I like books where you think you know exactly what you are getting and suddenly find yourself thrown for a loop as the author injects some reanimating concoction into the formula’s corpse. Lately I have been reading a lot of crime, and more specifically Irish crime. We have several writers making their mark internationally for the very reason that they have brought something fresh to the genre. Declan Burke, Colin Bateman and John Connolly are a few of the breakthrough stars, but for me the man that stands out is the Galway noir-king, Ken Bruen. If you are a crime aficionado and you have not read Bruen’s Jack Taylor series, then you are seriously missing out. I remember picking up THE GUARDS, which is the first book in the series, at Dublin airport, and subsequently staying awake all the way across the Atlantic just to finish it. I was expecting standard private-investigator fare, laced with laconic humour, which would have been fine, but what I got was sheer dark poetry. It was a tale of addiction, loss and Ireland, without the leprechauns. This book was so good it prompted me to write my first fan letter, which Ken actually responded to. THE GUARDS will blow you away. Usually I would round off with a sentence beginning with, “If you liked so and so, then you will love THE GUARDS,” but this time I cannot do it, because there is nothing like Bruen’s work. You have to read him to understand. I have bought about 20 copies of this book for friends and every one of them now worships at the dark and bloody altar of Bruen, whose writing is a lot less melodramatic than mine without a single mention of dark and bloody altars.”

  That’s all very nice, isn’t it? Personally, I’m particularly chuffed with the way Eoin lumped me in with Ken Bruen, Colin Bateman and John Connolly, although - as always - I’m inclined to believe it was a typo, and that Eoin meant to reference Declan Hughes.
  Anyway, keep a weather eye out for Eoin Colfer’s first adult crime novel, PLUGGED, which will be winging your way in May. Herewith be all the details …

Grow Up, Colfer! Oh, Right …

Rumours of an adult crime fiction novel from Eoin Colfer have been circulating ever since he contributed ‘Taking on PJ’ to the Ken Bruen-edited collection of short stories DUBLIN NOIR (2006), but lo! the moment is finally upon us. Almost. PLUGGED will be published in May, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

Dan, an Irishman who’s ended up in New Jersey, finds himself embroiled in a world of murder, kidnapping and corrupt cops. Dan works as a bouncer in a seedy club, half in love with hostess Connie. When Connie is murdered on the premises, a vengeful Dan finds himself embroiled in an increasingly deadly sequence of events in which his doctor friend Zeb goes mysteriously missing, a cop-killing female cop becomes his only ally, and he makes an enemy of ruthless drug-dealer Mike Madden. Written with the warmth and wit that make the Artemis Fowl novels so irresistible, though with additional torture and violence, PLUGGED is a brilliant crime debut from a naturally gifted writer with a huge fanbase.

  Brilliant or otherwise, I’m not so sure about it being a ‘crime debut’ - Artemis Fowl is the greatest criminal mastermind of his generation, and HALF MOON INVESTIGATIONS was / is a superb homage to the Chandleresque detective novel, albeit one starring the 12-year-old playground PI, Fletcher Moon: (“My name is Moon. Fletcher Moon. And I’m a private detective. In my twelve years on this spinning ball we call Earth, I’ve seen a lot of things normal people never see. I’ve seen lunch boxes stripped of everything except fruit. I’ve seen counterfeit homework networks that operated in five counties, and I’ve seen truckloads of candy taken from babies …”).
  Excessively pedantic quibbles apart, it’s all kinds of good news that Eoin Colfer is joining the teeming ranks of (adult) Irish crime writers. Is it too much to ask that the sequel feature an acoustic-guitarist-turned-hitman and be called UNPLUGGED?

What Fowl Beast, His Hour Come Round At Last …

Leaving aside the Artemis Fowl series for one moment, anyone who has read Eoin Colfer’s (right) HALF MOON INVESTIGATIONS will know that he has a genuine affection for the tropes of crime fiction. The short story ‘Taking On P.J.’ in the Ken Bruen-edited DUBLIN NOIR further suggests that Colfer has the chops to write for an adult audience as well as a YA one. So the news - which comes via The Bookseller, although CAP first mentioned it way back in November 2007 - that Colfer is to publish an adult crime thriller is long overdue. To wit:

Headline has acquired Eoin Colfer’s first foray into adult fiction, a noir crime-thriller entitled PLUGGED, for publication next year. Marion Donaldson bought British Commonwealth rights for an undisclosed sum, in a deal conducted by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor. The deal was completed yesterday afternoon (9th June). The deal does not affect Colfer’s ongoing relationship with Penguin, which publishes his children’s books.
  Donaldson said: “[Writing for adults] was just something he decided to have a go at, and he has done it completely brilliantly. We were very keen right from the start, as everyone is such a huge fan of his children’s series Artemis Fowl. Obviously, this is intended for the adult market - there is a certain amount of violence in it - but you can still hear his voice in it, and people who have grown up on Artemis Fowl will be drawn to it. It’s very different [to his children’s books], but it has that tone.”
  PLUGGED is set in New York and New Jersey, and the main character is an Irish man “who lives just this side of the law but gets embroiled in things outside of the law”, Donaldson said.
  It will be a lead title for Headline next year, with a paperback to follow later in the year or 2012, she added. Although the deal is just for one book, Donaldson said the team “would hope he would write more”. She added: “We would love to see him continue with the character, although there is no commitment to write more books - we are just very excited to have one.”

  All of which is fine and dandi-o for Eoin Colfer, but that’s yet another quality name to be added to the seams-bursting list of top Irish crime novelists. Think of the fan club meetings, people! Much more of this and we might have to use an open-air phone-box next year …

And Another Thing: Hurrah, It’s AND ANOTHER THING …!

One or two snippets you might have missed about the Irish YA brigade who have been known to dabble in the dark arts of crime fic, the first courtesy of the BBC:

Children’s author Eoin Colfer [right] has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series.
  MOSTLY HARMLESS, the last Hitchhiker book, was written by its creator, the late Douglas Adams, 16 years ago.
  Now Adams’s widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled AND ANOTHER THING ...
  Eoin Colfer, 43, is best known for the best-selling Artemis Fowl novels.
  He said he was “terrified” by the prospect of creating a new Hitchhiker book almost a quarter of a century after being introduced to what he described as a “slice of satirical genius” in his late teens.

  Crumbs! Eoin Colfer writing Hitchhiker material? Truly our cup runneth over … Meanwhile, Love Reading 4 Kids brings us the news that Siobhan Dowd has been posthumously nominated for the Guardian’s Children’s Fiction Prize shortlist, with the Guardian’s big-up for BOG CHILD running thusly:

“One of the joys of this book is its willingness to confront big themes . . . BOG CHILD explores political conflict, personal heroism, human frailty, love and death. As a writer, Dowd appears to be incapable of a jarring phrase or a lazy metaphor. Her sentences sing - each note resonates with an urgent humanity of the sort that cannot be faked. BOG CHILD sparkles with optimism and a deep passion for living.” – Meg Rosoff

  The winner will be announced next Wednesday, September 24, and we’re all rooting for BOG CHILD. Finally, news wings our way that Derek Landy’s sequel to SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT, the eagerly anticipated PLAYING WITH FIRE, will get all kinds of jazzy, interwebby marketing strategies, in particular a virally marketed game called The Munchkin Army. Does that make Sir Landy the Munchking? Erm, no. Quoth Tom Conway, marketing boffin at HarperCollins Children’s Books:

“With the Munchkin Army we wanted to create an experience that would enrich the world of Skulduggery for our 20,000 registered users, whilst encouraging them to share their passion with potential new readers. We worked closely with Hyperlaunch to create a unique game that continues even after you’ve turned off your computer. The Munchkin Army rewards existing fans with a rich, fun and exciting adventure whilst introducing newcomers to a strange and intriguing new world.”

  Folks? Get Munchkining …

Hurrah For Graphic Non-Violence

Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl has all requirements for a classic Hollywood anti-hero – he’s smart, sassy, and capable of a moral ambiguity that’d curl Harry Potter’s wand without ever resorting to tiresomely graphic violence, which is nice when it comes to the all-important age ratings. Now Artemis is available in graphic novel format, ingeniously titled ARTEMIS FOWL: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL – or, as we like to think of it, a movie storyboard. Quoth Publisher’s Weekly:

Written by Colfer and Andrew Donkin, with art by Giovanni Rigano, the graphic novel is based on the first book in the five-book Artemis Fowl prose series and is being published simultaneously in hardcover and paperback editions, with an initial print run totalling 100,000 copies … Colfer teamed with the experienced comic artist Andrew Donkin, whose works include BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK NIGHT (DC), to ensure the pacing was right … Together, the far-flung team has created a dark, lush, eerie world which … brings Fowl, a ne’er-do-well boy genius, his allies and his enemies to life. Information sheets, mimicking government agency surveillance files, help introduce characters and allow novices to the Fowl world to keep up. While there is always concern that fans will criticize the visual representation of characters they themselves have been imagining for years, so far … the main response from devoted readers has been “excitement.”