When Edgar Met Johnny

It’s (a slightly belated) three cheers, two stools and a resounding ‘Huzzah!’ for John Connolly (right), who took home a prestigious Edgar Award last weekend for his short story, ‘The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository’. Not too shabby, as they say, not by a long chalk, and CAP Towers was en fete for the weekend after the news filtered through. And while we’re on the subject, John’s current offering, the latest Charlie Parker novel THE WOLF IN WINTER, is a rather fine piece of work too …

  Elsewhere, and staying with the topic of awards, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville (along with Gene Kerrigan) have been nominated for Barry Awards. Well, it’s a hearty congratulations to both, again, on the news that they’ve been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, which will be awarded at the Harrogate Festival in July. Stuart has been nominated for RATLINES, while Adrian’s nomination is for I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET. Both are terrific novels, in my opinion, but the competition is fierce: the longlist also includes Lee Child, Denise Mina, Ian Rankin, Cathi Unsworth and Belinda Bauer, among others. The shortlist will be announced on July 1st, by the way, and there’s a public voting system for narrowing down the longlist: if you’re so inclined, you’ll find all the details here.

Eyes On The Prize(s)

Apologies for the breakdown in transmission over the last fortnight, folks, but yours truly trundled off to Cyprus for a holiday, where a wonderful time was had by all.
  Back to business, then, and we’ll kick off again with a hearty congratulations to Adrian McKinty (right), Gene Kerrigan and Stuart Neville, all of whom have been shortlisted for Barry Awards. Nice work, gents. Adrian McKinty has all the details and the full shortlists over here …
  And while we’re on the topic of award nominations, it’s an equally hearty bon chance to The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman, who has been shortlisted – for about the seven hundredth time – for the Goldsboro ‘Last Laugh’ gong, which will be awarded at Crimefest next month. Colin Bateman, as I’m sure you all know, is a previous winner of the ‘Last Laugh’ award, which is given for Best Humourous Crime Novel. For all the details – and all the Crimefest award shortlists – clickety-click here …

The St. Patrick’s Day Massacre

Given that it’s the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, I thought I’d run a quick round-up of some interesting Irish crime fiction novels, aka ‘Emerald Noir’, that have appeared on ye olde blogge so far in 2014. It runs a lot like this:

THE BLACK-EYED BLONDE by Benjamin Black, aka the new Philip Marlowe novel.

UNRAVELLING OLIVER by Liz Nugent, an intriguing debut from an impressive new voice.

SLEEPING DOGS by Mark O’Sullivan, a sequel to one of the more interesting debuts I read last year.

THE RAGE by Gene Kerrigan, which was recently shortlisted in the LA Times’ Book Awards crime / mystery category.

BLUE IS THE NIGHT by Eoin McNamee, a superb novel which concludes his ‘Blue’ trilogy.

IN THE ROSARY GARDEN by Nicola White, another excellent debut.

HARM’S REACH by Alex Barclay, the latest in the Ren Bryce series, which I’ve been enjoying hugely.

THE FINAL SILENCE by Stuart Neville, the third novel to feature DI Jack Lennon.

KILMOON by Lisa Alber, a debut written by an American author and set in Ireland.

DEADLY INTENT by Anna Sweeney, which is to the best of my knowledge the first Irish crime novel translated from the Irish language.

THE WOLF IN WINTER by John Connolly, which is the latest Charlie Parker novel, and hotly anticipated it is too.

IN THE MORNING I’LL BE GONE by Adrian McKinty, which concludes his excellent Sean Duffy trilogy.

CAN ANYONE HELP ME? by Sinead Crowley, a forthcoming debut already attracting plenty of strong advance buzz.

  So there you have it – just some of the highlights from the last couple of months on Crime Always Pays. If you’re looking for another author, just type in the name in the search engine on the top left of the page, and off you go. Oh, and a very happy St. Patrick’s day to you, wherever you may be in the world …

Hardboiled Cool

I came across a very nice round-up of ‘hardboiled Irish crime fiction’ over at Off the Shelf the other day, which – I was very pleased to discover – included my very own ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. To wit:

A fictional version of writer Burke is confronted by a character from an unfinished novel. Karlsson, the now-corporeal character, is irked at the limbo he has been left in. Burke is under pressure from his publisher to submit his next manuscript, but Karlsson is alternately charming and cheeky, and Burke agrees to let him write his own story. This gripping tale subverts the crime genre’s grand tradition of liberal sadism. Not only an example of Irish crime writing at its best; it is an innovative, self-reflexive piece that turns every convention of crime fiction on its head.

  The piece also includes novels by Gene Kerrigan, Tana French, Alan Glynn, Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen, Stuart Neville and Declan Hughes. For all the details, clickety-click here …

All The Rage

It’s a hearty congratulations to Gene Kerrigan from all here at CAP Towers, on the news that THE RAGE has been shortlisted for a Los Angeles Times Crime / Mystery award. THE RAGE, of course, won the CWA Gold Dagger, way back in 2012. I thought the novel was terrific when I first read it; for that review, clickety-click here.
  The line-up for the Mystery / Thriller category runs as follows:

Richard Crompton, “Hour of the Red God,” Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Robert Galbraith, “The Cuckoo's Calling,” Mulholland Books/Little, Brown & Co.
John Grisham, “Sycamore Row,” Doubleday Books
Gene Kerrigan, “The Rage,” Europa Editions
Ferdinand von Schirach, “The Collini Case,” Viking

  For the full list of all nominees in the LA Times Book Awards, clickety-click here …

A Peculier State Of Affairs

It’s turning into a week of awards and short- and longlists here at Crime Always Pays. Today it’s the turn of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which issued a 13-strong longlist yesterday. It’s a very strong field, but I reckon the two Irish writers, Gene Kerrigan and Stuart Neville, have a pretty decent shot at making the shortlist, and maybe even winning the award outright (Gene Kerrigan’s THE RAGE, of course, has already won the CWA Gold Dagger). To wit:

The Guilty One – Lisa Ballantyne (Piatkus)
Finders Keepers – Belinda Bauer (Transworld)
Rush Of Blood – Mark Billingham (Little Brown)
Dead Scared – S J Bolton (Corgi, Transworld)
The Affair – Lee Child (Transworld)
A Foreign Country – Charles Cumming (Harpercollins)
Safe House - Chris Ewan (Faber and Faber)
Not Dead Yet - Peter James (Macmillan)
Siege – Simon Kernick (Bantam Press)
Prague Fatale – Philip Kerr (Quercus)
The Rage – Gene Kerrigan (Vintage)
Birthdays for the Dead – Stuart MacBride (Harper)
The Dark Winter – David Mark (Quercus)
The Lewis Man – Peter May (Quercus)
Gods And Beasts – Denise Mina (Orion)
Stolen Souls – Stuart Neville (Vintage)
Sacrilege – S. J. Parris (Harper)
A Dark Redemption – Stav Sherez (Faber and Faber)

  The heartiest of congrats to all nominees. The shortlist will be announced on July 1st, by the way; for all the details, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and on the subject of awards and the winning of, a big shout-out to Adrian McKinty, who has won the 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Novel with THE COLD COLD GROUND. Quoth Adrian:

“I’m really very touched. I put a lot of my heart and soul into that book. It was both harrowing and strangely fun journeying back to the 1981 of my imagination and reliving those childhood days in Victoria Estate in Carrickfergus. I don’t find writing particularly easy and I’m not one of those 1000 words before breakfast types but occasionally during the writing process of this book I did feel that I was firing on all cylinders the way a top notch writer presumably feels all the time ...”

  For more on Adrian and THE COLD COLD GROUND, clickety-click here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Erin Hart

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?
I confess a weakness for dense historical mysteries like Umberto Eco’s THE NAME OF THE ROSE, so something like that … or maybe Ian Pears’ AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST. The more historical detail, the better, I say!

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Sherlock Holmes, of course …

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I like big books and I cannot lie — and I certainly don’t feel guilty about it. That said, I’m a pure sucker for potboilers, the more plot twists, the better — bring ‘em on! I find that I have little patience any more for novels in which nothing much happens.

Most satisfying writing moment?
It’s a bit odd, and this has happened to me not once, not twice, but multiple times: I’m transcribing, typing into the computer some pages that I’ve written out in longhand maybe two or three weeks earlier, and all at once I get a great idea for the next chapter. And I mean a really great idea—feckin’ brilliant! And I start pounding the keyboard, revelling in my own bloody genius, only to turn over the next page of handwritten notes and find the scene that I’ve just created from thin air is one that I’ve already written, and have apparently just typed out from memory, word for word. I think the reason I find that strange little moment satisfying—or at least reassuring—is that what emanates from the deep recesses of one’s subconscious actually seems to stay there, apparently intact. So I have very little fear of losing anything by not writing it down immediately. And I also take comfort in the fact that it will only be my own work I’m ever guilty of plagiarizing ...

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
Well, I really hate to sound like a complete suck-up, but I am an evangelist for THE BIG O by a fella called Declan Burke … And I was really excited to read Stuart Neville’s debut, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST—or THE TWELVE, as you call it on that side of the Atlantic. Great characters, a really outstanding parallel structure, and a particularly Irish flavour, or blas, as they say in Irish traditional music. Shot through with wry humour and real pathos. You know, come to think of it, the same things could be said about THE BIG O ...

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Well, in addition to THE BIG O and THE TWELVE, I’d love to see Gene Kerrigan’s book THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR adapted for film. I love the interlocking stories, plus it has the sort of mordant humour, and the sort of inexorable forward motion that would make for a great movie.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Is this a trick question? Okay, best thing: not being gainfully employed. Obviously. And you guessed it, the worst thing: not being gainfully employed.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A postman goes missing on Christmas day in 1927, and is never seen again. All of my novels have been based on real historical cases; this missing postman really did go missing, and his body has never been found. I’m fascinated by the notion that a whole village can keep a secret for generations about something as dark as murder.

Who are you reading right now?
Just finishing up a tale of 13th-century historical intrigue from fellow Minnesota writer Judith Koll Healy, THE CANTERBURY PAPERS.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Oh, reading, definitely. For the pure pleasure of it. Writing is very rewarding work, but truth to tell, I’m quite lazy, just a simple hedonist, deep down. If your aim is to live vicariously through fictional characters, reading is faster and so much more efficient than writing!

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Well, you’re probably better off asking readers that sort of question, but all right… I’ll have to go with ‘haunting,’ maybe ‘layered’—I do write about archaeology, after all—and to those perhaps I might add ‘melancholy.’

Erin Hart’s THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN is published by Scribner.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Laurence O’Bryan

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?
THE RAGE by Gene Kerrigan is the most recent novel that I would have liked to have written. It is a modern classic. What I admire most about it is the way Gene makes you want to read on from the first page. He does this by creating interesting characters and situations, which aren't explained, which you must read on to find out about. And on. And on. Gene created an unpredictable plot with an interesting, well crafted setup and an unexpected ending. I like to read pages from this just to freshen up my style every now and again.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
I would like to be Mickey Haller from THE LINCOLN LAWYER by Michael Connelly. Mickey is a seasoned LA trial lawyer. He knows the best and the worst of what Los Angeles is all about. Mickey is a good guy who has been through the mill, backwards and forwards. And he lives to tell the tale.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I am reading FATHERLAND by Robert Harris at the moment and enjoying it. And whenever a new Egyptian-based Wilbur Smith novel comes out I will be first in the queue.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Finishing a novel is a great moment. It has a touch of nostalgia about it, as a chapter in your life closes, but it also has a deep sense of accomplishment to it. I spent three weeks on an edit, seven days a week, recently for THE MANHATTAN PUZZLE, and the moment that finished I felt good, Tired and exhausted and good.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
Aside from THE RAGE, I would recommend EVERY DEAD THING by John Connolly. This breakthrough novel led the way for many to follow. John’s masterpiece is intriguing, novel and gripping. If you missed it, get a copy and try it out.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I’d like to see EVERY DEAD THING made into a movie. I think it would do well and I think the macabre and spectral elements would come across exceptionally well on the big screen.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best thing is people telling you how much they like your writing. The worst thing is the uncertainty about what the future holds. You never know, no matter how well things are going what will happen next. It’s a big dipper ride without a safety bar.

The pitch for your next book is …?
My next novel, THE MANHATTAN PUZZLE, will be out on October 10th 2013. Here is a draft of the blurb:

When Isabel wakes to find Sean Ryan hasn’t come home she doesn’t worry. At first. But when the police turn up on her doorstep wanting to interview him, she has to make a decision. Does she keep faith in him or does she believe the evidence? The symbol Sean and Isabel have been chasing will finally be revealed in Manhattan, as one of the greatest banks in the world faces extinction. Can Isabel uncover the truth before time runs out … or will she too be murdered? A thrilling, high-octane race that will engross fans of Dan Brown, David Baldacci and James Patterson.

Who are you reading right now?
Robert Harris’s FATHERLAND, and Ken Bruen’s THE MAGDALENE MARTYRS.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. I need to write. I need to create. And then I’d ask him, who killed the chauffeur in THE BIG SLEEP [by Raymond Chandler]. If anyone knows, it’ll be him, or her, depending on your point of view.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Driving, entertaining, mysterious (I hope!)

Laurence O’Bryan’s current novel is THE JERUSALEM PUZZLE.

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

The Weekly Round-Up

Okay, so this is what we’ll try to do. Instead of having time-sapping daily-ish updates here at Crime Always Pays, we’ll run a weekly update of news, reviews, interviews and possibly – if the occasion demands – ewes.
  If you’re an Irish crime writer and you have a book / launch / ewe etc. forthcoming, please feel free to drop me a line at dbrodb[at]gmail.com.
  And so to the Weekly Update:

Via the good works of Mick Halpin over at the Irish Crime Writing Facebook page, we hear that Ken Bruen (right, as noirishly re-imagined by fellow Irish crime scribe KT McCaffrey) will read at the Irish Writers’ Centre as part of its ‘Lunchtime Readings’ programme. The reading will take place on Friday, February 22nd, and all the details are here.

Norn Iron-born author Seth Patrick will publish a debut title, REVIVER (Tor), in June, with the blurb elves wibbling thusly:

Revivers. Able to wake the recently dead, and let them bear witness to their own demise. Twelve years after the first reviver came to light, they have become accepted by an uneasy public. The testimony of the dead is permitted in courtrooms across the world. Forensic revival is a routine part of police investigation. In the United States, that responsibility falls to the Forensic Revival Service. Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of their best. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is watching. Waiting. His superiors tell him it was only in his mind, a product of stress. Jonah is not so certain. Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered, and Jonah finds himself getting dragged into the hunt for answers. Working with Harker’s daughter Annabel, he’s determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Soon they uncover long-hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands for, and reveal a threat that if not stopped in time, will put all of humanity in danger . . .

There’s another crime fiction debut available right now, WHITE BONES (Head of Zeus), albeit a ‘debut’ from the bestselling horror author Graham Masterton. To wit:

One wet November morning, a field on Meagher’s Farm gives up the dismembered bones of eleven women. In this part of Ireland, unmarked graves are common. But these bones date to 1915, long before the Troubles. What’s more, these bones bear the marks of a meticulous executioner. These women were almost certainly skinned alive. Detective Katie Maguire, of the Cork Garda, is used to dead bodies. But this is wholesale butchery. Her team think these long-dead women are a waste of police time. Katie is determined to give them justice. And then a young American tourist goes missing, and her bones, carefully stripped of flesh, are discovered on the same farm. With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, Katie must solve a decades-old ritualistic murder before this terrifying killer strikes again.

Elsewhere, there was very good news for Stuart Neville when it was announced that the movie version of THE TWELVE will star Pierce Brosnan:

Presales on a big-screen adaptation of Stuart Neville’s (right) revenge thriller novel The Twelve, penned by CBS late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson and Ted Mulkerin and starring Pierce Brosnan, will begin at the European Film Market … It is to be directed by Terry Loan and produced by Ferguson, Steve Clark-Hall (Sherlock Holmes), Beau St. Clair (The Thomas Crown Affair), Rebecca Tucker and Jonathan Loughran and is scheduled to shoot at the end of 2013.

And while we’re talking good news, here’s a nice, insightful take on Gene Kerrigan’s THE RAGE by John Powers over at NPR.

Finally, I remain to be convinced by ‘book trailers’ as an effective method of promotion, but here’s a very neat and tidy example of same for Peter Wilben’s new Joe Grace series:

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” JJ Toner

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?
PERFUME by Patrick Suskind, a totally wonderful and original story told as a fable. If I have to choose an Irish book: Colin Bateman’s MYSTERY MAN or THE BUTCHER BOY by Patrick McCabe, or any of Gene Kerrigan’s books, or ...

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
I have a long list, starting with Philip Marlowe, Indiana Jones and, for the quieter moments, George Smiley.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Colin Bateman, Christopher Brookmyre, John Le Carré, Declan Burke (!), Gene Kerrigan, etc. It’s all guilty pleasure, really!

Most satisfying writing moment?
When a book is released and sent out into the world. My latest book, FIND EMILY, took 49 weeks to complete. There were nine major rewrites. I have a wonderful editor, but I think she trained with the Spanish Inquisition.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
DARK TIMES IN THE CITY by Gene Kerrigan. This is a wonderful book, with a stunningly well-crafted plot and great writing.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer, maybe.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best thing: I love it when an idea first arrives and even more when the idea becomes a written short story. Better again is when someone says they want to include it in an anthology (and I’ll get paid). Worst thing: Lack of exercise.

The pitch for your next book is …?
1096 AD, Brittany. While a killer preys on boys and young men, two teenagers join the Crusade. They must endure a long, difficult journey to the Holy Land before facing the perils of battle, but at least they’ve left the serial killer behind – or have they? I wrote this book years ago. Time to dust it off, do a major rewrite or two and get it out there.

Who are you reading right now?
Joe McCoubrey’s SOMEONE HAS TO PAY, BEAT TO A PULP: HARDBOILED, A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS by Conor Brady, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL and several others (mostly e-books).

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
No contest. I’d have to be a reader. There are too many great writers out there and I need the exercise!

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Fun, idiosyncratic, idiomatic (who said “idiotic”?).

JJ Toner’s FIND EMILY is available on Amazon.

A Poxy Bleedin’ Beauty Is Born

I interviewed Eoin Colfer a couple of weeks ago, during the course of which he mentioned a bagatelle called YEATS IS DEAD!, a comic crime novel put together by Joseph O’Connor in 2001 on behalf of Amnesty International which featured 15 of Ireland’s literary lights. To wit: Roddy Doyle, Conor McPherson, Gene Kerrigan, Gina Moxley, Marian Keyes, Anthony Cronin, Owen O’Neill, Hugo Hamilton, Joseph O’Connor, Tom Humphries, Pauline McLynn, Charlie O’Neill, Donal O’Kelly, Gerard Stembridge and Frank McCourt.
  Please don’t ask me why Colin Bateman wasn’t involved. I know nothing, other than that the blurb elves were wittering thusly:

YEATS IS DEAD! is an elaborate mystery centred around the search for something more valuable and precious than anything else in Ireland–an unpublished manuscript by James Joyce. A madcap chase ensues, spiced with the shenanigans of a spectacular array of characters: a sadistic sergeant with the unlikely name of Andy Andrews; a urinal paddy salesman; and the unforgettable Mrs. Bloom, a woman “who had tried everything but drew the line at honesty.” Gratuitously violent and completely hilarious, YEATS IS DEAD! is an out-of-control tale of lust and literature that packs big laughs and an even bigger body count.

  YEATS IS DEAD! was e-published in 2010, with Amnesty International still benefiting, so if you fancy yourself some Irish comic crime fiction and helping a good cause in the process, you could do a lot worse than clickety-click here …

The Town That’s Big Enough For All Of Us

Glenn Harper remains one of the sharpest of observers of international crime fiction over at the aptly named International Noir Fiction, and he most recently trained his sights on Michael Clifford’s GHOST TOWN. The gist runs as follows:

“Clifford’s book bears closest resemblance (among current Irish crime writers) to the work of Gene Kerrigan, and that’s a very high standard that GHOST TOWN definitely lives up to. The story moves rapidly forward, keeping the lives of all the characters (particularly Molloy and his lawyer but also many minor characters) moving forward at every point, even when their stories overlap. I can highly recommend GHOST TOWN as a great read as well as a vivid portrait of the current Irish situation, in fictional form.” - Glenn Harper

  For the rest, and for an intriguing selection of contemporary international crime writing, clickety-click here …

Review: GHOST TOWN by Michael Clifford

A venal solicitor, a woman scorned, a gangland boss, a desperate ex-con, a tabloid journalist: from the very beginning of Michael Clifford’s GHOST TOWN (Hachette Books Ireland), it’s clear that happy endings will be at a premium.
  This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Clifford’s work. A political journalist with the Sunday Times and Irish Examiner, he has also written and co-authored a number of non-fiction titles about the less edifying aspects of Irish political life in the last decade.
  The large cast of criminally-inclined protagonists who constantly butt heads here is reminiscent of an Elmore Leonard novel, although GHOST TOWN isn’t written in Leonard’s laconic, blackly humorous style. Clifford’s prose is direct and unadorned, as you might expect from a working journalist, the lack of frills and relentless narrative momentum suggesting the work of Michael Connelly.
  If there’s one novelist GHOST TOWN evokes more than any other, however, it’s Clifford’s peer, the author and journalist Gene Kerrigan. The comparison is most valid in terms of Clifford’s ability to draw characters, and particularly those we might be inclined to class as villains, in a more fully rounded way than is often the case in mainstream crime fiction. While it might be stretching the point to suggest that Clifford sympathises with those who flout and break the law, there’s no doubt that he is aware, and is keen to make the reader aware, of the extent to which crime’s roots are buried in an individual’s environment.
  The character of Joshua ‘The Dancer’ Molloy, for example, who is in many ways the novel’s fulcrum and main metaphor, was a superb prospect as a footballer in his early teens, but later succumbed to the easy money offered by a toxic version of ambition that seeps into the fabric of Dublin’s deprived housing estates. An ex-con and recovering alcoholic whose twin goals in life are to stay alive another day and be reunited with his young son, Molloy is a fragile, pitiable but ultimately defiant avatar for a modern Ireland that is still trying to find its feet after being forced to kick its addiction to cheap credit.
  Indeed, so relevant is it to Ireland’s current woes, many of which were self-inflicted, GHOST TOWN could well be set next week. Pitched against the backdrop of the recession and the ongoing seismic shudders of the burst property bubble, this is a timely tale in which - as is the case with Tana French’s forthcoming BROKEN HARBOUR - the ‘ghost estates’ that blight Ireland physically and psychologically are crumbling momunents to greed and hubris.
  In fact, the novel’s arc can be traced through its various properties. Opening on a west Dublin housing estate haunted by the victims of successive governments’ laissez faire policies, diverting through a coveted mansion in the prosperous suburbs of south Dublin secured on the promise of a property boom on a paradisical West African coastline, and climaxing on an upmarket ‘ghost estate’ where the unfinished villa-style buildings rot from neglect, the novel implicitly suggests that the various criminals who populate his pages, despite their delusions of grandeur, are little more than toys in a vast game of doll’s house.
  But who is it that plays with the dolls? And will they ever truly answer for their actions?
  Great crime fiction is honour-bound to tell the truth of its time and place, to expose the culture’s flaws and failings. On that basis, GHOST TOWN is a very fine addition to the canon of Irish crime fiction. - Declan Burke

Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland: The Truth!

It’s off to Maynooth University with yours truly next Tuesday, for an event titled ‘Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland’, which will be hosted by one Rob Kitchin of Blue House fame. I’m really looking forward to it, even if it’s the case that I’ll stuck between two of Ireland’s finest journalists (and equally fine novelists) in Gene Kerrigan and Niamh O’Connor, both of whom, it’s fair to say, have their fingers firmly on the erratic pulse of that intensive care patient known fondly to the world’s financial markets as Ireland, Inc. Meanwhile, I’m a guy who reviews books and movies for a living. I’ll be so far out of my depth I may wind up with a crippling case of the bends.
  I think it’ll be an interesting event, though. Last year, when DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS came out, one negative review more or less sneered at Irish crime writing on the basis that it feeds like a parasite off the misery of the country without offering any solutions to the mess. Which I thought was a bit rich, seeing as how a whole raft of politicians and economists are paid to come up with solutions to various economic messes, and fail miserably at every hand’s turn.
  Anyway, there are a number of Irish crime writers who are engaged with charting the woes of contemporary Ireland through their fiction, although there are as many again who haven’t the slightest interest in doing so. It’s all valid, I think. The most important thing any book can offer is an interesting story, well written. If a writer chooses to give that story an immediacy and urgency that derives from a timely investigation of the setting’s current ills and travails, then that can add another dimension. By the same token, agit-prop is no one’s idea of good art. So there’s a fine line to be negotiated.
  My current book, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, has a bit of fun with the notion of agit-prop, setting up a hospital as a metaphor for the country itself, with a demented hospital porter hell-bent on blowing it up in order to alert the nation to the dangers of depending too heavily on the kindness of strangers. My new book, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which I’ve just finished, is also influenced by current events - I find it very difficult to ignore that kind of thing, simply because it would be unrealistic for characters not to be engaged on a daily basis with the wider context of how their lives are being lived, or - more accurately, perhaps - how they are forced to live their lives.
  The extract below is from SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, and comes when the main character, and narrator, the former private eye Harry Rigby, is conversing with a previously wealthy woman, Saoirse Hamilton, whose son, Finn, has committed suicide two days previously, due to his financial circumstances. Saoirse Hamilton, as you can imagine, is rather bitter, and keen to foist the blame for Finn’s death (and by extension Ireland’s woes) onto someone, anyone, other than herself:

  ‘This is an old country, Mr Rigby. There are passage tombs up on the hills of Carrowkeel and their stones gone mossy long before the pyramids were built. There were Greeks sailing into Sligo Bay when Berlin was still a fetid swamp in some godforsaken forest. Take a detour off our shiny new roads and you’ll find yourself in a labyrinth, because no Roman ever laid so much as a foundation brick on this island. Hibernia, they called it.’ A wry smile. ‘Winterland.’
  ‘Well, the roads run straight enough now.’
  ‘Indeed. Irish tyres hissing slick on the sweat of the German tax-payer, who will tell you that he has paid for every last yard of straight road built here in the last forty years. You know,’ she said, ‘there have always been those who turned their back on Brussels and Frankfurt, and not everyone who professes to ourselves alone is a Sticky or a Shinner. But I could never understand that. I quite liked the idea that Herr Fritz was spreading around his Marshall Plan largesse to buy himself some badly needed friends.’ She shrugged. Her voice gone dead and cold, as if she spoke from inside a tomb. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. Herr Shylock has returned demanding his pound of flesh, and it appears he is charging blood debt rates. Straight roads, certainly, and more suicides in the last year than died in traffic accidents.’
  ‘It won’t last,’ I said. ‘Nothing ever does.’
  A hard flash of perfect teeth. ‘My point entirely, Mr Rigby. I’m told that the latest from Frankfurt is that our German friends are quietly pleased that the Irish are not Greeks, that we take our medicine with a pat on the head. No strikes, no burning of the bondholders, or actual banks. Apparently they’re a little contemptuous, telling one another as they pass the latest Irish budget around the Reichstag for approval that we have been conditioned by eight hundred years of oppression to perfect that very Irish sleight of hand, to tug the forelock even as we hold out the begging bowl.
  ‘They are children, Mr Rigby, our German friends. Conditioned themselves, since Charlemagne, to believe want and need are the same instinct. Hardwired to blitzkrieg and overreach, to forget the long game, the hard lessons of harsh winters bogged down in foreign lands.’ Tremulous now. Not the first time she’d delivered this speech. ‘The Romans were no fools. Strangers come here to wither and die. Celt, Dane, Norman and English, they charged ashore waving their axes and swords and we gave up our blood and took the best they have, and when they sank into our bogs we burned them for heat and carved our stories from their smoke and words.’

  SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is due to be published in June, which is around about the time when the Irish people will be going to the polls to vote in a referendum on whether Ireland should change its constitution to allow for the EU’s new fiscal treaty pact to take effect here. Essentially, I think, the battle for Yes and No will be fought on the basis of how steaming mad the Irish people are at their loss of economic sovereignty at the hands of a German-dominated EU - which isn’t strictly true, by any means, and ignores the extent to which Ireland was culpable in its own downfall (SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is to a large extent a novel about the consequences of not taking responsibility for your actions).
  Contrary to the doomsayers, I believe the Yes vote will edge the referendum, this on the basis of ‘that very Irish sleight of hand, to tug the forelock even as we hold out the begging bowl’ - we’ll be offered a deal on the debt Ireland has been burdened with, and we’ll vote pragmatically, if not on behalf of ourselves, then on behalf of our children.
  But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes - ‘Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland’, Maynooth University, March 6th, 5pm. If you’re in the vicinity, we’d love to see you there …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Lyndsay Faye

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?
THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler. “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.” Stare at that sentence for two or three minutes and marvel at its perfection. That book is magical.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Dr. John H. Watson. I’d have spent my entire life watching someone be amazing.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t feel much in the way of guilt about my pleasures, truth be told. But I do collect atrociously written Sherlock Holmes pastiches, the more crack and unlikely Victorian celebrity cameos and bodice-ripping covers with floating deerstalker art the better. (Incidentally, I also collect excellent ones, but there’s no guilt whatsoever in that.)

Most satisfying writing moment?
Finishing my first novel. I was baffled by the fact I’d managed it for months. I’m still baffled by it, actually - I’ve never been involved in a single “creative writing” class, just a bunch of excellent courses on the classics, and editorial work like my university writing centre and campus literary magazine.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Ooh, apologies to the classics. But IN THE WOODS by Tana French really hits my sweet spot. So gritty and atmospheric and human.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Is THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR by Gene Kerrigan a movie yet?

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst aspect for me is the occasional emotional roller coaster that happens in total solitude. Does this work? Will it come together? What if it doesn’t? Where’s the whiskey? But when someone tells me they identified with a person or a moment I invented from thin air - that’s glorious.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Welcome to the sequel to THE GODS OF GOTHAM, winter of 1846, in which I do more terrible, terrible things to Timothy and Valentine Wilde.

Who are you reading right now?
Alex George’s THE GOOD AMERICAN - he’s a fellow Amy Einhorn author. It’s marvellous.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
What a heinous circumstance. Well, selfishly ... I think I’d read.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Open, open, open. I’m all about character exposure, breaking people apart to see the nasty and beautiful and selfish and brave bits. The crimes are incidental for me, like nutcrackers or lobster scissors - they exist to get at the meat of the person I’m writing about.

Lyndsay Faye’s THE GODS OF GOTHAM is published by Headline Review.

Stop The Press! ’Tis The CAPNYA Short-List …

And so to the short-list for the less-than-coveted Crime Always Pays Novel of the Year Award - or CAPNYA, if you prefer. I ran a proposed long-list a week or so ago, and with the votes in (it was a very low voter turn-out, incidentally; I blame the weather), only three titles received more than one vote. So it makes sense, I guess, to make those three titles the short-list. And so - a trumpet-blast please, maestro - they are:

THE BURNING SOUL by John Connolly;
FALLING GLASS by Adrian McKinty;
THE RAGE by Gene Kerrigan.

  Bearing in mind that there’s nothing remotely scientific about the polling method, and that the voting will be necessarily skewed by the fact that I’ve mentioned my own personal favourites here on CAP more often than others on the long-list, it’s interesting (to me, at least) that none of those three titles made the short-list for the Irish Book Awards’ crime fiction gong.
  It’s also worth saying that all three are terrific novels, and well worth winning an award in any given year, regardless of the competition.
  Anyway, on to the business end. Please feel free to vote for any of those three titles as the best Irish crime novel of 2011, via the comment box below. Oh, and if you don’t, I’ll come over all Brussels on your collective ass and start imposing my own verdict on the democratic process. Don’t say you haven’t been warned …

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 …

Dreaming Of Gene-y

Gene Kerrigan’s hard-boiled novels have been one of the more enjoyable contributions to the current wave of Irish crime writing, although it’s fair to say that Gene has been writing about crime for longer than he probably cares to remember - his non-fiction titles, HARD CASES and THIS GREAT LITTLE NATION (co-written with Pat Brennan), are minor masterpieces of their kind.
  Always a man worth listening to on the topic of crime, its causes and consequences, Kerrigan is the latest contributor to the National Library of Ireland’s series of talks on crime fiction, and he’ll be front and centre this coming Thursday to talk about how the crime novel is the new ‘social novel’, no doubt referring to his current offering, THE RAGE, in the process. To wit:

On Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at 8pm, Gene Kerrigan will talk about his work and how the crime novel is one of the best mirrors on contemporary society. As a journalist, he has covered politics, crime and scandals for over thirty years, and his skills as a social commentator have established him as one of Ireland’s most gripping crime writers with a range of best-selling novels including LITTLE CRIMINALS and THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR. He was the winner of the Ireland AM Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2010 for his book DARK TIMES IN THE CITY.

  For all the details, including information and booking, clickety-click here …

On Putting The ‘Ooooo’ Into Spooks

It’s a little early for Halloween, but if you’re in Dublin city centre next Thursday night, October 20th, you can get a jump on the festival of ghosts, spooks and ghouls in the first of the National Library of Ireland’s ‘Autumn Chillers & Thrillers’ series in the company of the Dark Lord, aka John Connolly (right). To wit:

Autumn Chillers & Thrillers

Many of Ireland’s hottest chiller, thriller and crime writers will feature in a new series of public interviews at the National Library of Ireland beginning later this month.

  On Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 8pm, leading crime writer John Connolly, whose series of Charlie Parker novels has a strong supernatural dimension, will host ‘An Evening of Ghost Stories’ with Dr. Darryl Jones, Head of the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, where he was founding director of the postgraduate programme in Popular Literature. Dr. Jones’ definitive scholarly edition of THE COLLECTED GHOST STORIES OF MR JAMES, the foremost writer of ghost stories in English, will be published by Oxford University Press next month.

  Sounds like the good stuff, alright, although I’d quibble with the ‘strong supernatural dimension’ description - lately, or so it seems to me, John Connolly has refined the supernatural aspect of his earlier Charlie Parker novels, so that he’s now using the gothic tropes to go after a far more profound effect. There’s a scene in THE BURNING SOUL in which Charlie Parker comes downstairs in the middle of the night to find his TV on, cartoons playing, this in the midst of pursuing a case in which a young girl has been abducted. It’s a chilling piece of writing, certainly, but what it suggested to me was that Connolly wasn’t simply invoking ghosts and suchlike, but going after a far more subtle quality, attempting - successfully, in my opinion - to verbalise a sense of otherworldliness that is neither supernatural nor religious, although you could argue that it has a spiritual dimension. Maybe that’s just me, and maybe I should lay off the Kool-Aid while reading John Connolly, but I honestly think that viewing such aspects of his work, particularly over the last three or four novels, simply as ‘supernatural’ is to miss out on a far more delicate process of investigation that lies somewhere between a rationalising philosophy and an instinctive grasping after the ineffable.
  Anyway, next Thursday is the first of a series of ‘Autumn Chillers and Thrillers’ events planned by the National Library of Ireland. The second will take place on November 20th, and feature Gene Kerrigan, while the third takes place on December 15th, and will feature Alex Barclay, Arlene Hunt and your humble host. More details on those closer to the time. For all the details and booking information for next Thursday’s event, clickety-click here …