Introduction: BOOKS TO DIE FOR, ed. John Connolly and Declan Burke

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that BOOKS TO DIE FOR (Hodder & Stoughton) is being reissued in paperback; last week, the Irish Times was kind enough to carry the book’s Introduction. To wit:

Why does the mystery novel enjoy such enduring appeal? There is no simple answer. It has a distinctive capacity for subtle social commentary; a concern with the disparity between law and justice; and a passion for order, however compromised. Even in the vision of the darkest of mystery writers, it provides us with a glimpse of the world as it might be, a world in which good men and women do not stand idly by and allow the worst aspects of human nature to triumph without opposition. It can touch upon all these aspects of itself while still entertaining the reader – and its provision of entertainment is not the least of its many qualities.
  But the mystery novel has always prized character over plot, which may come as some surprise to its detractors. True, this is not a universal tenet: there are degrees to which mysteries occupy themselves with the identity of the criminal as opposed to, say, the complexities of human motivation. Some, such as the classic puzzle mystery, tend towards the former; others are more concerned with the latter. But the mystery form understands that plot comes out of character, and not just that: it believes that the great mystery is character.
  If we take the view that fiction is an attempt to find the universal in the specific, to take individual human experiences and try to come to some understanding of our common nature through them, then the question at the heart of all novels can be expressed quite simply as ‘Why?’ Why do we do the things that we do? It is asked in Bleak House just as it is asked in The Maltese Falcon. It haunts The Pledge as it does The Chill. But the mystery novel, perhaps more than any other, not only asks this question; it attempts to suggest an answer to it as well.
  But where to start? There are so many from which to choose, even for the knowledgeable reader who has already taken to swimming in mystery’s dark waters, and huge numbers of new titles appear on our bookshelves each week. It is hard to keep up with authors who are alive, and those who are deceased are at risk of being forgotten entirely. There are treasures to be found, and their burial should not be permitted, even if there are some among these authors who might have been surprised to find themselves remembered at all, for they were not writing for the ages.
  And so, quite simply, we decided to give mystery writers from around the world the opportunity to enthuse about their favourite novel, and in doing so we hoped to come up a selection of books that was, if not definitive (which would be a foolish and impossible aim), then heartfelt, and flawless in its inclusions if not its omissions. What we sought from each of the contributors to this volume was passionate advocacy: we wanted them to pick one novel, just one, that they place in the canon. If you found them in a bar some evening, and the talk turned (as it almost inevitably would) to favorite writers, it would be the single book that each writer would press upon you, the book that, if there was time and the stores were still open, they would leave the bar in order to purchase for you, so they could be sure they had done all in their power to ensure it was read by you.
  While this volume is obviously ideal for dipping into when you have a quiet moment, enabling you to read an essay or two before moving on, there is also a pleasure to be had from the slow accumulation of its details. Reading through the book chronologically, as we have done during the editing process, patterns begin to emerge, some anticipated, some less so. There is, of course, the importance of the great Californian crime writers – Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and James M. Cain – to the generations of writers who have followed and, indeed, to each other: so Macdonald’s detective, Lew Archer, takes his name in part from Sam Spade’s murdered partner in The Maltese Falcon, while Chandler builds on Hammett, and then Macdonald builds on Chandler but also finds himself being disparaged by the older author behind his back, adding a further layer of complication to their relationship. But the writer who had the greatest number of advocates was not any of these men: it was the Scottish author Josephine Tey, who is a crucial figure to a high number of the female contributors to this book.
  Or one might take the year 1947: it produces both Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place, in which the seeds of what would later come to be called the serial killer novel begin to germinate, and Mickey Spillane’s I, The Jury. Both are examinations of male rage – although Spillane is probably more correctly considered as an expression of it – and both come out of the aftermath of the Second World War, when men who had fought in Europe and Asia returned home to find a changed world, a theme that is also touched on in Margery Allingham’s 1952 novel, The Tiger in the Smoke. The pulp formula in the US also adapted itself to these changes in post-war society, which resulted in the best work of writers such as Jim Thompson, Elliott Chaze and William McGivern, all of whom are considered in essays in this book.
  Finally, it’s interesting to see how often different writers, from Ed McBain to Mary Stewart, Newton Thornburg to Leonardo Padura, assert the view that they are, first and foremost, novelists. The mystery genre provides a structure for their work – the ideal structure – but it is extremely malleable, and constantly open to adaptation: the sheer range of titles and approaches considered here is testament to that.
  To give just one example: there had long been female characters at the heart of hard-boiled novels, most frequently as femmes fatales or adoring secretaries, but even when women were given central roles as detectives, the novels were written, either in whole or in part, by men: Erle Stanley Gardner’s Bertha Cool (created under the pseudonym A.A. Fair), who made her first appearance in 1939; Dwight W. Babcock’s Hannah Van Doren; Sam Merwin Jr.’s Amy Brewser; Will Oursler and Margaret Scott’s Gale Gallagher (all 1940s); and, perhaps most famously, Forrest and Gloria Fickling’s Honey West in the 1950s.
  But at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, a number of female novelists, among them Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky, but also Amanda Cross and, in her pair of Cordelia Gray novels, PD James, found in the hard-boiled mystery novel a means of addressing issues affecting women, including violence (particularly sexual violence), victimization, power imbalances, and gender conflicts. They did so by questioning, altering, and subverting the established traditions in the genre, and, in the process, they created a new type of female writing. The mystery genre accommodated them without diminishing the seriousness of their aims, or hampering the result, and it did so with ease. It is why so many writers, even those who feel themselves to be working outside the genre, have chosen to introduce elements of it into their writing, and why this anthology can accommodate such a range of novelists, from Dickens to Dürrenmatt, and Capote to Crumley.
  But this volume also raises the question of what constitutes a mystery – or, if you prefer, a crime novel. (The terms are often taken as interchangeable, but ‘mystery’ is probably a more flexible, and accurate, description given the variety within the form. Crime may perhaps be considered the catalyst, mystery the consequence.) Genre, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder, but one useful formulation may be that, if one can take the crime out of the novel and the novel does not collapse, then it’s probably not a crime novel; but if one removes the crime element and the novel falls apart, then it is. It is interesting, though, to note that just as every great fortune is said to hide a great crime, so too many great novels, regardless of genre, have a crime at their heart. The line between genre fiction and literary fiction (itself a genre, it could be argued) is not as clear as some might like to believe.
  In the end, those who dismiss the genre and its capacity to permit and encourage great writing, and to produce great literature, are guilty not primarily of snobbery – although there may be an element of that – but of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of fiction and genre’s place in it. There is no need to splice genre into the DNA of fiction, literary or otherwise: it is already present. The mystery genre is both a form and a mechanism. It is an instrument to be used. In the hands of a bad writer, it will produce bad work, but great writers can make magic from it. ~ John Connolly and Declan Burke, Dublin, 2012

This piece was first published in the Irish Times.

Publication: BOOKS TO DIE FOR, ed. John Connolly and Declan Burke

I’m delighted to say that BOOKS TO DIE FOR, originally published in 2012, will be reissued in trade paperback by its UK publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, on September 25th. Quoth the blurb elves:

Winner of the 2013 Agatha, Anthony and the Macavity Awards for Best Crime Non-Fiction.

The world’s greatest mystery writers on the world’s greatest mystery novels.

With so many mystery novels to choose from and so many new titles appearing each year, where should the reader start? What are the classics of the genre? Which are the hidden gems?

In the most ambitious anthology of its kind yet attempted, the world’s leading mystery writers have come together to champion the greatest mystery novels ever written. In a series of personal essays that often reveal as much about themselves and their work work as they do about the books that they love, more than 120 authors from twenty countries have created a guide that will be indispensable for generations of readers and writers. From Christie to Child and Poe to PD James, from Sherlock Holmes to Hannibal Lecter and Philip Marlowe to Peter Wimsey, BOOKS TO DIE FOR brings together the cream of the mystery world for a feast of reading pleasure, a treasure trove for those new to the genre and those who believe that there is nothing new left to discover. This is the one essential book for every reader who has ever finished a mystery novel and thought . . . I want more!

  For more on BOOKS TO DIE FOR, clickety-click here …

BOOKS TO DIE FOR: The Awards

I’m delighted to announce that BOOKS TO DIE FOR (ed. John Connolly and Declan Burke, with Assistant Editor Clair Lamb) has won both the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award for Best Crime Non-Fiction at Bouchercon 2013. I’m particularly pleased for the 120 contributors, all of whom fully engaged with the spirit of the book, the essence of which is a celebration of all the great crime and mystery novels and writers. In its conception and its execution, BTDF was very much a labour of love (all authors are, first and foremost, readers), and it’s very nice indeed to see that spirit reflected in the Macavity and Anthony awards (and also the Agatha award, which BTDF won earlier this year).
  All told, it’s been a very good weekend, and not only for BOOKS TO DIE FOR’s editors and contributors, but also for the good people at Hodder & Stoughton (UK) and Atria (US) who put their collective shoulders to the wheel on behalf of the book. It’s always been my experience that the international crime fiction community is comprised of an incredibly warm, generous and welcoming bunch of people, and Bouchercon 2013 pretty much confirms that fact.

“But When You Said We’d Scoop The Pot, I Thought …”

I don’t often feature teapots on Crime Always Pays, particularly as I’m a coffee man, but I’m rather fond of this particular teapot, which arrived in the post last week from the good people at Malice Domestic. It celebrates the Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction 2012 for BOOKS TO DIE FOR (ed. John Connolly and Declan Burke), with which we’re all very well pleased.
  Meanwhile, BTDF has been shortlisted for two further awards, both of which will be announced at the Albany Bouchercon in October. To wit:

Macavity Award Best Mystery Non-Fiction Nominations:
Books to Die For: The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke (Simon & Schuster - Atria/Emily Bestler)
Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin)
In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero, edited by Otto Penzler (BenBella/Smart Pop)

Anthony Award: BEST CRITICAL NON-FICTION WORK
Books to Die For: The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels - John Connolly and Declan Burke, eds. [Hodder & Stoughton/Emily Bestler]
Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950 - Joseph Goodrich, ed. [Perfect Crime]
More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered - D.P. Lyle, M.D. [Medallion]
The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie - Mathew Prichard, ed. [Harper]
In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero - Otto Penzler, ed. [Smart Pop]

  That’s very fine company we’re keeping there, but hopefully we’ll be having a cup or two of Darjeeling to celebrate come Boucheron …

And So To Bristol

If I’m perfectly honest about it, the only reason I go to Crimefest in Bristol is to meet the fabulous Donna Moore (right). She can be a bit of a recluse, Donna, and doesn’t venture outside her front door very often – the occasional gig, a rare excursion to buy shoes, the opening of an envelope, that kind of thing.
  Anyway, I’m off again to see Donna (and do the whole Bristol Crimefest thing) again this year, and I’m hugely looking forward to it. I’m taking part in a discussion called ‘Making Us Laugh About Murder’ on Friday afternoon, alongside Ruth Dudley Edwards, Colin Cotterill, Dorothy Cannell and moderator Lindsey Davis; and on Saturday afternoon I’ll be hosting a discussion on ‘Books to Die For’, featuring contributors to the BOOKS TO DIE FOR tome Barbara Nadel, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Colin Bateman and Brian McGilloway.
  On Saturday night, there’s the Gala Dinner and Awards Presentation, at which I hope to be seated beside Peter Rozovsky, because he’s the only one who can stop me throwing my broccoli out of my high chair. BOOKS TO DIE FOR is up for an award on Saturday night, along with some very fine books indeed; and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND has been shortlisted for the Goldsboro ‘Last Laugh’ gong, an award I was lucky enough to win last year (at least, I’m pretty sure I did – it might well have been a particularly vivid fever-dream).
  Apart from the various events, panels and official events, though, the best part of the weekend is catching up with people you tend not to see from one end of the year to the other. Much coffee will be consumed, and perhaps a glass of sherry or two, and quite a bit of hot air generated. Even the weather is promised fine. Should be a cracker. For the full Crimefest programme, clickety-click here ...

Poe Is We, Part II: The Edgar Awards

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that when I mentioned earlier in the week Jane Casey has been longlisted for a CWA ‘Dagger in the Library’ award, I neglected to mention she was also in the running for an Edgar award later this evening.
  Of course, that – in the grand tradition of the crime novel – was a classic case of dissimulation from an unreliable narrator, and not (koff) the schoolboy error it might appear on first glance.
  But I digress. For lo! Jane Casey is shortlisted for an Edgar Award this evening in the Mary Higgins Clark category with THE RECKONING. And that’s not all – Alan Glynn is also shortlisted, this time in the Best Paperback Original category, for BLOODLAND. And – a muted trumpet parp there, maestro – BOOKS TO DIE FOR, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke (and the wonderful Clair Lamb) is up for consideration in the Best Critical / Biographical category.
  So there it is. It’s very satisfying indeed, I have to say, to be nominated for such a prestigious award, and in such august company too. The very best of luck this evening to everyone on the various shortlists, which can be found here.

UPDATE: News just in comes via Jane Casey, who tells me that Hank Phillippi Ryan won the Mary Higgins Clark gong, which was awarded last night. Hearty congrats to Hank …

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: Woe is we, for lo! The Irish writers came away empty-handed from the Edgar Awards last night – unless we’re prepared to claim Dennis Lehane, who won Best Novel with LIVE BY NIGHT, and James O’Brien, who won the Best Critical / Biography category with THE SCIENTIFIC SHERLOCK HOLMES. Anyway, the heartiest of congratulations to all of the winners at the Edgars – the full list can be found here – and commiserations to everyone else. There is, as they say, always next year …

Let Us Prey

John Connolly’s eleventh Charlie Parker mystery, THE WRATH OF ANGELS (Atria / Emily Bestler Books), appeared on this side of the pond waaaay back in August, but it’s only now - or on January 1st, to be precise - making landfall in North America. Quoth the blurb elves:

In the depths of the Maine woods, the wreckage of a plane is discovered. There are no bodies, and no such plane has ever been reported missing, but men both good and evil have been seeking it for a long, long time.
  What the wreckage conceals is more important than money. It is power: a list of names, a record of those who have struck a deal with the devil. Now a battle is about to commence between those who want the list to remain secret and those for whom it represents a crucial weapon in the struggle against the forces of darkness.
  The race to secure the prize draws in private detective Charlie Parker, a man who knows more than most about the nature of the terrible evil that seeks to impose itself on the world, and who fears that his own name may be on the list. It lures others, too: a beautiful, scarred woman with a taste for killing; a silent child who remembers his own death; and a serial killer known as the Collector, who sees in the list new lambs for his slaughter. But as the rival forces descend upon this northern state, the woods prepare to meet them, for the forest depths hide other secrets.
  Someone has survived the crash. Something has survived the crash.
  And it is waiting …

  I didn’t get to read THE WRATH OF ANGELS when it first appeared, because these days I get to read very little that isn’t commissioned; and given that I worked on BOOKS TO DIE FOR with John, I had to turn down a commission from the Irish Times to review ANGELS. Which is a terrible pity, because John’s books have been some of my reading highlights over the past few years. Anyway, things are a little quieter than usual at the moment, so I’m very much hoping to sneak in THE WRATH OF ANGELS before January goes all busy on my ass.
  In the meantime, if you fancy a glance at the first chapter of THE WRATH OF ANGELS, just clickety-click here …

On First Novels And Kitchen Sinks

“It really shouldn’t work,” begins Karen Chisholm’s review of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE over at AustCrimeFiction, which sounds a tad ominous, and things aren’t improved much when Karen starts listing the ways in which EIGHTBALL and its protagonist, Harry Rigby, really shouldn’t, erm, work.
  Happily, Karen’s time wasn’t entirely wasted in reading the novel. To wit:

“It’s undoubtedly something to do with the crisp, sharp, pointy, sticky, dark, hilariously funny writing throughout the book … Sure the plot probably needed a tourist guide, a very good torch and maybe a cheat sheet, but I ... simply ... did ... not ... care. I loved the whole package and frankly, had a ball reading it.” - Karen Chisholm, AustCrimeFiction

  Which is very nice indeed. Books-wise, the last couple of months at Chez CAP have been largely taken up with BOOKS TO DIE FOR and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND (the sequel to EIGHTBALL BOOGIE), and you do tend to forget that you have other books out there, like children grown up and gone off to discover the world, and reviews like Karen’s function a little like postcards from a distant land, or the past, or somewhere they do things differently.
  At the Crime Night event at Tallaght’s recent Red Line Books Festival, I asked Niamh O’Connor if there was anything about her first book she’d like to change. She said no, and asked if I’d like to change anything about my first book, and I said yes, pretty much everything. As Karen Chisholm points out (very nicely) in her review, the characters in EIGHTBALL BOOGIE crunch their way through the story across the porcelain shards of what feels like a million metaphorical kitchen sinks, said sinks having been (metaphorically) thrown by yours truly in a desperate bid to keep the book interesting.
  In short, it’s a hyper-ventilating love-letter to the crime novel in general and those of Raymond Chandler in particular, although it’s probably fair to say that I took his tongue-in-cheek advice on what to do should the pace ever flag - have a man come the door with a gun in his hand - a little too seriously. And yet, for all its faults I love it still. The way you might love a child, keenly aware of the ways in which it isn’t perfect, but loving it all the more because of its imperfections rather than despite them.
  For a sample chapter or three from EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, please feel free to clickety-click here …

On Chandler, Proust And Spliff

I’ve had a busy old time of it lately, what with all the demands that I sprawl on couches the better to be fed grapes and ambrosia and nectar and whatnot, so I’ve been a little neglectful of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND (Liberties Press), which has been picking up some rather nice reviews over the last couple of weeks. To wit:

“Burke tells his darkly propulsive tale in a fine-tuned, staccato-like narrative voice … bleakly engaging.” - Sunday Business Post

“Tight, witty, sharp as a nail and stunning … SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is just an absolute pleasure to read.” - Ayo Onotade, Shots Magazine

“It’s not easy to bring something new to the private-eye novel but Declan Burke rises to the challenge with panache in SLAUGHTER’S HOUND … The book opens with what may well be the longest sentence in crime fiction — where Proust meets Chandler over a pint of Guinness, with a large spliff on the side. Burke is an author who takes risks, makes you laugh and writes like an angel with a devilish sense of humour.” - Andrew Taylor, The Spectator

  All of which is, as you might imagine, hugely satisfying to my insatiable ego.

Meanwhile, BOOKS TO DIE FOR, which I co-edited with John Connolly, has also been picking up some very nice reviews following its publication in the US, with the gist running thusly:

“An engaging, erudite and substantial anthology about the ‘world’s greatest mystery novels.’” - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“This volume is indispensable … an absolute must for everyone’s personal library.” - Book Reporter

“Delightful … it serves as both a primer on the evolution of the genre and an escort into its remoter corners.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A sumptuous exploration of some of the best mystery authors of our time that showcases their passion for writing and their heartfelt tributes to their fellow writers. It is a resource readers will want to keep for decades.” - Miami Herald

  I really am delighted to see that BTDF is being so well received, given that it was such a labour of love.
  In other news, I’ll be taking part in the Irish Writers’ Centre ‘Peregrine Readings’ series alongside Arlene Hunt this coming week, which should be a lot of fun. The dates and venues are as follows:

Tuesday 23rd October, Irish Writers’ Centre, Dublin, 7.30pm
Wednesday 24th October, Tramore Library, Co. Waterford, 7pm
Thursday 25th October, Triskel, Christchurch, Co. Cork, 8pm

  If you’re likely to be in the vicinity of any of those venues this week, I’d love to see you there …

BOOKS TO DIE FOR: The Witch Speaks

Off to Belfast today with yours truly, for the Norn Iron launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS, and mine own SLAUGHTER’S HOUND. It should be a cracking evening. If you’re likely to be in the vicinity this evening, we’d love to see you. The details run thusly:

Thursday, August 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Belfast launch of THE WRATH OF ANGELS, BOOKS TO DIE FOR, and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND by Declan Burke
The Ulster Museum
Botanic Gardens, Belfast
Tickets Available from No Alibis Bookstore—free event!
44 (0) 28 9031 9601
Email: david@noalibis.com

  Meanwhile, over at the Book Witch’s lair, Madame Witch has been casting her critical eye over said tome, BTDF. To wit:

“Declan Burke and John Connolly have worked on a real must-have book for crime lovers and others who are thinking of entering the world of crime. They, and over a hundred of their crime writing peers, have got together to write essays – admirably short ones, at that – on the ‘greatest mystery novels ever written’ and it is wonderful beyond words.
  “The contents pages read like a Who’s Who, and I have been dipping in and out, trying to decide whether to pick essays about people I like, or by people I like, or about books I know and love. Or just go for the odd ones where I’ve never heard of either the novelist or the essay writing fan.”

  Ms Witch, we thank you kindly. I do hope we have the pleasure of your company in Manchester next month …
  Finally, over at Shotsmag, the lovely Ayo Onatade hosts an interview with John and I about the exquisite pleasure (koff) it was putting BOOKS TO DIE FOR together. Was Charles Dickens really the most surprising inclusion? For all the inside skinny, clickety-click here …

Laddies Who Launch

A busy week hoves over the horizon, with a number of book-related events piling up at the far end. First we’re off to Belfast on Thursday to launch BOOKS TO DIE FOR in the Ulster Museum, along with John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS and mine own SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, all of which will take place under the watchful eye of David Torrans of No Alibis.
  Then it’s back to Dublin on Friday, where John launches THE WRATH OF ANGELS at The Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar. Should be a cracker.
  On Saturday, I’m off to the Electric Picnic to do an event with Ken Griffin, which I am very much looking forward to. Given that the Picnic is an outdoor music festival, and pretty much takes place in the biggest field I’ve ever seen, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the weather report for sunny conditions holds. Otherwise it’ll be like the bloody Ploughing Championships down there. And welly-boots are not a good look for yours truly.
  Back to BOOKS TO DIE FOR, though. The book’s web lair has for the last week or so been featuring short videos from some of the contributors about their choice for BTDF, including pieces from Julia Spencer-Fleming, Meg Gardiner, Lee Child and Katherine Howell. For more, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, here’s a sample, this from Linwood Barclay, who talks about why he picked Ross Macdonald’s THE GOODBYE LOOK and his personal relationship with Ross Macdonald. Roll it there, Collette …

Cry Havoc, And Let Slip The Hound Of Slaughter

And so was launched the good ship SS SLAUGHTER’S HOUND at Hodges Figgis last night, the pic above coming courtesy of the good folk at Portnoy Publishing. I have to say I was a little bit stunned - and delighted, naturally - at the turnout. As I said on the night, there’s a kind of double terror that comes with launching a book, the first being that no one will turn up, the second being that people will actually turn up, so that you have no choice but to go ahead and read out loud. But the marvellous support and goodwill in Hodges Figgis made all the nerves worthwhile.
  Heartfelt thanks to everyone who came along, it was truly wonderful to see you all. And thanks too to everyone who got in touch to say they couldn’t make it, but who passed on their good wishes. We’re hugely grateful to Liam and Steven, for taking care of us so well at Hodges Figgis, and I’d like to personally thank the good folk at Liberties Press, but particularly Caroline and Alice, who made the night run like clockwork.
  I need to run off out into the real world to start earning a living again now, so I’ll keep this one short. Next stop Belfast, next Thursday, August 30th, for the launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS. It might well be epic …

Angels In The Architecture

There was a very fine interview in The Independent last weekend, in which John Connolly spoke with James Kidd on a variety of topics, including the forthcoming BOOKS TO DIE FOR, the blending of genres, the use of language in crime fiction, and the influence of Catholic Ireland on his Maine-set Charlie Parker novels. Here’s a taster:

Then there is THE WRATH OF ANGELS, the 10th of Charlie Parker’s haunting, scary and addictive investigations – to my mind the finest crime series currently in existence. As always, the plot marries an ingenious, if recognisable, detective story with something wicked and otherworldly. The sinister and possibly demonic Collector makes a welcome reappearance.
  “The notion of fusing genres is still something the crime-writing establishment in England is uncomfortable with. There’s a sense that it interferes with the purity of the form. It suggests a lack of faith in what I am doing.”
  Connolly’s magpie imagination is not the only reason his books are an acquired taste. His lyrical prose is an oddity in the spartan milieu of contemporary crime writing, and betrays what seem suspiciously like literary aspirations. “There is sometimes a feeling in crime fiction that good writing gets in the way of story,” Connolly says with a hint of defiance. “I have never felt that way. All you have is language. Why write beneath yourself? It’s an act of respect for the reader as much as yourself.”
  Connolly is on a roll. He explains his welding together of “rational and irrational” forms by rewinding to his Irish Catholic upbringing. “Crime fiction was born from the idea that the world can be understood by the application of logic. Irish people have always been uncomfortable with this point of view. Possibly because we are a Catholic nation, we don’t think rationality encompasses the entire world. We believe that human beings are far stranger than rational thought allows.”

  I would largely agree with that, although I think the instinct taps into a deeper well than a Catholic or Christian heritage. If you drive around Ireland today it won’t be very long before you come across a curious phenomena, that of the neatly tended field disfigured by a ragged patch of ground that remains untilled or overgrown, an untouched hump or hummock allowed to run wild. It’s not that the farmer gave up, or got lazy - these are ‘fairy forts’ or variations thereof, which local tradition or superstition claims are sacred to ‘the little folk’. Should a farmer prove foolhardy enough to mow or plough the fairies’ land, bad fortune will quickly follow.
  Now, there are few occupations more pragmatic than that of the Irish farmer - attempting to wring a living from the floating puddle that is Ireland tends to knock the romantic notions out of a man’s head very early on. If you were to suggest to one of the horny-handed sons of the soil that there are actual fairies living in such places, you would receive polite but very short shrift. And yet still, in the 21st century, the ‘fairy fort’ is common enough in the Irish landscape to be unremarkable.

  Do we believe in fairies? No. Do we really believe that the bulldozing of ‘fairy forts’ would result in curses and bad fortune? No. Do we leave the fairies and their forts alone? Yes.
  It used to irritate me, this very visible manifestation of childishly illogical superstition. Now I like it. It’s a reminder that this is an old country, older than logic and imposed order, where we’re comfortable with daily reminders of our most ancient and primal fears.
  The crime / mystery novel, largely a cultural by-product of the industrial revolution and concerned with a rational, scientific pursuit of truth - “The facts, Jack, just the facts” - seeks to confirm and celebrate a cause-and-effect world that can be laid bare and explained. Thus tamed, it need no longer be feared.
  The crime / mystery novel asserts a seductive but blatantly false thesis, essentially proposing that if we can only dig deep enough we will eventually uncover all we need to know, and especially when it comes to character and motive, the ghost in the machine.
  This, for my money, is why John Connolly’s books work so well. I have no idea if he is comfortable with this notion that much of the world, for all our advances, is unknowable, but he is willing to embrace it. That his Charlie Parker novels are still considered radical, in that they ‘interfere with the purity of the form’, says much more about the narrow parameters of the crime / mystery novel than it does about John Connolly, who is using that form to tap into the oldest kind of storytelling we have.
  For the rest of that Independent interview, clickety-click here ...

The Hound Of The Launchervilles

I mentioned last week that Liberties Press will this month publish my latest novel, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, said tome being a Harry Rigby mystery. It’s going to be an interesting time, I think, because SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is a more traditional kind of crime novel than was my last offering, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which played around with narrative and character and was something of a meta-fiction.
  SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, on the other hand, is a private eye story - at least, Harry Rigby starts out as a private eye, or ‘research consultant’, in EIGHT BALL BOOGIE, which was first published in 2003 and is being republished by Liberties complete with a gorgeous new cover.
  So I’m a little bit nervous, I have to say, as to how SLAUGHTER’S HOUND will be received. AZC garnered some very nice reviews from people who liked the fact that it wasn’t a traditional crime novel, and I’m hoping that those people won’t be disappointed by the fact that SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is. In fact, I may start taking bets as to how long it’ll take for a review to conclude with the words, “ … but unfortunately, this book is all bark and no bite.”
  Mind you, if it wasn’t that then I’d be nervous about something else. Publishing a book is one of the most wonderful and simultaneously nerve-wracking experiences there is. And on top of all that there’s BOOKS TO DIE FOR, which I co-edit with John Connolly, and which also hits a shelf near you later this month.
  Good times …
  And now, a trumpet-parp please, maestro. For lo! It is my very great pleasure to announce that the Dublin launch of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND will take place on Wednesday the 22nd of August at 6.30pm, at Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street, Dublin 2.
  If you’re able to get along, it really would be terrific to see you there.
  Meanwhile, on August 30, I’ll be in Belfast’s Ulster Museum with John Connolly for the three-way launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, John’s latest Charlie Parker novel THE WRATH OF ANGELS, and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND. The event takes place at 6.30pm, and is a free-but-ticketed event - to book a ticket, call David at No Alibis on 44 (0) 28 9031 9601, or email david@noalibis.com.
  So there you have it. Feel free to RSVP for the Dublin launch in the comment box below. Or, y’know, just turn up on the night and surprise us all …

To The Slaughter Manor Born

I had an interview with Karin Slaughter (right) published in the Irish Times last Friday. It began a lot like this:

KARIN SLAUGHTER would like it to be known that Karin Slaughter is not a work of fiction.
  “Yes, that really is my real last name,” says the Georgia-born author with a laugh. “There’s a village in the Cotswolds called Lower Slaughter. I went there on my vacation last year just for the photo op. There’s a place called Slaughter Manor, a beautiful old manor. I asked for it back and they said no.”
  CRIMINAL is Slaughter’s 11th novel. An intertextual mingling of characters from a disparate series of bestselling books, it features the Atlanta police detective Will Trent as he investigates the kidnap and murder of young women, the twist being that the killer’s modus operandi is remarkably similar to that of Will’s own father, a notorious murderer who has recently been released from prison.
  Much of the story takes place in 1975, however, as Slaughter explores the time and place that made Will’s boss, Amanda Wagner, the woman she is today.
  “I’ve been writing about Amanda for years,” says Slaughter, in her soft Southern drawl. “She’s kind of a ball-breaker, and I started to wonder about how she got that way. Every woman I know, and most men I know, have an Amanda Wagner in their lives. A woman who got to the top – and, instead of helping everyone else, she kicked the ladder away and told them they had to crawl across glass to follow her. So I wanted to explore why she got that way, and the best way to do that was to start talking about how things were when she started on the police force.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here:

  Meanwhile, Karin Slaughter is one of the contributors to BOOKS TO DIE FOR, writing a very fine piece on THE DEAD LETTER by Metta Fuller Victor (right). Quoth Karin:

“Metta Fuller Victor started it all for America, she was the first author to write a novel-length detective story. Poe gets a lot of credit for the first detective short story, but she really was the one who created the whole genre. And we don’t really talk about her. As a woman in a field that is very male-identified in many ways, I thought it was important to talk about the fact that it was a woman who gave all of us our start.”

  For more on BOOKS TO DIE FOR, clickety-click here …