The Comfort Of Strangers

Niamh O’Connor’s third novel, TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT (Transworld Ireland), is due early next month, and bears an intriguing strap-line. To wit: ‘Would you trust your neighbour with your life?’
  Quoth the blurb elves:

A woman’s body is found in Ireland’s most notorious body dump zone, an area in the Dublin mountains where a number of women disappeared in the past. The victim is from an exclusive gated development in the suburbs - where the prime suspect in the vanishing triangle cases, Derek Carpenter, now lives. It looks like the past is coming back to haunt the present. But DI Jo Birmingham doesn’t believe the case is open and shut. Her husband Dan was part of the original investigation team; is she trying to protect her own fragile domestic peace? The one person who could help her crack the case, Derek’s wife Liz, is so desperate to protect her family that she is going out of her way to thwart all efforts to establish the truth. Can both women emerge unscathed?

  I’m looking forward to this one. Niamh O’Connor is a crime reporter with the Sunday World, and she doesn’t try to pretend that her novels aren’t influenced by her day job. Indeed, there are times when they dig very close to the bone. She has been compared to Lynda LaPlante, and her previous novel came with a very nice blurb from Tess Gerritsen on the cover.
  It’s a very fine couple of weeks for Irish crime writing, actually. Casey Hill’s TORN, Jane Casey’s THE LAST GIRL, Michael Clifford’s debut GHOST TOWN, Brian McGilloway’s THE NAMELESS DEAD, Conor Fitzgerald’s THE NAMESAKE … It’s early days, I know, but already it’s looking like the Irish Book Awards’ crime fiction title will be a pretty hotly contested category come the end of the year.
  Meanwhile, here’s my review of Niamh O’Connor’s IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN, which was her fiction debut (she has also published a number of non-fiction titles); and here’s a review of her second offering, TAKEN.

A Drop Of The Hard Stuff

Is it just me, or are more and more of the top class crime authors coming into Dublin these days? In the last couple of months I’ve got to interview Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Robert Harris, Lynda LaPlante, Liza Marklund and Lee Child, and today I’m off to have a chat with Michael Connelly, who’s currently doing the rounds to mark the publication of his latest Harry Bosch novel, THE DROP. Quoth the blurb elves:

Harry Bosch is facing the end of the line. He’s been put on the DROP - Deferred Retirement Option Plan - and given three years before his retirement is enforced. Seeing the end of the mission coming, he’s anxious for cases. He doesn’t have to wait long. First a cold case gets a DNA hit for a rape and murder which points the finger at a 29-year-old convicted rapist who was only eight at the time of the murder. Then a city councilman’s son is found dead - fallen or pushed from a hotel window - and he insists on Bosch taking the case despite the two men’s history of enmity. The cases are unrelated but they twist around each other like the double helix of a DNA strand. One leads to the discovery of a killer operating in the city for as many as three decades; the other to a deep political conspiracy that reached back into the dark history of the police department.

  I read THE DROP during the week, by the way, and superb stuff it is, too.
  I have to say, it’s a pretty nice buzz sitting down with top class writers. It’s not universal, by any means, but my experience has been that the better a writer is, and the more successful, then the nicer a human being they tend to be. Not that that should matter, really - all that really matters is whether they’re producing good books - but it does.
  I’m particularly fond of Michael Connelly, even before I meet him, not only because he qualifies as an Irish crime writer under FIFA’s grandparent ruling, but because he agreed to write the Foreword to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS (Liberties Press), which was pretty damn sweet.
  Anyway, Michael Connelly will be doing a book-signing event in Eason’s on O’Connell Street, Dublin, on Saturday, October 29th, at 12.30pm. Why not drop along, say hello and treat yourself to one of the finest crime novels of the year?

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Michael Dymmoch

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?
MYSTIC RIVER. For some reason it’s still meandering through my head, though I read it years ago.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Odysseus. He was brave, cunning, practical, curious, and human.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Baroness Orczy , Alexandre Dumas, Zane Gray.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Someone I sent a piece to responded with, “Damn You!” It wasn’t what I was aiming for, but it obviously evoked a strong emotion.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I really loved John Connolly’s THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS although I’m not sure it qualifies as a ‘crime’ novel, and The Crying Game though it’s not a novel. I’m sorry to say I’m not really familiar with Irish fiction – I’m hopelessly behind on reading well-known American writers. BTW – Who do you suggest I read after you?

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Guillermo del Toro could do a great job with THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst: Sometimes the words won’t come, or when you have a deadline, you get dozens of ideas for other books, none for the book you’re working on. Best: Total strangers come up to you and rave about something you wrote, speaking as if the characters you invented were living beings. (It’s also nice to kill people off in your latest opus when they get on your nerves.)

The pitch for your next book is …?
In 1998, a young man is dragged to death in Boys Town. A victim of malignant homophobia or something else?

Who are you reading right now?
I’m working my way through the stack of books I brought home from Bouchercon, including Barry Eisler, Jason Goodwin, Lynda LaPlante, and Reed Farrel Coleman.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Neither. MY God would certainly know that you can’t write if you don’t read, and would never demand a such a choice. Maybe the devil...

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
My own style.

Michael Dymmoch’s M.I.A. is published by St Martin’s Minotaur.