The St. Patrick’s Day Massacre; Or, Five Years of Truly Great Irish Crime Writing

UPDATE: Given the weekend that’s in it, I thought this was worth a re-post. Normal-ish service will resume shortly … Ed.

Crime Always Pays has been on the go for roughly five years now, and I’ve read some terrific Irish crime novels during that time. With St Patrick’s Day on the way, I thought I’d offer a sample of what has been called ‘Emerald Noir’ – although it’s fair to say that many of the writers on the list below could be represented by a number of their novels, and it's also true that I haven’t read every Irish crime novel published in that time. And so, in no particular order, I present for your delectation:

The Whisperers, John Connolly

The Cold Cold Ground, Adrian McKinty

Broken Harbour, Tana French

The Guards, Ken Bruen

The Chosen, Arlene Hunt

Winterland, Alan Glynn

The Wrong Kind of Blood, Declan Hughes

The Nameless Dead, Brian McGilloway

The Holy Thief, William Ryan

The Fatal Touch, Conor Fitzgerald

Blood Loss, Alex Barclay

Mystery Man, Colin Bateman

My Lady Judge, Cora Harrison

Peeler, Kevin McCarthy

The Last Girl, Jane Casey

The Twelve, Stuart Neville

Orchid Blue, Eoin McNamee

Torn, Casey Hill

Plugged, Eoin Colfer

Elegy for April, Benjamin Black

Ghost Town, Michael Clifford

The Rage, Gene Kerrigan

On Literary Festivals And The Lesser-Spotted Irish Crime Writer

Hearty congratulations to all involved in ‘Bloody Scotland’, aka Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival, the inaugural edition of which takes place in Stirling this coming September (artist’s impression, right), featuring the likes of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter James, Allan Guthrie, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Tony Black, Karin Fossum, William McIlvanney and - oh yes! - the erstwhile Gregory, John Gordon Sinclair.
  It’s a very nice line-up indeed, and the best of luck to the Festival. Here’s hoping it’s the start of many a fine year’s skirling and, well, whatever it is the Scots do when there’s no one around to keep manners on them.
  A similar, Irish-themed event was run in Dublin a few years back, featuring the cream of Irish crime authors plus some interesting international guests, but it was pretty much a bust. It didn’t help that the event coincided with what turned out to be the only weekend of sunshine that summer, but even beforehand the advance sales had been sluggish. Is there an appetite among Irish readers to sit down and listen to writers talk about writing and books? Is it simply the case that Irish crime writers aren’t interesting enough to Irish readers to draw the crowds?
  There are two literary festivals taking place in Ireland in the next couple of weeks. The Listowel festival kicks off on May 31st, while the Dublin Writers Festival begins a week later, on June 4th. Unless you’re prepared to consider Aifric Campbell and Kevin Power crime writers - and I don’t think either author considers themselves a crime writer - then there isn’t so much as a whiff of cordite to be had at either festival.
  That’s a pity, because there’s some very interesting Irish crime writers publishing novels roundabout now: Conor Fitzgerald, Jane Casey, Tana French, Brian McGilloway, Niamh O’Connor, Conor Brady, Michael Clifford … But there’s more - or rather, less. Because the Dalkey Book Festival runs from June 15th to 17th, and crime writers are again conspicuous by their absence. Yes, the excellent Eoin McNamee will be in attendance, but running the eye over all the other contributors suggests that the organisers would be horrified to discover that McNamee is considered a crime writer in less than salubrious places; and Derek Landy is taking part, but I’d imagine that that’s on the strength of his success as a children’s author, as opposed to Skulduggery Pleasant being a wise-crackin’ undead private eye-type.
  And then there’s the West Cork Literary Festival, which runs July 8th to 14th and which is entirely devoid of Irish crime writers. It does, however, feature husband-and-wife team Nicci French, and another husband-and-wife team, Edward Marston and Judith Cutler. A pity there was no room for the Irish husband-and-wife writing team Kevin and Melissa Hill, but there you go, there’s no sense in being parochial about such things, is there?
  Meanwhile, and back to the Listowel Writers Festival, where there is a panel discussion on Thursday night, May 31st, titled (koff) ‘Towards a National Strategy on Literature’. To wit:

A panel discussion with The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan, author Colm Tóibín, Sinéad MacAodha, The Irish Literature Exchange and Sean Lyons, Chairman of Writers’ Week. It is time that we develop a national literary and strategic policy in Ireland. We will take a step forward, evoke ideas, delve into where we are and where we are going … ask controversial but fundamental questions …

  ‘Delve into where we are and where we are going …’
  I could be very, very crude about where literary Ireland is right now, and cruder still about where it’s going. But that won’t solve anything.
  The knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that Irish crime writers should hold and host their own festival next year, along the lines of Bloody Scotland, or Harrogate or Crimefest in England, or the Bouchercon in the US; but Ireland is a small place, and there’s the very real danger of confirming the status quo, of reinforcing a ghetto mentality; like the standalone Crime Fiction category at the Irish Book Awards, it suggests that Irish crime writers need to be corralled off from real books, from proper fiction, and given a special award and a pat on the head.
  The irony is that it’s Irish crime writers who are ‘delving into where we are and where we are going’ as a nation, but it’s a real Catch 22 scenario right now for Irish crime writers: if you demand attention, you’re accused of special pleading; if you shrug and grit your teeth, you’re ignored.
  So what to do?
  Over to you, people. I’m all ears …

The Second Life Of Reilly

Last year’s TABOO, from husband-and-wife writing partnership Casey Hill, dragged Irish crime fiction into the bright ‘n’ shiny CSI age, as their Quantico-trained investigator Reilly Steel arrived in Dublin to head up a brand new forensics office and hunt down a nefarious serial killer. A UK production team is currently beavering away to bring Reilly to a TV screen near you; in the meantime Casey Hill’s sophomore offering, TORN (Simon & Schuster), will be hitting the shelves in March. Quoth the blurb elves:

When an ex-cop is found frozen to death in a bath of ice at a disused meatpacking plant, the Dublin police conclude it may be one of the man’s past collars taking revenge. Shortly afterwards, a tabloid journalist is found drowned in his own septic tank, buried up to the neck in excrement. The reporter had many enemies, but why would someone go to such elaborate lengths to exact revenge? Both crime scenes are a forensic investigator’s worst nightmare. The locations and victims yield little in the way of usable evidence, and Reilly Steel quickly discovers that she may be dealing with a killer - or killers - who know all about crime scene investigation. The police are just as frustrated by the crimes’ impenetrable nature, and it’s only when a third murder occurs - equally graphic and elaborate in its execution - that the police and Reilly begin to wonder if the same person might be responsible. And they soon discover that this particular killer is using a very specific blueprint for his crimes. Who is the killer’s next victim? And what’s his endgame?

  Bodies packed in ice in meatpacking plants? Journos drowning in septic tanks full of excrement? Outsiders coming in to clear up our mess? Is TORN an extended metaphor for how ripped apart is Irish society in these straitened times? Or is it just good, clean serial-killing fun? YOU decide.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE COLD COLD GROUND by Adrian McKinty

I reviewed Adrian McKinty’s THE COLD COLD GROUND for RTE’s Arena programme last week, in the very fine company of Arlene Hunt. The audio can be found here, with the gist of my review notes running thusly:

The riot had taken on a beauty of its own now. Arcs of gasoline fire under the crescent moon. Crimson tracer in mystical parabolas. Phosphorescence from the barrels of plastic bullet guns. A distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship. The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces. Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife.
  And all this through a lens of oleaginous Belfast rain. - Adrian McKinty, THE COLD COLD GROUND

  Adrian McKinty’s latest novel opens in the spring of 1981, with a group of RUC officers watching a Belfast riot from afar. The action is described in the first person by Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy, a Catholic in the predominantly Protestant RUC. The backdrop to the riots is the ongoing hunger strikes, although Duffy and his cohorts are a little disappointed with this particular riot:

“In fact we had seen better only last week when, in the hospital wing of The Maze Prison, IRA commander Bobby Sands had finally popped his clogs.”

  Against the powder-keg backdrop of the hunger strikes, DS Duffy investigates a number of murders that appeared to be linked: a homophobic serial killer seems to be targeting homosexuals. Given that Northern Ireland has had no previous experience of a serial killer, however, Duffy has his doubts, and believes that the murders may be perpetrated by someone using the homophobia, and the ongoing tension related to the hunger strikes, as an excuse to settle some personal, paramilitary-related scores …
  DS Sean Duffy is a fascinating character, being a Catholic police officer in a predominantly Protestant RUC at the time of the hunger strikes. This immediately gives his story an extra frisson, as sectarianism was at its height (or nadir) in Northern Ireland during the early 1980s. In fact, and despite being a police officer, DS Duffy keeps his religion a secret from his neighbours, allowing them to presume that he is a Protestant.
  That said, the sectarianism Duffy faces doesn’t necessarily lend itself to conflict. At work, for example, Duffy and his co-workers engage in sectarian banter in which Duffy gives as good as he gets. As often as not, the sectarianism manifests itself as lazy stereotyping; his Protestant superiors, for example, simply presume that Duffy, being a Catholic, must know virtually every other Catholic in Northern Ireland.
  Away from work, Duffy is the antithesis of the ultra-conservative RUC officer. He listens to the period’s more adventurous rock music, and occasionally smokes dope. He appears to be more laidback about life in general than his colleagues, particularly in terms of the sectarianism of Northern Ireland. When it becomes clear that a killer is targeting homosexuals, Duffy is much less homophobic in his attitude towards the gay community than most of his colleagues.
  It’s easy to see why McKinty picked the hunger strikes for a backdrop: the setting provides immediate tension, a sharply divided society, and a very vivid backdrop of continuous rioting. By the same token, the hunger strikes are still hugely important in the psyche of Northern Ireland, and have iconic status in large parts of the Catholic / Nationalist community. Any crime writer deploying the hunger strikes as a backdrop runs the risk of being accused of exploiting the period, and the sacrifices made, for the sake of a crime thriller.
  Having said all that, I got the impression that McKinty picked the hunger strikes for the backdrop to this novel not just because it would provide instant tension, but because that period, arguably, represented the nadir of the Troubles, and so serves as a kind of crucible for the worst that humanity is capable of.
  It’s worth mentioning, I think, that there has been very little by way of serial killer novels in Ireland until very recently. The only explicit examples I can think of are Rob Kitchin’s THE RULE BOOK and TABOO by Casey Hill, although it can be argued that Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE is a serial killer novel (in that particular case, the ‘serial killer’ is a sympathetic character, who kills to avenge others’ deaths). All three novels have appeared in the last two or three years. (Arlene Hunt’s novel THE CHOSEN is in part a serial killer novel, but that book is set in the US.)
  This may be because Ireland itself has had no history of serial killers - officially, at least. By the same token, Ireland has lent itself over the years to being a place where a psychopath could very easily indulge a homicidal streak by signing up to one or another political / paramilitary creed. The Shankhill Butchers, for example, were serial killers in all but name.
  As for the style, McKinty quickly establishes and maintains a pacy narrative, but he does a sight more too. McKinty brings a quality of muscular poetry to his prose, and the opening paragraph quoted above is as good an example as any. He belongs in a select group of crime writers, those you would read for the quality of their prose alone: James Lee Burke, John Connolly, Eoin McNamee, David Peace, James Ellroy.
  I should probably have pointed out before beginning this review that I’ve been a fan of Adrian McKinty’s work since his first novel, DEAD I WELL MAY BE. I think he’s one of the best crime writers currently working today, and I also think that THE COLD COLD GROUND is his best novel since his debut. Given its backdrop, and the fact that the hunger strikes are still to a great extent a taboo subject in fiction, I would also argue that THE COLD COLD GROUND is an important novel too. - Declan Burke

CAPNYA; Or, The Crime Always Pays Novel of the Year Award

Well, it’s that time of the year again, folks, when we have a look back at the Irish crime titles released in the last twelve months or so, and make a ham-fisted attempt at deciding which was the best of the lot for the not-entirely-coveted Crime Always Pays Novel of the Year Award - or CAPNYA, if you prefer. I say ham-fisted, because all such ‘awards’ are by definition a lottery of subjective opinions, opinion being a polite word for prejudice; the good news there is, opinions are free, and so is leaving a comment in the box beneath this post. So, if you have a few moments to spare, and have an opinion on what might be the best Irish crime title of 2011, please join in the fun.
  To make it (slightly) interesting, and because the real object of the exercise is to bring the titles of great books to the attention of those who might have missed them first time around, I’m going to ask you to name your top three books, in 1-2-3 order, with the person who gets closest to the right 1-2-3 bagging themselves a signed copy of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL by yours truly (runner-up gets two signed copies, etc.). In the event that two or more contributors tie, the names will go into a bobbly hat.
  The list of books below isn’t so much a longlist as a suggested reading list, and please feel free to include any title that isn’t on it in your 1-2-3. I’m going to run this post for two weeks, with the winner to be announced on Monday, December 19th, and maybe for giggles I’ll post a ‘short-list’ of the most popular books this time next week.
  Incidentally, I’ll be leaving myself and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL out of the competition. As always, this has less to do with transparency and accountability and the democratic process than it has to do with the horrendous embarrassment that would come with my not winning an award I’m hosting on my own blog. You know it makes sense.
  Anyway, on with the list, which is presented in alphabetical order:

NINE INCHES, Colin Bateman;
A DEATH IN SUMMER, Benjamin Black;
THE POINT, Gerard Brennan;
HEADSTONE, Ken Bruen;
THE RECKONING, Jane Casey;
PLUGGED, Eoin Colfer;
THE BURNING SOUL, John Connolly;
THE FATAL TOUCH, Conor Fitzgerald;
BLOODLAND, Alan Glynn;
TABOO, Casey Hill;
GOODBYE AGAIN, Joseph Hone;
THE CHOSEN, Arlene Hunt;
THE RAGE, Gene Kerrigan;
HIDE ME, Ava McCarthy;
LITTLE GIRL LOST, Brian McGilloway;
FALLING GLASS, Adrian McKinty;
STOLEN SOULS, Stuart Neville;
BLOODLINE, Brian O’Connor;
TAKEN, Niamh O’Connor;
DUBLIN DEAD, Gerard O’Donovan;
THE BLOODY MEADOW, William Ryan;

  So there you have it, folks. Vote early, vote often, and let the games commence …

Good Guys: No Longer Finishing Last, Apparently

It would take a better man than yours truly not to be even slightly disappointed by the events which transpired at the Concert Hall in the RDS last night. For lo! It came to pass that BLOODLAND by Alan Glynn (right) scooped the Ireland AM Crime Fiction gong at the Irish Book Awards, in the process putting to the sword his fellow nominees Casey Hill, Jane Casey, William Ryan, Benjamin Black and your humble correspondent.
  Yes, it’s true that Team Liberties Press went along more in hope than expectation, but even so, it would have been nice to win. The good news is that Alan Glynn is one of life’s good guys; and while that really shouldn’t matter, it kind of does. The guy is a gentleman, in all senses of the word, and I was very pleased indeed to see him ascending the steps to pick up his award.
  Just as importantly, or more importantly at the moment, perhaps, BLOODLAND is a terrific novel, and a very worthy winner of the award. I reviewed said tome on these pages a couple of weeks ago; if you’ve yet to read it, I humbly suggest you do so as soon as your TBR list allows.
  Meanwhile, spare a thought for Jane Casey. She’s been shortlisted for the prize two years in a row now, and has left empty-handed on both occasions. Here’s hoping that next year will be her year …
  As for the evening itself, I had an absolutely smashing time. It was terrific, as always, to catch up with the likes of Alan and Jane, and Bill Ryan, and to meet Casey Hill - aka Melissa and Kevin Hill - for the first time. Arlene Hunt was there too, and Bob Johnston of the Gutter Bookshop; I met with Sarah Webb, and briefly got to congratulate Sarah Carey, whose THE REAL REBECCA won the Young Adult award; the inimitable Vanessa O’Loughlin of writing.ie was there; and the marvellous Margaret Daly, and Cormac Kinsella and Declan Heeney, valiant soldiers in the book-promotion business all. I also got to meet, very briefly, with one of my childhood heroes, Ronnie Whelan, formerly of Ireland and Liverpool FC - and when I say ‘meet’, I mean I barged up to him, grabbed his hand, and muttered something about being a huge fan when I was a kid. All very embarrassing, of course, moreso for Ronnie than myself, probably, but a real thrill all the same. They really don’t make them like Ronnie Whelan anymore.
  And then there was our own table, which was for the most part taken up by the Team Liberties, including Caroline Lambe, Alice Dawson, Daniel Bolger and publisher Sean O’Keefe. The craic, as they say, was only mighty, and great fun was had by all, and I was delighted that they all turned up mob-handed to lend their support and enjoy the night in their own right. It was a pity we couldn’t take away an award to reward their faith and commitment to ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, but then, you can’t have everything, and we did get tiramisu, and a very strong rumour that AZC will be published in India in the near future. So these things do even out in the end.
  So there you have it. The heartiest of warm congratulations to Alan Glynn on his well deserved win last night, and upward and onward for the rest of us. There is, after all, next year to look forward to.
  Meanwhile, here’s a wee taste of what Ronnie Whelan was capable of, with THAT goal against Russia at Euro ’88. Roll it there, Collette …

Yes, Cinderella, You Shall Go To The Ball …

And so dawns the day of the ball, during the course of which this particular Cinders is hoping that a crack squad of Fairy Godmothers will appear and sprinkle him with the necessary fairy dust. Yep, it’s the Irish Book Awards, and as all Three Regular Readers will be aware, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL has been shortlisted in the Crime Fiction section, alongside A DEATH IN SUMMER by Benjamin Black, TABOO by Casey Hill, BLOODLAND by Alan Glynn, THE BLOODY MEADOW by William Ryan and THE RECKONING by Jane Casey. The event takes place in the salubrious surroundings of the Concert Hall at the RDS, aka The Royal Dublin Society, and in truth I’m feeling mightily conflicted.
  Why so? Well, for starters, the event is black tie. I’ve never worn a tuxedo before, for a variety of reasons, but mainly because the sight of a load of blokes crammed into ill-fitting penguin suits always looks a bit ridiculous. There’s also the fact that said suits are generally ill-fitting because most blokes have rented their tuxedos, which kind of defeats the purpose. The whole point of a tux is that it’s an expensive bit of kit, and the whole point of wearing one is to announce to the world at large that you’ve got the wherewithal to afford such an expensive piece of kit. Renting one seems to defeat the purpose, no? And then there’s the dicky-bow, which is by some distance, I think, the most preposterous piece of apparel ever invented. Not that that will be an issue for me. I absolutely refuse point blank to wear a dicky-bow. If it’s a black tie they want, then it’s a black tie they’ll get. And if that means that I turn up looking like I’m attending a funeral, then so be it.
  I’m a little bit nervous too, if I’m honest. I’ve been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards before, some years ago, for my debut offering, EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. That year the competition was every bit as tough as it is this year, the shortlist being comprised of Ken Bruen, Michael Collins, Ingrid Black and yours truly. Naturally, I didn’t win. I don’t expect to win this year, either; for what it’s worth, my gut instinct tells me that Casey Hill will walk away with the award, although it might also be worth watching out for Jane Casey, given that this is her second year in a row to be nominated. Mind you, I’ll only be really surprised if AZC wins; the shortlist really does comprise a fine body of writers. And I think it’s fair to say that had the shortlist been composed of an entirely different six authors, it would have been equally strong.
  But this is where I’m also a little conflicted, because the prize will be awarded according to a public vote. Which essentially means that the award will go to whoever it is on the list has the most friends. I did my best to play along with the concept, letting people know at every opportunity that they could vote for their favourite book / writer, etc., but to be honest, my heart wasn’t in it. I think I’d have much preferred it had the shortlist been decided by public vote, and the award itself decided by a panel of judges. There’s a big difference between a book being the best book and the most popular book. Not that I’ll be complaining if by some chance my half-assed marketing campaign propels AZC to the top of the pile; all the same, I’d much prefer it got there on merit, as opposed to my persecuting people I know to vote for me.
  Mostly, though, I’m feeling conflicted this morning because I’m currently working on a follow-up to AZC; although the conflict arises partially because the book isn’t a follow-up or any kind of logical follow-on from that book. ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, for those of you who don’t know, isn’t a conventional crime novel, playing as it does with meta-fiction and multiple narratives, and generally being more than a little bit bonkers as a hospital porter sets out to blow up his hospital. The current book, which I’m redrafting, is actually a sequel to EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, currently rejoicing in the working title THE BIG EMPTY, which follows former research consultant (aka private eye) Harry Rigby as he finds himself, yet again, up this oxters in illicit drugs and nefarious characters. Which is to say, it’s a comparatively straightforward crime novel narrative, even if things are rarely straightforward when Harry Rigby gets involved, and I really don’t know if it’s a good idea to follow an unconventional book like ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL with a conventional tale like THE BIG EMPTY.
  It’s been something of a slog, this redraft, I have to say. Matters are not helped by the fact that this is the sixth redraft, or thereabouts, which means that virtually every page feels as flat as a map of canals. In fact, practically every line feels dust-dry, dead. Which is usually a good sign, and means that I’m rapidly getting to the point where I’ll have to let the book go; in fact, late last week I sat down at the desk and opened up the file, and got the old familiar feeling of my guts sloshing around. When reading your own stuff makes you feel physically sick, then you know it’s coming time to let go.
  I passed the sixty-thousand word mark earlier this week, which means the beast’s back is broken; and even though I know I need to write an entirely new ending, of roughly fifteen thousand words, the end is in sight, and I should - all going well - have this draft finished in time to take an actual holiday over the Christmas period.
  Will it be any good? My head says yes, this on the basis that people seemed to like the previous books; my heart says no, on the basis that I always think that this book is going to be the time I’ll be found out as a charlatan and spoofer. Conflicted? Oh yes.
  So that’s the context in which I’ll be heading to the Irish Book Awards this evening, knowing in my heart, no matter what happens, that I’m a charlatan and spoofer. The only consolation there, I suppose, is that most of the writers I meet tonight will be feeling exactly the same thing.

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL: And The Winner Is …

A little bit of house-keeping today, folks. I ran a competition last week to celebrate being short-listed in the Irish Book Awards, offering a signed copy of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL and asking people to nominate their favourite crime novel of the year so far. Thanks a million for your response, and for some very interesting suggestions, although I should say that the ‘judging’ process is entirely unscientific and very biased indeed. In other words, I’m going to award the signed copy to Michael Malone, this on the basis that he picked THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott, which blew me away when I read it last month. It really is a superb novel - and, oddly enough, one of the least crime-driven crime novels I’ve read all year. Anyway, a signed copy of AZC is winging its way to Michael Malone as you read …
  Incidentally, if anyone is really, really desperate to get their hands on a signed copy of AZC, I’m reliably informed that they are available at the Liberties Press website …
  Elsewhere this week, I was delighted to appear on TV3’s Ireland AM to promote both AZC and the Irish Book Awards. Ireland AM sponsors the crime fiction section at the IBA, although I think it’s worth pointing out that the programme - and Mark Cagney in particular - have been very supportive of Irish crime writers since long before the sponsorship began. If you’re remotely interested in seeing yours truly on the TV, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, AZC received a very nice review from Sarah over at Crime Pieces. What I liked about it most was that Sarah came across the book courtesy of someone else posting about the Irish Book Awards short-list, and decided to read the book as a result. Which is, of course, the true purpose of any kind of award, I think. As nice as it would be to actually win the prize, I’m delighted that as a result of the nomination, AZC is now coming to the notice of readers who might not otherwise have heard of it. Of course, it’s also very nice that said readers actually like the book once they get to read it. Anyway, Sarah’s full review can be found here …
  Finally, there’s still a week to go to the closing date for voting in the Irish Book Awards, which take place on November 17th. If you’d like to vote for anyone on the crime short-list, which also includes Benjamin Black, William Ryan, Jane Casey, Casey Hill and the inimitable Alan Glynn, just clickety-click here …

TV Or Not TV

Jane Casey was on ye olde Twittere yesterday, claiming that the last time she was on TV3’s Ireland AM programme, she was grinning like some kind of loon. I’d have had said she was smiling as mysteriously as Mona Lisa, but what do I know? Anyway, Jane was back on Ireland AM yesterday morning, to talk about her latest offering, THE RECKONING, this part of Ireland AM’s series of interviews with the nominees on the shortlist for the Irish Book Awards crime fiction list, which the programme sponsors.
  You can find Jane’s interview at the link here, and Ireland AM have also very kindly cached the interviews with all the other nominees, including Casey Hill, William Ryan and yours truly, with Alan Glynn’s turn in the spotlight coming this morning.
  Meanwhile, anyone interested in voting for any of the nominees - which also includes Benjamin Black - can do so by clickety-clicking here …

On Being Caught In A Compromising Position, Again

As of last Thursday morning, and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL’s short-list nomination in the Ireland AM Crime Fiction section of the Irish Book Awards, I find myself in a rather more compromised position than usual. The reason is that I’ve been shortlisted alongside some very good writers and books; worse, I’ve positively reviewed some of said tomes in the recent past.
  This, of course, amounts to a kind of retrospective version of shooting myself in the foot. What to do, what to do …?
  I could, of course, come out and say that I was lying through my teeth when I gave, say, Alan Glynn’s BLOODLAND a big-up recently, or Casey Hill’s TABOO earlier this year; or claim, for that matter, that Benjamin Black’s A DEATH IN SUMMER is not, as I suggested a couple of months ago, the finest of John Banville’s Quirke novels to date.
  That’s one option, certainly.
  I could also go the route of claiming the moral high ground, and insist that it’s ridiculous to pit very different kinds of novels against one another in a competition, and instead suggest a more straightforwardly barbaric test, in which we put all six writers into a cage for a marathon smack-down session, and let the best man or woman win. Of course, that wouldn’t fly, because Casey Hill is comprised of a wife-and-husband team, so they’d have an unfair advantage.
  Another option, and the preferable one, is to simply confirm that the short-list for the Crime Fiction Award represents pretty stuff competition: “The Group of Death, in more ways than one,” as Eoin Purcell observed on Thursday morning. It’s also fair to say, I think, that were the list to be comprised of an entirely different six Irish crime titles published this year, it would also be a very strong shortlist. If I were Adrian McKinty, Gene Kerrigan, Niamh O’Connor, Brian McGilloway, Conor Fitzgerald or Eoin Colfer, for example, I think I’d feel entitled to be very disappointed at not making the list.
  It sounds perverse, but the fact that such writers didn’t make it is part of the joy of being there. Because this is a very, very good time for Irish crime writing, with a very high quality of work being produced by some very interesting writers; it’s the oldest cliché in the book, I know, but it really is lovely just to be nominated, given the number of excellent titles that were published this year alone.
  Naturally, having been nominated, I’d now like to see ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL win the award, and as much for Liberties Press as for myself, or the book. If we don’t, it’ll be disappointing, of course; but as we used to say back in the days when I played football, there’s never any shame in being beaten by a better team.
  And so, rather than sneak around pretending that the other short-listed titles don’t exist, and hoping that AZC wins the award by default, I’d much prefer to go on celebrating said titles. To wit:

My take on A DEATH IN SUMMER by Benjamin Black (you’ll need to scroll down a little);

A Q&A with wife-and-husband writing team Casey Hill;

Some very nice reviews of Alan Glynn’s BLOODLAND can be found here;

I have yet to read William Ryan’s THE BLOODY MEADOW, but the reviews suggest I should get the finger out and do so, especially as I thoroughly enjoyed his debut;

And I haven’t read Jane Casey’s THE RECKONING yet, but I have no reason to doubt that it’s as good as her previous offering, THE BURNING, which I thought was a cracker.

  So there you have it, folks: a fine body of books, and every one of them deserving of your vote. If you’re in the mood to exercise your suffrage, clickety-click here …

On Taking Pride In Prejudice

I’m not saying that John Boland is a crap reviewer, necessarily, and he’s as entitled to his opinion as the next man, but it’s worth pointing out that he took a pop at Alan Glynn’s BLOODLAND in the Irish Independent a couple of weeks ago on the basis that it was longer, more ambitious and more geographically diverse than the books he liked to read as a younger man. No, seriously. The review is here …
  This week he takes a swipe at DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, opening up thusly:

Both critically and commercially, Irish crime writing has never had it so good and Irish crime authors have benefited from the boom it’s been enjoying over the last decade or so.
  Why, then, do so many of them whinge about not being taken seriously -- or, at least, not as seriously as they take themselves?
  In his editor’s note at the start of this ragbag of essays and stories by various Irish crime writers, Declan Burke concedes that it may be “stretching a point” to suggest they are “prophets without honour in their own country”, but he goes on to stretch it anyway -- finding it “a little bit odd” and “not a little unfortunate” that they’re “more celebrated outside of Ireland than they are at home”.
  Is this true? I thought they were doing pretty well for themselves here.
  Clearly, though, it rankles with some of them that they’re treated like second-class authors …

  Now, I know it’s the done thing to just take your lumps when you get a bad review, brush it off and get on with it. But what actually rankles is when someone reviews a book according to preconceived notions, or an agenda, and deliberately misreads the text in order to prove their point.
  Because here’s the thing, John - Irish crime authors are more celebrated outside of Ireland than they are at home. If you’d like a little proof, just dig out the ‘Emerald Noir’ documentary Val McDermid put together for BBC 4 last February, celebrating the rise and rise of Irish crime writing - maybe I missed it, but I can’t remember a similar radio doc being made for Irish radio. Or click on this link here, which will tell you all you need to know about how New York University is hosting a symposium this coming weekend on Irish crime writing - again, I might have missed it, but I don’t think any of the Irish universities have marked the coming of age of the Irish crime novel in a similar way. If you need still more proof, take the time to dig out all the awards that Irish crime writers have been nominated for in the last decade in America, home of the hardboiled crime novel, the most recent example of which was the LA Times’ Crime Novel of the Year award earlier this year, when a shortlist of five writers was made of three American writers and two Irish, Stuart Neville and Tana French. Or, if you choose, just take a look at the Irish Top Ten fiction lists over the last year alone, where you’ll find plenty of crime writers hitting the Top Ten, but very few Irish crime writers. Or there was last month’s announcement that both Benjamin Black and Casey Hill will have their novels adapted for TV in the UK. Perhaps Irish broadcasters were trampled underfoot in the stampede to bring those writers’ to the small screen, but suffice to say that both series will be broadcast courtesy of the UK, not Ireland.
  Yes, John, Irish crime writers are ‘doing pretty well for themselves’ (one guy, I think his name is Alan Glynn, even had his novel THE DARK FIELDS adapted as a major Hollywood movie earlier this year). The fact remains, though, that Irish crime writers are more celebrated outside of Ireland than at home.
  I was also a little taken aback by the snide tone of Boland’s review. To wit:

Some of these are comic, and all the more so for not being meant that way, as in Tana French’s argument that crime writing has become the genre that “examines the tensions and fears of a society” and that it’s also “where the crucial issues of any nation’s identity get explored”. So, not just French, but Balzac, too.

  Laugh? I nearly emigrated. Interesting, of course, that in his rush to deploy a piss-poor pun on Tana French’s name that any self-respecting crime writer would baulk at, John Boland cites Balzac rather than any of the heavyweight contemporary Irish literary writers. As fine a writer as he is, Balzac is hardly a poster-boy for how the modern novel, Irish or otherwise, engages with current concerns.
  But stay! Because John has a word or two to say on that topic too:

Yes, the ills of today’s post-boom Ireland form the backdrop to many recent crime novels but the plot remains the key thing, and while seedy politicians and venal developers feature in these stories, their roles are seldom more than decoratively expedient -- gaudily drawn villains in tales that are much less interested in (or capable of) exploring the roots of our current malaise than in working towards the tense denouement demanded by a tried-and-trusted formula.

  ‘But the plot remains the key thing …’ Here’s a question: Since when did ‘plot’ become such a dirty word in literature? Has literary fiction disappeared so far up its own fundament that a good plot is now fair game for sneering at?
  As for crime fiction being ‘tales that are much less interested in (or capable of) exploring the roots of our current malaise than in working towards the tense denouement demanded by a tried-and-trusted formula’, well, where to start?
  I suppose we could start by pointing out that, broadly speaking, the classic three-act drama of order-chaos-order (the latter featuring redemption / retribution / catharsis) has been with us since the Classical Greeks, and by those lights is indeed a ‘tried-and-trusted formula’. We could also ask, in all sincerity, where the literary novels ‘exploring the roots of our current malaise’ are, and what the literary writers have to offer in this regard that the crime writers don’t, the vast majority of literary authors being no more or less blessed with penetrating economic insights than their crime-writing brethren, or the vast majority of economists, for that matter.
  I could go on, but the review is here if you want to read it, and I’ve a busy afternoon ahead, what with that Ph.D in Economics to study for, that overview of the use of dramatic momentum in Classic Greek tragedy to brush up on, and that essay I have to write for Book Reviewing 101: ‘Taking Pride In Prejudice’.
  Gosh, it really is all go when you’re an Irish crime writer …

CaSI: Dublin

I mentioned last week that Benny Blanco, aka Benjamin Black, aka John Banville, will see his Quirke novels adapted for a TV series in the UK, and lo! Hardly had the dust settled than another TV series has been announced for an Irish crime writer, or more accurately the pair of Irish crime writers known as CaSI, oops, Casey Hill. Quoth the PR elves:

TV rights to TABOO, the debut thriller by Irish bestselling author Melissa Hill and husband Kevin, have this week been snapped up by a leading UK production company.
  The husband and wife team (who write under the pseudonym Casey Hill) have signed a lucrative TV deal with Ecosse Films, the production company behind hit UK TV shows such as ‘Mistresses’, ‘He Kills Coppers’, ‘Raw’ and films ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and the Anne Hathaway-starred ‘Becoming Jane’.
  Ecosse will produce a CSI-style TV series based on Reilly Steel, the feisty American forensic investigator from TABOO, who comes to Dublin to work alongside the Gardai in order to track down a twisted serial killer who is dispatching citizens at a frightening rate. The book is said to be along the lines of Patricia Cornwell’s popular Kay Scarpetta series, and is the first in a planned series of novels featuring Reilly Steel.
  It is another major coup for the writing pair, who last year secured a six-figure pre-empt from major UK publisher Simon & Schuster for their debut novel, and went on to achieve further translation deals in a string of international territories. Upon its release in Ireland earlier this year, TABOO stormed straight into the bestseller list at No 2. It has just hit the shelves in the UK, and with the story now poised to hit TV screens the book’s popularity is set to soar.

  Hearty congrats to all concerned, especially as even a solidly performing TV series could well translate into millions of potential readers. Given that TABOO and its mooted sequels are set in Dublin, the news should prove a welcome boost to the domestic filmmaking market too.
  Melissa Hill, of course, is already a bestselling author of women’s fiction, and her current tome, SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S, is still selling gangbusters after parachuting straight in at No 1 in the Irish fiction charts earlier this summer.
  So there you have it. I never thought I’d write a post containing the words ‘Melissa Hill’, ‘Brideshead Revisited’, ‘John Banville’ and ‘Something From Tiffany’s’ and ‘He Kills Coppers’, but it’s mutating into a funny ol’ world, this Irish crime writing lark …

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 …

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 …

Fare Thee Well, Then, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL …

… I knew thee well. It’s a Red Letter day, folks. One of those days that means nothing to anyone else, in the grand scheme of things - no deals were struck, no books were signed, no fortunes were made. It’s the day when I finally put to bed the final draft of my latest book, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (mocked-up cover, right), tucked it up tight under its blankets, to sleep, perchance to dream.
  It’s a fine feeling indeed, one of accomplishment and satisfaction, of having gone the distance, run the race. That feeling won’t last long, I know - this moment is the eye of the storm, the real-but-false period of calm. If previous experiences of finishing a book are anything to go by, soon enough the bliss will give way to exhaustion, the satisfaction to doubt, and I’ll go into a slump, a kind of cold turkey withdrawal. As soon as I send the book to the publisher - and by ‘as soon’ I mean within minutes - all my mind’s eye will be able to see is the mistakes, the gaffes, the missteps, and we’ll be back into the storm again. Still, at least we have the safety-net of the proofs to come, even if, right now, the very idea of reading a single line of it again is enough to turn my stomach.
  The fact that the redraft coincided with receiving the proofs for DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS didn’t help matters much, but now they’re both done and dusted (if not yet polished), and it feels like I’ve lost about two stone in weight, most of it around the shoulders.
  Anyway, that’s it. Stick a fork in my ass, I’m done. Done with writing for the foreseeable future. No more rising at 5am to snatch a couple of hours before the day begins. No more staring bleary-eyed at a screen at 11.30pm, proofing the precious / pathetic few words I managed to scratch out before dawn. No more feeling guilty for not writing, or feeling guilty for writing and stealing time away from my family. No more the corrosive decision, made every day, of whether to write (fiction) for love or (journalism) for money. No more doubts and second-guessing myself for six months at least, and a fortnight in Cyprus to come next month. Yea, verily, my cup runneth over …
  So - is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL any good? I honestly can’t say. I’m still too close to it, obviously, to have any kind of perspective; besides, it’s not typical of my previous books. It’s not a conventional story, it’s not typically a crime novel, or any other kind of novel either, so I really don’t have much to measure it against.
  I did get a huge boost at the start of last week, which arrived at the perfect time, given that I was in the throes of self-doubt and comma-fiddling, when Melissa Hill got in touch. As with all the other big-ups for the book (scroll down, left), Melissa Hill is an author: she writes women’s fiction as Melissa Hill, and has recently published, with her husband, a crime novel under the pseudonym Casey Hill. The gist of her verdict ran thusly:

“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill

  Very pleasant it was to receive, as you might appreciate, and very grateful I am too. I thank you kindly, ma’am.
  Here’s the thing, though - the story, which is essentially about a hospital porter bent on blowing up the hospital where he works, is framed by a conversation between the book’s author and said porter, as they redraft the story into what they hope will be a commercial prospect that will see the character of the porter liberated from the limbo of non-publication.
  In other words, it’s entirely possible that readers who are writers will like the book more than readers who aren’t writers. So there’s that to worry about.
  But I’ll worry about it anon. Today is the writing equivalent of that lazy, yawny, stretchy time between sleep and waking on a Bank Holiday morning, when nothing seems real and everything seems possible. Hell, there’s even a rumour, courtesy of my publisher and his sojourn to the London Book Fair, that an American publisher - very well regarded, although it would be impolite to name names - is taking a long, hard look at AZC.
  So there you have it. The book is done. Time to put myself to bed, tucked up tight beneath the blankets, to sleep, perchance to dream …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Blatty, Hill, Gran, Lackberg, Mankell

William Peter Blatty’s THE REDEMPTION (Piatkus Books, £7.99, pb) is an unusual thriller, as you might expect from the author of THE EXORCIST. Opening in Albania in the 1970s, the story focuses on a man being tortured on suspicion of being an enemy agent of the State. The atmosphere is redolent of a John Le Carré Cold War thriller, albeit one with supernatural overtones - the tortured man, Dimiter, remains effortlessly unbroken, and is spoken of in whispered tones as ‘the agent from Hell’. The setting then switches to Jerusalem, where a local police detective investigates a number of strange murders, and the supernatural tone gives way to a more philosophical enquiry into the politics of revenge, salvation and redemption. Blatty’s prose is starkly rendered, a minimalist style that adds momentum to the propulsive plot. There are occasional poetic flourishes, however, which leaven the story’s hard-headed realism, just as Blatty’s hints that Dimiter may be a creature more exotic than a mere spy lend the thriller format an element of quixotic speculation. The net result is a haunting tale that remains thought-provoking long after the final revelation.
  TABOO (Simon & Schuster, £6.99, pb) is the debut offering from husband-and-wife writing team Kevin and Melissa Hill. The latter is better known as the author of a series of best-selling women’s fiction titles, and here she creates the ultra-feminine feminist Reilly Steel, a California-born forensic investigator seconded to the newly founded Garda Forensic Unit, based in Dublin. The narrative employs for its spine a series of perverse murders that all appear to transgress social taboos, although the plot itself is secondary to the establishing of Reilly Steel as a credible Irish alternative to the international popularity of CSI-related investigations. In this the Casey Hill writing team is largely successful: Reilly Steel is a broadly drawn but likeable character, smart but not omnipotent, entirely capable but vulnerable too. The presence of a Quantico-trained FBI investigator on the mean streets of Dublin is plausibly achieved, and the novel derives its page-turning quality from the rapid pace of events as the investigation gathers momentum. The frenetic pace, however, results in a lack of psychological depth when it comes to characterisation, while the machinations of the fiendish killer are revealed to be disappointingly clichéd at the finale.
  CITY OF THE DEAD (Faber and Faber, £12.99, pb) is Sara Gran’s fourth novel, and the first to feature the private investigator Claire DeWitt. Commissioned to find a missing man in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, DeWitt applies her unique brand of investigation style. This echoes the modus operandi of classic private eyes such as Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, but often appears counter-intuitive due to DeWitt’s devotion to the theories of legendary French detective Jacques Silette, as espoused in his sole publication, ‘Detection’. Searching in the least likely places, working off instinct and hunch, DeWitt trawls the devastated New Orleans in pursuit of a truth she explicitly acknowledges does not exist. The tale has strong echoes of Ken Bruen’s post-modern take on the private eye novel, in which the case being investigated is less important than the self-invigilating investigator; as is the case with Bruen’s Jack Taylor novels, in which his native Galway looms large as a character, New Orleans, and the lack of response from the Bush administration to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina, provides Gran not only with her setting but also her theme. The result is a tour-de-force. Mock profundity blends into brilliantly detailed description on a line-by-line basis in a novel that deserves to be read in tandem with James Lee Burke’s magisterial THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN.
  THE GALLOWS BIRD (HarperCollins, £12.99, pb) is the fourth in Camilla Lackberg’s Patrick Hedström series, which is set in the relatively sedate backwater of Tanumshede in Sweden. Opening with what appears to be a straightforward single-vehicle drink-driving fatality which subsequently proves to be something rather more sinister, the novel broadens out to accommodate a number of narratives which run parallel to Hedström’s initial investigation. Chief among these is the murder of a contestant in a TV reality show being shot in Tanumshede, although Lackberg also invests the story with domestic detail in the run-up to Hedström’s impending marriage to his partner, Erica, who is herself struggling to cope with the demands imposed by her sister’s depression. Lackberg is one of Sweden’s best-selling authors, but THE GALLOWS BIRD is a curiously disjointed police procedural, its frequent digressions into the domestic minutiae of the protagonists’ lives creating a frustratingly halting tale that lacks narrative drive.
  THE TROUBLED MAN (Harvill Secker, £19.99, pb) of Henning Mankell’s latest offering can only be his perpetually self-questioning police detective Kurt Wallander. In this, his last case, Wallander is more troubled than ever, and not only by the disappearance of the future father-in-law of his daughter, Linda; Wallander, unable to ignore the protests of his aging body, is contemplating his own mortality and casting a cold eye over his career. What unfolds is a novel that works on a number of levels: a compelling investigation into a Swedish Cold War spy ring, a philosophical assessment of the nature of policing and its function in society, and a very personal evaluation of a person’s worth in the grand scheme of things, as Wallander opens a ledger on his own life’s profit and loss. Written in Mankell’s downbeat style (beautifully translated by Laurie Thompson), the fatalistic tone is entirely fitting for the final testimony of one of crime fiction’s great protagonists. The result is a hugely satisfying novel that ranks alongside Mankell’s best, a heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve.

  Declan Burke is the editor of the forthcoming collection DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY (Liberties Press).

  This column first appeared in the Irish Times.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Casey Hill

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?
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. There has never been a more perfect rendering of a psychopath than Harris’s brilliant Hannibal Lecter.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme - he’s super-smart, very cool and never has any problems getting a parking space in Manhattan.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Katie Price aka Jordan - she has the best story ideas. Nah, no such thing as guilt when it comes to reading anything.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Bringing our daughter Carrie into a book shop and seeing TABOO on the shelves for the first time. She was only nine months old but think she looked quite impressed.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Difficult question but would have to go with John Connolly’s THE WHITE ROAD, though his brilliant writing almost transcends genre.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Casey Hill’s TABOO, of course. Failing that, any one of John Connolly’s would transfer well to the big screen if the director could properly capture the supernatural elements.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best: Being able to set your own hours and work from anywhere. Worst: Being able to set your own hours and work from anywhere.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Reilly Steel hunts down another gruesome murderer using street smarts and shiny new forensic equipment.

Who are you reading right now?
Chuffed to have been offered a sneak preview of Declan Burke’s fab new tome ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
First, I’d beg him to let me write just once more before choosing to read. Then I’d ask Himself for an exclusive interview about his life story, write about it, then read away to my heart’s content on the Caribbean island I bought with the royalties.

Casey Hill’s TABOO is published by Simon & Schuster.

TAKEN, Not Stirred

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

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

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