Review: ACTS OF THE ASSASSINS by Richard Beard

“First, find the body,” Cassius Gallio instructs himself in the first line of Richard Beard’s Acts of the Assassins (Harvill Secker), but as Gallio quickly discovers, this is a missing persons case with a significant difference.
  Gallio is a Speculator – investigator – with the Jerusalem division of the Complex Cases Unit (CCU), an elite department of the Roman military police. The missing body is that of local mystic rabble-rouser Jesus, who was executed by crucifixion only days before. Jesus’ corpse has since gone missing from its tomb, and Gallio – who was charged with overseeing the execution, as a punishment detail for cocking up his investigation into the apparently miraculous resurrection of Lazarus only a few weeks beforehand – can’t afford to allow another stain on his career record.
  A hard-headed veteran, Gallio refuses to believe the rumours being circulated by Jesus’ disciples. “What it can’t possibly be, and what he refuses to contemplate, is died, risen, coming again.” Having witnessed Jesus’ agonies and death on the cross with his own eyes, “Gallio bans all discussion of resurrection as a potential line of enquiry,” and sets out to interrogate the disciples to get at the truth of how they managed to pull off the magnificent trick of stealing Jesus’ body away from a sealed tomb.
  On the basis of its opening 20 pages or so, the second offering Richard Beard’s ‘Messiahs Trilogy’ – the first, Lazarus is Dead, was published in 2011 – is an audacious take on the crime / mystery novel. Beard is clearly a student (or perhaps scholar might be more appropriate) of the crime fiction genre, given that the story begins as a straightforward police procedural investigation but also broadens out to incorporate other sub-genres such as the spy novel (“Jesus has skills, fieldcraft …” muses Gallio on his foe). The serial killer novel also looms large when it is discovered that the disciples, having exiled themselves to various parts of the empire, are being bumped off one by one, murdered by some shadowy killer in a variety of gory deaths, such as beheadings, flayings, stonings and so forth.
  On one level a steely-eyed investigation into the apparent miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, the novel also functions as a metaphysical exploration of faith and belief. Gallio, a proud citizen of the Roman empire, views Jesus, his disciples and their teachings about life after death as superstitions that run contrary to his own unswerving belief in civilisation, science and rationalism.
  These all offer intriguing elements to a hugely readable novel, but arguably the most intoxicating aspect of the story is Beard’s narrative experiment in what he describes as ‘quantum fiction’. Despite the fact that Gallio is investigating the alleged resurrection of Jesus, the story takes place in a contemporary setting, complete with modern weaponry, travel and attitudes towards terrorism. The concept is that, as Gallio observes of Jerusalem, “past and present coexist. Possibly the future too.” The narrative style gives Gallio (and the reader) “a vision of eternity where everything is now, and now is everything,” a perspective that allows the reader to experience ancient history unfolding in the here-and-now (the origin of the great fire that devastated Rome is referred to as ‘Ground Zero’; Jesus’ Second Coming is taken to mean a spectacular terrorist attack at the heart of the empire).
  It’s a thrilling inventive approach, albeit one leavened by Beard’s slyly absurdist sense of humour. “Whatever the destination is,” Gallio declares as he flies to Antioch from Jerusalem via Amsterdam, “there’s always a change at Schipol. The world as it is keeps turning.”
  Meanwhile, Gallio himself will be familiar to fans of the conventional mystery novel, a taciturn loner with commitment issues who is overly fond of the booze, but in the context of the rich tapestry Beard weaves around his protagonist, Gallio’s very ordinariness is something of a relief, a recognisably human (with all the failings that implies) touchstone in a bewildering new landscape.
  “Jesus might be the gentle son of god spreading the wealth and healing the sick,” muses Gallio at one point. “Or he could be an intolerant fucker, good with a knife.” Controversial, thought-provoking, funny and challenging, Acts of the Assassins is a delightfully fantastic and utterly compelling tale. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Sunday Business Post.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Paul O’Brien

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 GODFATHER by Mario Puzo. Perfect form and structure for me. It feels epic and has all the right plants and pay offs. I also love the time period and the journey involving all the characters.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Jesus. The magic, the beard. The ending wouldn’t be great though. If not him then any ninja or anyone who lives under the sea. So, Spongebob.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I love insider wrestling newsletters. Professional wrestlers call them ‘dirt sheets’ and have to act like they hate them. They give you all the backstage happenings. Even now the wrestling business is closed and secret and these newsletters give you a peek behind the curtain. They’re like Now magazine for nerdy men.

Most satisfying writing moment?
I have to say that finishing BLOOD RED TURNS DOLLAR GREEN was the most satisfying moment for me. About 15,000 words in I couldn’t see the end of the story coming for a long time, but I stayed at it day and night. And now that I am finished - I’m looking forward to jumping back in to it again for another installment.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Just finished PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer. Funny, smart and has long legs in terms of more books.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Same again. I think Eoin writes in pictures. He’s easy to see when you’re reading him. It also helps that I’ve seen a few of his stage plays so I know how much he relies on visuals to punctuate his jokes. A movie of that book could be great.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst thing is the dry eyeballs from the laptop. Best thing is holding your first book.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Well, it’s going to be a follow up to BLOOD RED TURNS DOLLAR GREEN so I have to be a little mysterious - although it’s all outlined.

Who are you reading right now?
Carl Hiassen. Trying to catch up on some of his stuff after a beta reader said I should. Turns out that reader didn’t like me very much. We’ve since fallen out. She got the children.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. Definitely. Although I don’t like it very much. It’s just something that I have to do. I love planning to write. Writing though - not delighted about having to do that part. I’ve been writing for 15 years and have written 16 full lengths plays, two screenplays, a book a poetry, a few songs and now a novel, and every word I’ve written I’ve had to tug-o-war out of my brain.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Direct. Raw. Considered.

Paul O’Brien’s BLOOD RED TURNS DOLLAR GREEN is available now.

Playing Patsy

I ran a Q&A with John J. Gaynard a couple of weeks ago, which very nearly sparked off a war in the comments box between John and a couple of French chaps unimpressed with his take on the French sense of humour. Anyhoo, John J. Gaynard’s current offering is THE IMITATION OF PATSY BURKE, which sounds a fascinating prospect - and delivers handsomely, according to Kirkus Reviews. To wit:

THE IMITATION OF PATSY BURKE, John J. Gaynard
Booze, brawls, sex and schizophrenia—such is the artist’s life in Paris, according to this raucous satire.

When Patsy Burke, a world-famous Irish sculptor living in France, wakes up in his hotel with his body torn and bloody and no recollection of how it got that way, he’s not particularly surprised. A raging alcoholic given to beating up pimps in Paris dives, he’s used to blackouts and drunk tanks. Unfortunately, his latest bender has left a dead man in its wake, and Patsy’s attempt to piece together what he’s been doing for the last few days triggers a reckoning with his past and his demons. Said demons take the form of bickering voices inside his head, including Caravaggio, a Nietzchean figure who eggs on Patsy’s fistfights and womanizing; Goody Two-Shoes, a prim woman who castigates his atrocious treatment of friends and lovers; a wispy romantic named Forget Me Not; and a scary demiurge called the Chopper, whose insistent promptings to behead women with a meat cleaver are barely fended off by the remnants of Patsy’s sanity. These clashing personae narrate Patsy’s violent picaresque and roiling internal conflicts; he’s bombastic, selfish, preening and cynical, yet steeped in Irish-Catholic guilt. (His downward spiral was touched off when he learned that a statue he made of Jesus being sodomized by two monks—meant as a protest against clerical abuses—is now presiding over orgies conducted by Vatican pedophiles.) Patsy’s saga is plenty lurid—”You bit off his right ear and you spat it out”—yet the author’s pristine prose keeps it under control. Despite the tale’s almost Dantean excesses, Gaynard makes the tone ironic and droll—during an odyssey through the Parisian demimonde, Patsy finds himself discussing Marxist development economics with a glamorous prostitute—and registers delicate shadings of his antihero’s psychic travails. The result is an entertaining, over-the-top farce that still draws readers in with pathos. - Kirkus Reviews

  Interesting stuff. I mean, it’s not often you stumble across a review of a crime novel that name-checks Jesus, Karl Marx, Caravaggio, Nietzsche and Dante, is it? Or am I just leading too sheltered a life these days?
  For more on John J. Gaynard, check out his Good Reads page …

He’s Not The Messiah, He’s A Very Naughty Boy

I was emailing someone today about what constitutes a crime novel, as you do, and I offered up my theory, which runneth thusly: If you can take out the criminality and the story still works, then it’s not a crime novel. And vice versa, obviously. Which means, as I’ve said before, that the likes of Hamlet, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, Oedipus, THE UNTOUCHABLE, and – if you want to piss off Declan Hughes – THE GREAT GATSBY are all crime novels. THE TRIAL is an exception to this rule, having no crime but being a superb crime novel all the same.
  Anyway, that got me thinking – who’s the most famous criminal of all time? I’m guessing Jesus, from a story point of view at least, given that he was crucified for being found guilty on a charge of sedition, although whether you believe the sedition was of the secular or religious variety is up to you. Crucifixion, as you probably already know, was the form of execution the Romans reserved for common criminals, although that does beg the question of why, if he was considered important enough to try and execute for sedition, Jesus would have been considered a common criminal.
  Either way, crucifixion was / is a horrible way to die, and might be an interesting place to start a novel. Also, Jerusalem at the time was a city of political and religious intrigue, a city fermenting in the kind of passions that would see catastrophe visited on it in the very near future. And it’s true that if you take the crime out of the New Testament the story collapses – without a crime to be arrested for, Jesus cannot be tried and executed.
  I think the legal aspect of it is interesting. If the authorities wanted Jesus done away with, they could have had him bumped off quietly, and the body disposed of, as Nikos Kazantstakis suggests early on in THE LAST TEMPTATION, when Judas visits Jesus in the desert with the intention of slitting his throat. But the authorities, secular or religious, were so keen to go by the book that Jesus found himself shuttled back and forth between various institutions, each one hoping that another would be the one to find him guilty of a crime.
  Anyway, Jesus was killed. Shortly afterwards, his body went missing from a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers. At this point – and this is where the novel I’m thinking about gets interesting, to me anyway – all of those responsible, directly or indirectly, start worrying about who has stolen away the body, and why. Concerned about the propaganda value of the corpse, and particularly that of a vanished corpse, the various authorities need to discover (a) the whereabouts of the body and (b) who stole it from the tomb. They need to do so quickly and discreetly. Who better to call upon than an impartial observer, for example an Ephesian Greek leading a diplomatic trade mission to Jerusalem, to make discreet enquiries among his contacts in Jerusalem as to the whys and wherefores of Jesus’ disappearance?
  There is no mystery here for Christians, of course, given that they believe that Jesus, being man and god, was resurrected, or resurrected himself, in order to redeem mankind. But Jesus, according to the Acts of the Apostles, did not ascend into heaven until 40 days after his body vanished from the tomb, which gives our Ephesian Greek plenty of time to play with.
  So: the most famous criminal of all time, a political cover-up, a missing corpse, a city fermenting in violent passions, and a reluctant private eye who is heir to the Socratic tradition of questioning logic – sounds like a story to me. Has it been done before? And if not, are there any takers?

Cindy-Anna Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Tomb

Peter Clenott is kind enough to get in touch and advise us of his latest offering, HUNTING THE KING, which qualifies for an Irish crime fiction blog on the very dubious basis that its heroine is called Molly O’Dwyer. Quoth Peter:

“Because the theme of HUNTING and its predecessor is faith versus reason, I chose a Catholic hero. That’s part of the reason why she has Irish ancestry. Also, I live in the Boston area where there is a huge Irish community. I lived in South Africa for a while. I had an Irish roommate named Michael, who was an auto mechanic. Pale as a ghost. One day he went out to catch some sun and came back burnt to a crisp on his stomach, swearing he would never do that again. The next day he came back with his back side burnt just as bright a red.”

Mad dogs and Irishmen, eh? So what the blummery is this HUNTING THE KING malarkey all about then? Quoth the blurb elves:

Amid the chaos of the 2003 Iraqi invasion, American archaeologist and biblical expert Molly O’Dwyer hunts for the tomb of Jesus. Molly, derisively called Cindy-Anna Jones by rivals, embarks on her action-packed adventure with the U.S. military, Iraqi fighters, and a slew of other antagonists on her trail. Molly is sure to become a beloved, if provocative, heroine, combining the brain of an ambitious, questioning scientist with a deeply spiritual and loving heart.

Yes, yes – but is it any good? Quoth Mr & Mrs Booklist:

“A very readable thriller ... DA VINCI CODE-like draw of this compelling variation on the familiar theme of a lost artefact that could change the world. Fans of intellectual thrillers and historical fiction will find a worthy new voice in Clenott. With the ease of a seasoned novelist ... Clenott manages to create a story that is entertaining and wholly his own.” —Booklist

Erm, any chance we can get Karima Adebibe (right) to play another tomb raider? Colman, buddy, this one’s for you …