News: THE LOST AND THE BLIND Finds Its Way Home

Hark, the herald angels parp their trumpets, etc. I was very pleased indeed yesterday when copies of THE LOST AND THE BLIND (Severn House) arrived in the post – it will always, I think, be a childishly thrilling moment to hold a copy of your book in your hands for the very first time. Long may it run …
  Anyway, as announced here, THE LOST AND THE BLIND will be published on December 30th, although I’m reliably informed that you can pre-order a copy (or, if you’re of a mind to go completely crazy, copies) here …
  It’s been a good couple of weeks, actually. For starters, there’s been some very nice early word on the new book, which is available via NetGalley for those of you who subscribe. Also, I was in Germany last month for a tour to promote the publication there of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, and this week the book pole-vaulted itself into the ‘Krimi-Zeit-Bestenliste’, with which I am very happy indeed, not least for the good people at Edition Nautilus, my German publishers.
  Finally, I’m not sure when it happened, as I’ve been pretty busy over the last few weeks, but ye olde Crime Always Pays page counter slid past the million-and-a-half mark in the last month or so. As always, I’m hugely grateful to the Three Regular Readers of CAP for constantly pressing their refresh buttons, and to everyone else for taking the time out to come here. Much obliged, folks …

Tour: ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL In Germany

It’s off with yours truly to Germany next week, for a brief tour to promote the publication of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (Nautilus), when I’ll be reading in tandem with the translator of AZC, author Robert Brack, in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Dortmund. To wit:

Nov. 13th, 8 p.m.
Festival “Der Krimi ist politisch” (Crime novels are politics)
Buchladen in der Osterstraße, Osterstraße 171, Hamburg

Nov. 14th, 8.30 p.m.
KULT Kinobar, Zum Quellenpark 2, Bad Soden (Frankfurt)

Nov. 17th, 8 p.m.
Festival “Moabiter Kriminale”
Dorotheenstädtische Buchhandlung, Turmstraße 5, Berlin

Nov. 18th, 8 p.m.
Buchhandlung transfer, An der schlanken Mathilde 3, Dortmund

  If the spirit moves you to share this information with your German friends, I will be very grateful indeed …

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.

I Want To Live Like Roscommon People*

Boyle in the grand old county of Roscommon isn’t quite my former stomping ground of Sligo in the Northwest, but it’s close enough to my hometown for the Boyle Arts Festival to qualify as a local event for yours truly. I’m hugely looking forward to taking part in the festival, when I’ll be giving a potted history of Irish crime fiction, aka Emerald Noir, and reading a sample or two from my own books. The event takes place at King House at 1pm on Saturday, July 26th.
  Meanwhile, and if you’re a dedicated fan of Irish crime writing, Sinead Crowley will be talking about her debut novel, CAN ANYBODY HELP ME?, on Sunday, July 27th. For all the details of the festival – which incorporates literature, film, comedy, classical music, drama and poetry – clickety-click here …

  *With apologies, obviously, to all Pulp fans.

All Decs On Hand

There has been, over the years, an occasional confusion between (or conflation of) Declan Hughes and Declan Burke, which will surely only be worsened by the fact that our current offerings – ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE and CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, respectively – are both published by Severn House as part of the ‘Celtic Crime’ imprint. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’m quite pleased about this, because it means that I’m occasionally mistaken for a very good writer indeed.
  Anyway, in the interests of adding to the confusion, I’ll be appearing with Declan Hughes at the Dalkey Book Festival next month. The gist, according to the good people at the DBF, runs thusly:

There has never been so much interest in Irish crime writing and we are thrilled to have two of the best here for you this year.
  In an event called ‘Emerald Noir’, two of Ireland’s best crime writers, Declan Hughes and Declan Burke, take you through their favourite writers and discuss their own books in the context of current Irish crime fiction.

  The event takes place at The Masonic Hall at 12.30pm, Saturday 21st June. For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here …

Do The Write Thing

It’s not very often I wind up on a list of writers alongside Raymond Chandler, Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, so it was quite the surprise to stumble across this offering from Henry Sutton over at Dead Good, in which Henry talks about ‘Writers Trapped on the Page’ (right now I seem trapped in page 2 of my work-in-progress, but that’s a conversation for another day).
  Henry, the author of MY CRIMINAL WORLD, is no stranger to the idea of a writer getting a little too involved with his characters. To wit:

“Writers have long emerged on the page in the genre’s long and bloody canon. Whether directing the action, playing havoc with the plot, or as victim or perpetrator. Often epigraphs by Friedrich Nietzsche seem to accompany these texts, particularly those that appear to address the issue of creativity itself and simply supply further proof that writing fiction can be a pretty criminal activity. Take the line by Nietzsche that Stephen King used for Misery: ‘When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’ So the abyss is what? Writing a novel? But beware, when fully engaged with that process, weird things can happen.”

  For the full list, clickety-click here …

Introduction To Crime Writing at the Irish Writers’ Centre

I’m delighted to say that I’ll be hosting a crime writing course at the Irish Writers’ Centre this summer, beginning on May 6th and running for eight weeks. The gist runs like this:

Introduction to Crime Writing with Declan Burke
Police procedural? Private eye? Thriller? Spy novel? The crime novel is the most popular form of fiction in the world and comes in a wide variety of guises. Incorporating international and Irish examples that include contemporary, historical, psychological and comic crime fiction, this course considers the various forms of the crime novel, helping aspiring authors to decide on the best narrative style to employ to tell their story, while also discussing the integral elements of the crime novel: character, plotting, setting, pace, voice and theme. With seven books published in a variety of styles, Declan Burke is an award-winning author of crime fiction and non-fiction.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

SLAUGHTER’S HOUND: Now 99p, Apparently

You’ll forgive me, I hope, for pointing you in the direction of the Kindle-friendly edition of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which is currently retailing at 99p, or roughly one-third of what I last paid for a creamy coffee. What the price of coffee has to do with it I’m not entirely sure, but everyone seems to equate the price of books with that of coffee these days, and I’d hate to be the one marching to a different drum (because, perhaps, of an over-indulgence in coffee).
  Anyway, you’ll find the 99p Kindle-friendly SLAUGHTER’S HOUND here, where you’ll also find some big-ups that read a lot like this:

“Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.” – Lee Child

“Slaughter's Hound has everything you want from noir but what makes it special is the writing: taut, honed and vivid . . . a sheer pleasure.” – Tana French

“Declan Burke sets the scene for the most perfect noir novel ... The only way Harry Rigby could be more like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe would be if he rode around in a 1930s Chrysler and called all the women dames ... In the very American realm of hard-boiled crime fiction ... few of his peers over the Atlantic can hold a candle to him.” – Sunday Times

“Many writers of crime fiction are drawn to the streetwise narrator with the wisecracking voice Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have a lot to answer for but only a handful can make it credible and funny. Irish writer Burke is one who has succeeded spectacularly well ... From the arresting opening image to the unexpected twist at the end, this is a hardboiled delight.” – The Guardian

  As always, if you feel moved to share this news by clicking on one of the tiny buttons below, I will be very grateful indeed …

The Celts Are Coming: aka ‘Celtic Crime’

The good people at Severn House are publishing a number of Irish and Scottish authors under the banner of ‘Celtic Crime’, which – given that I am one of said authors – seems a rather nifty idea to me. The writers involved include Declan Hughes, Cora Harrison, Anna Sweeney, Caro Ramsey, Lin Anderson and Russel D. McLean.
  For more info on any (and, indeed, all) of those writers, clickety-click here …

Crime Always Pays: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before …

As all three regular readers of this blog will be aware, I published my latest opus, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS this week – or rather, had it published on my behalf by the lovely folk at Severn House (I’m talking about the UK edition here; it will be published in the US and Canada in July). The story features most of the same characters (aka reprobates) who previously showed up in THE BIG O, and even though it can be read as a sequel, CAP is basically your common-or-garden comedy crime caper trans-Europe road trip with a homicidal Siberian wolf-husky along for the ride. Stop me, as they say, if you’ve heard this one before …

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is my fifth novel, and it’s by some distance the book I had most fun writing. I sincerely hope people have as much fun reading it. If you’d like a very short taster, Chapter 1 can be found here …
  Finally, and as you might imagine, I’m very keen to spread the word about CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, and I’d be very grateful indeed if you could find the time to click on one of the buttons below. Much obliged, folks …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: The Countdown Begins …

It’s hard to believe it’s that time again, but my latest tome, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS (Severn House), is published next week, on March 27th. It feels kind of strange right now, because there’s a sense of being in limbo, of not knowing how it’s likely to be received. Meanwhile, as you might imagine, I’m cracking on with the new book, and just today hit the halfway point – although ‘cracking on’ might be a bit misleading, as there are very many days when ‘trudging waist-deep in treacle’ might be more apt.
  Anyway, the blurb for CAP runs as follows:

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  If you’re in the mood for a short taster, Chapter 1 can be found here.
  If that piques your interest, and you’d like a review copy of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, there are digital copies available via NetGalley. If you have any problems downloading it, just drop me a line and I’ll do my luddite best to help.
  Here endeth the shilling … for now.

Crime Always Pays: Advance Review Copies

As all three regular readers of this blog will know, I have a new book on the way – CRIME ALWAYS PAYS (Severn House), which will be published in the UK on March 27th. It’s a comedy crime caper, with the gist running a lot like this:

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  For a flavour of the book, clickety-click here for Chapter One.
  I’d like to get the word out about the book, as you might imagine, so I’d be very grateful indeed if you feel moved to share this post with anyone you think might enjoy a crime caper comedy.
  And if you’re a book blogger or website editor based in Ireland or the UK, and you’d like to receive an e-book advance review copy, just drop me a line at dbrodb[at]gmail.com, letting me know who you write for. If I haven’t come across your blog / website before, I’d be delighted to add your link to my blog-roll.

The 12 Days of Kindle: Declan Burke

Due to the good works of the folk at Liberties Press, I have two titles included in the current ‘12 Days of Kindle’ promotion, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, both of which are available as e-books for the princely sum of £0.99. Both books were shortlisted for the Irish Books of the Year awards in recent times, and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL won the Goldsboro Award for comic crime fiction at Bristol’s Crimefest in 2012. If you feel moved to share this information with anyone you know, I would be very grateful indeed …
  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Crime Always Pays: The Stamp of Approval

The good people at Severn House have forwarded on the cover for CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, which they will publish in the UK next March (and in the US in July), and with which I’m very happy indeed. I love the idea of a stamp as a book cover – CAP is a comedy crime caper set in the Greek islands, and the cover perfectly captures the kind of escapist fun I was aiming for with the story. Of all my books, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS was the most fun to write, and I’m delighted that that’s reflected in the cover. Here’s hoping that you all enjoy it too …

Great Scott

I mentioned earlier in the week that I’ll be interviewing Scott Turow in Dublin on November 11th – he’ll be appearing at Smock Alley in Temple Bar to promote his latest thriller, IDENTICAL (Mantle). The details run like this:

We are delighted to announce another event in our ongoing series of author talks with our neighbours, The Gutter Bookshop. Meet the bestselling author of Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow, who will be discussing his new thriller Identical, a gripping masterpiece of dark family rivalries, shadowy politics and hidden secrets.
The event will be chaired by award winning Irish crime writer Declan Burke.

  11th November @ 6pm in the Main Space

  Scott Turow is the author of nine best-selling works of fiction including Innocent, Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof, and two non-fiction books including One L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages, sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, and have been adapted into film and television projects. He frequently contributes essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Atlantic.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

And So To Kildare …

It’s off to Kildare for yours truly on Saturday, October 12th, to take part in the Kildare Readers’ Festival in the company of Declan Hughes (right) and Brian McGilloway. I’m really looking forward to it – Declan and Brian are two very smart guys when it comes to talking about books, and never fail to entertain.
  Declan Hughes is the author of five novels in the Ed Loy series, Dublin-set private eye stories reminiscent of the style of the classic gumshoe tales of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. His most recent offering is CITY OF LOST GIRLS.

  Brian McGilloway (right) first came to our attention with his Inspector Ben Devlin series of police procedurals, which are set on the border between Donegal and Northern Ireland. He has also published LITTLE GIRL LOST, featuring DS Lucy Black. HURT, the sequel to that book, will be published in November.
  The event takes place at the Riverbank Arts Centre at 3.30pm on Saturday, October 12th. Admission is free. For all the details on how to book your tickets, etc., clickety-click here …

Death Comes To Trinity

Dublin UNESCO City of Literature is delighted to announce that renowned crime author PD James will be speaking to novelist Declan Burke about her novel DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY in The Public Theatre, Trinity College on Tuesday 8th October.

DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY is written in the style of Jane Austen as follow-on from Pride and Prejudice, where PD James draws the characters of Jane Austen into a tale of murder, intrigue and emotional mayhem. It is currently being made into a 3 part mini-drama series for the BBC to be aired in December. As this is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, PD James will discuss DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, her love of Jane Austen, as well as her crime novels.

PD James was born in Oxford in 1920. Her first book was published when she was in her late thirties. She is the author of 20 books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast in the United States and other countries. Many of her books, including A Taste for Death, The Murder Room and Devices and Desires, feature Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh.

She spent 30 years working in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office.

In 2000, at the age of 80, she published her autobiography TIME TO BE IN EARNEST. She has won awards for crime writing in several countries including Britain, America and Scandinavia. She was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Date: Tuesday 8th October
Venue: The Public Theatre (known as the Examinations Hall), Front Square, Trinity College
Time: 7pm (doors close at 6.50pm sharp)
Admission: Free.
Booking is essential (maximum of 4 tickets per person).
Book at 01 - 6744862 or email cityofliterature@dublincity.ie

House Rules

I’m very pleased indeed to announce that my next book, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, will be published by Severn House early next year (actual house not pictured, right). The book will be published in the UK in March and the US in July, and I’m hugely looking forward to working with the Severn House team, and particularly Kate Lyall Grant.
  It’s an exciting time, although there’s an element of sadness involved too, because I’m leaving behind some terrific people at Liberties Press. I’ve had a few wonderful years at Liberties: they published ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL in 2011 when virtually every other publisher passed on it, and I hope the fact that the book went on to win the Goldsboro ‘Last Laugh’ award at Bristol’s Crimefest in 2012 justified their decision to publish. Liberties also published SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which was subsequently shortlisted for Best Crime Novel at the Irish Book Awards, and the non-fiction title DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21ST CENTURY. It’s been a whirlwind few years, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time.
  I sincerely hope that my time with Severn House will be every bit as productive and enjoyable. I know that I’m joining a stable of very fine writers, and a publishing company with a superb record of putting books into the hands of readers. And really, that’s what this game is all about when it all boils down: putting good books in front of people who love to read.
  Speaking of which: if you fancy reading the first chapter of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, you’ll find it right here …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: The Novel

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that blog posts have become rather sparse around these here parts lately, largely because I’ve been working on putting the finishing touches to my latest book, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS. It’s a sequel to THE BIG O, and features more or less the same cast of reprobates, albeit this time causing mayhem in the Greek islands, and there’s a couple of new characters in there to spice things up. It kicks off like this:

Chapter 1

Rossi said he’d torque if he needed to torque, he’d just had his ear ripped off.
  Sleeps allowed Rossi made a valid point, especially as the hound that tore off the ear was three parts Siberian wolf to one part furry Panzer, but that Rossi, with the gash in the side of his head flapping like a glove puppet every time he opened his mouth, was maybe mishearing.
  ‘What he said,’ Sleeps said, ‘was try not to talk.’
  It was bad enough they were holed up in a vet’s surgery and down two hundred grand, Rossi minus an ear and raving about how genius isn’t supposed to be perfect, it’s not that kind of gig. But then the vet had started threading catgut into what looked to Sleeps like a needle he’d last seen on the Discovery Channel stuck through a cannibal’s nose and sent Rossi thrashing around on the operating table, hauling on the restraints, Rossi with a terror of needles and ducking around like Sugar Ray in a bouncy castle.
  The vet leaned in to squint at the raspberry jelly mess that was the side of Rossi’s head. It didn’t help there was no actual ear. It had been torn clean off, along with enough skin to top a sizeable tom-tom.
  ‘If he doesn’t lie still,’ he said, ‘he’s going to wind up with his brain on a skewer.’
  Sleeps sighed and climbed aboard, making a virtue of his considerable bulk by sprawling across Rossi and pinning him to the steel-frame operating table. Rossi went cross-eyed, launched into a gasping stream of profanity that sounded like a leaky balloon with Tourette’s. Sleeps wriggled around, sealed Rossi’s mouth with a plump hand.
  The vet knotted the catgut. ‘I’d appreciate it,’ he said, ‘if you’d point that somewhere else.’
  Sleeps’ pride and joy, the .22, nickel-plated, pearl grip. Enough to stop a man and put him down but not necessarily lethal unless you were unlucky. The .22 being empty right now, at least Sleeps didn’t have to worry about getting any unluckier than chauffeuring Rossi around when the guy was down one ear and a fat bag of cash.
  Sleeps slipped the .22 into his pocket. ‘Okay,’ the vet said, ‘hold him still. This’ll hurt.’
  Sleeps, fascinated, watched him work. The vet with Roman senator hair that was turning grey, the eyes grey too, giving off this unflappable vibe that Sleeps presumed came from every day sticking your hand up a cow’s wazoo. Or maybe this was a regular thing for him, a couple of guys on the run stumbling out of the forest into the back yard of his veterinarian practice with wounds it might be tough to explain away at hospitals that weren’t built next door to zoos.
  ‘I’ll warn you now he’s going to need an anti-tetanus shot,’ he vet said. ‘Looks like this, ah, car door you’re saying somehow ripped off your friend’s ear had some serious teeth. We could be looking at rabies.’
  ‘That’s just his natural disposition,’ Sleeps said. Rossi throwing in muffled snarl or two as the vet tucked the stitches snug. ‘But okay, yeah. I think we both know it wasn’t a car door.’
  ‘What are we looking at? Doberman?’
  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sleeps said. ‘Some kind of Siberian wolf mix, there’s maybe some husky in there. Belongs to his ex, Karen, she took it on when he went back inside.’
  ‘I thought we said no names.’
  ‘Right, yeah.’ Sleeps, who was looking to go back inside, cop some soft time, figured it might be no harm to drop a few crumbs with the vet. ‘She’s a beast, though. The hound, not Karen. I mean, our friend here was driving a Transit van at the time and she shunted it off the track, came bombing through the windscreen and tried to chew his head off.’ Sleeps had seen it all happen, having little else to look at on account of being stuck behind a deflating airbag at the wheel of their getaway Merc, the Merc at the time wedged at an angle between a boulder and the bole of a fat pine near the bottom of a gully maybe half a mile from the lake where Rossi had just heisted a two hundred grand cash ransom from Karen and Ray.
  Rossi had pulled up in the Transit, which he’d also swiped from Karen and Ray, and called down to Sleeps, told him to hold on. Then Sleeps heard a howl and the splintering crash of the hound going through the Transit’s window. Rossi’d floored it, aiming the van at the nearest tree, but the wolf had shoved the van off the muddy track and down into the gully, at which point the hound, wedged chest-deep into the crumpled window frame, had set about decapitating her former owner.
  To be fair, Sleeps acknowledged, the girl had her reasons. She was very probably the only Siberian wolf-husky cross on the planet wearing a pirate patch, this because Rossi, trying to break her in, just before he went back inside for his third jolt, had gouged out her eye with the blunt end of a fork. And that wasn’t even her most recent provocation. Only twenty minutes previously Rossi had left her laid out on the lake shore, putting a .22 round in her face, point-blank.
  If Karen and Ray hadn’t come riding over the hill like the cavalry, hauling the hound off along with the two hundred gees, Rossi would have been crushed, minced and spat out.
  ‘Listen, I don’t mind stitching him up,’ the vet said, ‘but I’d appreciate you leaving out any detail that’s not strictly relevant to his condition. You know I’ll have to ring the police, right? Because of the possible rabies. And the less I know …’
  ‘Sure,’ Sleeps said, ‘yeah. But if you could just give us, like, maybe an hour’s start? It’s been a bad enough day already.’
  ‘It’s tough all over,’ the vet agreed. Then Rossi gave a yelp as the needle slipped, tried to bite Sleeps’ hand.
  In the end Sleeps jammed his thumb into the ragged hole where Rossi’s ear used to be, stirred it around. Rossi screeched once, high-pitched, then keeled over and passed out.
  Sleeps slid down off the operating table, retrieved the .22 from his pocket. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll be needing a bag of horse tranks. And whatever gun you use for putting down the animals.’
  The vet sewed on. ‘We don’t use those anymore, they’re not humane.’
  ‘Humane? You’re a vet, man.’
  ‘We treat them like children,’ the vet said, ‘not animals.’
  ‘Nice theory.’ Sleeps, who’d been hoping to bag himself a cattle-prod at the very least, gestured at Rossi with the .22. ‘But what if they’re a little of both?’

There’s No Show Like A Jo Show

I’m very much looking forward to meeting again with Jo Nesbo (right), when I interview him for the DLR Library Voices series on Tuesday, September 16th. I met with Jo Nesbo a couple of years ago, to interview him for a newspaper feature, and it was all very pleasant indeed. He’s a charming guy – ladies of my acquaintance lead me to believe that he’s rather handsome to boot – and wears the mantle of Nordic crime’s brightest star very lightly indeed.
  On the evening in question we’ll be talking about Jo’s latest Harry Hole novel, POLICE, but I’d imagine it’ll be a fairly wide-ranging chat about the Harry Hole series in general, Jo’s standalone novels, and the Scandi Noir phenomenon. Here’s the official blurb:

Jo Nesbo is a musician, songwriter, economist and internationally acclaimed author. He is also the undisputed king of the Nordic crime fiction boom with sales of 14 million copies worldwide. POLICE is the tenth novel in the Harry Hole series which has been described by one critic as “exuberantly, ingeniously gruesome”. Nesbo’s haunted protagonist has been at the centre of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry can’t protect anyone, least of all himself. Jo Nesbo is one of the hottest properties in international publishing. Don’t miss him.

  For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here …