Red Ribbons, Bunting, Balloons ...

Two interesting debuts are launched this week, either side of the Atlantic. The first is Louise Phillips’ RED RIBBONS, which is to the best of my knowledge the first Irish crime novel to feature a criminal psychologist in pursuit of a serial killer. I might be wrong, of course - if so, don’t be shy about letting me know. Quoth the blurb elves:

A SERIAL KILLER

When the body of a missing schoolgirl is found buried in the Dublin Mountains, her hands clasped together in prayer, two red ribbons in her hair, the hunt for her killer reaches epic proportion with the discovery of a second girl’s body 24 hours later.

THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGIST

Desperate to find the murderer, police call in criminal psychologist Kate Pearson, to get inside the mind of the serial killer before he strikes again. But the more Kate discovers about the killings, the more it all begins to feel terrifyingly familiar as her own past threatens to cloud her investigations.

AN ACCUSED WOMAN

Ellie Brady has been institutionalised for 15 years, for the killing of her twelve-year-old daughter, Amy. After all this time, does Ellie hold the key to finding the killer of the Dublin schoolgirls?

  RED RIBBONS launches at 6.30pm this evening, Wednesday 5th of September, at Hughes & Hughes in the St Stephens’ Green Shopping Centre, Dublin. If you’re in the vicinity, I’m sure Louise would be delighted to see you.

  Over in New York, meanwhile, Seamus Scanlon launches AS CLOSE AS YOU’LL EVER BE at 7pm at the Mysterious Bookshop tomorrow evening, September 6th, a launch that will feature, according to the press release, ‘wine, food, crime, reading and Tayto’. And lashings of Red Lemonade to wash all that Tayto down, no doubt. But what say the blurb elves?

Blood and memory reign in a collection of stories concerning the social and political aspects of an Irish killer from the 1970s to the present. Rooted in Ireland’s history of internal violence, an inescapable brutality that drags like a shadow for natives and exiles alike, the ‘war of Ireland’ ensues in Seamus Scanlon’s short story collection, AS CLOSE AS YOU’LL EVER BE. From Dublin to New York, Scanlon’s stories cover the vicious exploits of boy soldiers and IRA initiations, a son returning home to help his mother, a man mourning the boyhood loss of a cousin, or a childhood memory of first flight and escape. Operating under different circumstances of violence and crime, the characters are propelled in a ruthless conflagration between the binds of heritage and the burden of remembrance.

  So there you have it. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Condition Red

Louise Phillips’ debut RED RIBBONS (Hachette Ireland) will be arriving on a shelf near you very shortly, and will be officially launched on September 5th at the Hughes & Hughes store in Dublin’s Stephen’s Green shopping centre. Yesterday I had an interview with Louise published in the Evening Herald, which kicked off an awful lot like this:

“I didn’t set out to write crime fiction,” says Louise Phillips, “but pretty early on I realised my writing tended to inhabit darker places.”
  Never judge a book by its cover, they say. Neither should you judge one by its title. Anyone expecting RED RIBBONS, the debut novel from Irish writer Louise Phillips, to be a frothy chick lit concoction with the ribbons wrapping a Cupid’s bow around the latest forgettable romance is in for a shock.
  Here, the red ribbons are braided into the hair of dead schoolgirls discovered in makeshift graves in the Dublin Mountains. The novel is not based on any specific true crimes, but the storyline can veer at times uncomfortably close to reality.
  “I think the fear of ‘the bad man’, whom ever he might be, and how we can recognise him in all his many guises, has changed considerably in modern Ireland,” says Louise. “This is one of the central themes in RED RIBBONS. In Ireland, we’re all too aware of the sins of the past, but even in today’s world, where the protection of our children has never been more to the forefront, are we really equipped to recognise this danger?”
  It is in the asking and answering of such questions that novels are born.
  “I think writers and readers are often drawn to crime fiction for the same reason,” says Louise, “a desire to understand those who live by a different set of rules to our own. It is far more than macabre curiosity, or exploration for exploration’s sake. Crime writing at its best doesn’t simply look into the dark. It inhabits both the light and dark within all of us, asking big questions. Like, how would we cope given a particular set of circumstances?”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Blood Meridian; Or, The Ribbon Redness In The East

Lately it seems as if there’s hardly a week that goes by without another Irish crime novel dropping through the letterbox, and as often as not said novel will be from a debutant writer. Such was the case earlier this week when Louise Phillips’ RED RIBBONS (Hachette Ireland) arrived, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

A SERIAL KILLER

When the body of a missing schoolgirl is found buried in the Dublin Mountains, her hands clasped together in prayer, two red ribbons in her hair, the hunt for her killer reaches epic proportion with the discovery of a second girl’s body 24 hours later.

THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGIST

Desperate to find the murderer, police call in criminal psychologist Kate Pearson, to get inside the mind of the serial killer before he strikes again. But the more Kate discovers about the killings, the more it all begins to feel terrifyingly familiar as her own past threatens to cloud her investigations.

AN ACCUSED WOMAN

Ellie Brady has been institutionalised for 15 years, for the killing of her twelve-year-old daughter, Amy. After all this time, does Ellie hold the key to finding the killer of the Dublin schoolgirls?

What would you do if you were accused of killing your own daughter? What if those closest to you turned their back on you? And when everyone stopped listening, what next, when even you believe you’re guilty?

  So there you have it. RED RIBBONS is published on September 3rd, and for those of you wondering who Louise Phillips is, herewith be her official bio:

Born in Dublin, Louise Phillips returned to writing in 2006, after raising her family. That year she was selected by Dermot Bolger as an emerging talent in the county. Louise’s work has been published as part of many anthologies, including COUNTY LINES from New Island, and various literary journals. In 2009, she won the Jonathan Swift Award for her short story ‘Last Kiss’, and in 2011 she was a winner in the Irish Writers’ Centre Lonely Voice platform. She has also been short-listed for the Molly Keane Memorial Award, Bridport UK, and long-listed twice for the RTE Guide/Penguin Short Story Competition. RED RIBBONS is her debut novel. Her second novel, THE DOLL’S HOUSE, will be published by Hachette Books Ireland in 2013.