Launch: THE BONES OF IT by Kelly Creighton

Kelly Creighton launches THE BONES OF IT (Liberties Press) at Belfast’s No Alibis on June 4th, and Brian McGilloway, for one, is very impressed. To wit:

No Alibis Bookstore is pleased to invite you to the launch of Kelly Creighton’s debut novel, ‘The Bones of It’. This FREE event takes place in store on Thursday 4th June, 6:30pm.

‘A brilliant crime debut, chilling, compulsive and beautifully written. Fans of The Butcher Boy and The Book of Evidence will find much to love in The Bones of It. A hugely impressive addition to the growing body of Irish crime fiction. I look forward to reading much more from Kelly Creighton.’ – Brian McGilloway

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Launch: THE DEFENCE by Steve Cavanagh

Steve Cavanagh launches his debut novel, the legal thriller THE DEFENCE (Orion), at No Alibis in Belfast at 6.30pm on Thursday, March 12th. Quoth the blurb elves:

The truth has no place in a courtroom. The truth doesn’t matter in a trial. The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove. Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren’t that different. It’s been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn’t have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie’s back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter Amy. Eddie only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial - and win - if wants to save his daughter. Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his ‘client’ and ensure Amy’s safety. With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible? Lose this case and he loses everything.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Launch: THE BLOOD DIMMED TIDE by Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn will launch his latest novel, THE BLOOD DIMMED TIDE (No Exit Press), at No Alibis in Belfast on November 20th. To wit:

We at No Alibis Bookstore wish to invite you to the launch of Anthony Quinn’s upcoming novel THE BLOOD DIMMED TIDE. Join Anthony in No Alibis Bookstore on Thursday 20th November at 7pm.

London at the dawn of 1918 and Ireland’s most famous literary figure, WB Yeats, is immersed in supernatural investigations at his Bloomsbury rooms. Haunted by the restless spirit of an Irish girl whose body is mysteriously washed ashore in a coffin, Yeats undertakes a perilous journey back to Ireland with his apprentice ghost-catcher Charles Adams to piece together the killer’s identity. Surrounded by spies, occultists and Irish rebels, the two are led on a gripping journey along Ireland’s wild Atlantic coast, through the ruins of its abandoned estates, and into its darkest, most haunted corners. Falling under the spell of dark forces, Yeats and his novice ghost-catcher come dangerously close to crossing the invisible line that divides the living from the dead.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Launch: BELFAST NOIR, ed. Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty

BELFAST NOIR (Akashic Books), edited by Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty, will be launched at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, on November 22nd. To wit:

An event for crime fiction fans guys, one that is certainly not to be missed!

No Alibis Bookstore invite you to the Crescent Arts Centre on Saturday 22nd November at 6:30pm for the launch of BELFAST NOIR. This FREE event sees a variety of authors come together in a new anthology.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan.

From the introduction by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville:

“Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968–1998) dominated life in Ireland’s second-biggest population centre, and during the darkest days of the conflict—in the 1970s and 1980s—riots, bombings, and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. The British army patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and civilians were searched for guns and explosives before they were allowed entry into the shopping district of the city centre . . . Belfast is still a city divided . . .
  “You can see Belfast’s bloodstains up close and personal. This is the city that gave the world its worst ever maritime disaster, and turned it into a tourist attraction; similarly, we are perversely proud of our thousands of murders, our wounds constantly on display. You want noir? How about a painting the size of a house, a portrait of a man known to have murdered at least a dozen human beings in cold blood? Or a similar house-sized gable painting of a zombie marching across a postapocalyptic wasteland with an AK-47 over the legend UVF: Prepared for Peace—Ready for War. As Lee Child has said, Belfast is still ‘the most noir place on earth.’

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

International Crime Fiction at Queens University

Dominique Jeannerod (right) of Queens University is the very charming French gentleman who organised last Friday’s public interview with Pierre Lamaitre at Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre, which I managed to survive, in my role as inquisitor-in-chief, without entirely mangling the French language. Although I did, to be fair, mangle it quite a bit.
  It was a terrific turn-out on the evening, despite the fact that a number of Norn Iron’s crime writers also showed up, Stuart Neville, Gerard Brennan, Steve Kavanagh and Andrew Pepper among them. It was also lovely to be able to make my annual pilgrimage to No Alibis while I was in Belfast, and pick up some very interesting recommendations from David and Claudia.
  Anyway, Dominique gets in touch to let me know that Queens University – and specifically the International Crime Fiction brigade therein – will be hosting ‘An International Conference on the Noir Genre and its Territorialisation’ later this month. The conference runs over two days, June 13th and 14th, and offers a range of discussions on a number of international crime writers, among them Tana French, Eoin McNamee and David Peace, while Eoin McNamee and Brian McGilloway will be taking part in a ‘Readings and Questions’ session on the Friday afternoon.
  For all the details, and the full programme of events, clickety-click here …

Pierre Lamaitre in Belfast

The event is free, but pre-booking is essential. Tickets can be booked through David Torrans at No Alibis.

No Alibis For The Lost

Sounds a little like a David Goodis spoof, doesn’t it? No? Okay, be like that …
  Claire McGowan (right) will be in Belfast this coming Saturday, April 6th, where she will be launching her latest tome, THE LOST, at the very fine book emporium No Alibis. The event kicks off at 3pm, and all the details – including how to book your free ticket – are here.
  I reviewed THE LOST in the Irish Times last month, with the gist running thusly:

“In a different setting, The Lost might well have been a straightforward tale of abduction and serial killing, but the Northern Ireland backdrop offers sub-plots incorporating sectarian bigotry, religious and political fundamentalism, and a heavy-handed sexual repression that manifests itself in a number of ugly ways … McGowan’s pacy, direct style ensures that the twists come thick and fast.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

You Are Cordially Invited ...

Gorgeous George And Me

Marshal Zeringue is one of the most tireless supporters of books and writers of all stripes and none, most famously with his Page 69 Test, and more recently for Writers Read and My Book, The Movie. My most recent contribution to Marshal’s roster of heroes and villains consists of my take on the My Book, My Movie casting of the hypothetical adaptation of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which starts out by asserting that only the multi-talented human rights advocate ‘Gorgeous George’ Clooney (one for the ladies, right) could play the part of the fictional ‘Declan Burke’ of AZC, and gets progressively more deluded / deranged from there. For all the details, clickety-click here …

  Elsewhere in AZC-related flummery, the good folk at Liberties Press were kind enough to upload a video of John Connolly mostly lying through this back teeth as he very kindly launched our humble tome on August 10th. Now, the vid starts off with the Dark Lord saying that he doesn’t usually do this kind of thing, for a variety of reasons; if I’d known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have asked him to do the honours, not least because I hate being put on the spot like that myself. True to form, however, JC not only did the honours, but did us and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL proud in the process. Roll it there, Collette …

  Meanwhile, over at Seana Graham’s interweb lair, Not New For Long, there’s an impressively forensic review of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. It’s always nice when someone takes the time to read your book (and I’m still at the stage where I’m always surprised that someone has done so), but it’s particularly pleasing when said reader engages with the book in the kind of comprehensive fashion Seana has. It’s not the kind of review that lends itself to pull-out blurb-style quotes, but I am very impressed with the fact that Seana has managed to pack in references to Flann O’Brien, Dante, Mephistopheles, Adrian McKinty and James Joyce’s eye-patch. For all the skinny, clickety-click here …

  Finally, a quick word on my trek across the border to Norn Iron, and specifically to No Alibis, where David Torrans hosted a double-hander of yours truly and the aforementioned Adrian McKinty last Thursday night. A very enjoyable evening it was, too, with much scurrilous scuttlebutt being passed off as ‘insights into writing’ (koff), very little of which I could reproduce here without running the risk of being sued into oblivion (and which proved tame enough, as it happens, by comparison with the post-gig conversation carried out over the course and under the influence of a number of Pimms afterwards). Anyway, the good denizens of Belfast and surroundings came out in force, including a number of scribes, among them Stuart Neville, David Park, Andrew Pepper and Gerard Brennan. It was slightly unsettling that Stuart Neville chose to sit in the front row, particularly as the man is a runaway bestseller these days, but we survived the grilling nonetheless, and terrific fun it all was. Incidentally, for those of you in the general vicinity of Belfast, John Connolly and Alan Glynn will also be appearing at No Alibis, on September 1st, to promote THE BURNING SOUL and BLOODLAND, respectively. Should be a cracking night …

You, Me And Ireland’s Answer To James Ellroy

Recently described as ‘Ireland’s more accessible answer to James Ellroy’ by Laura Wilson at The Guardian, Adrian McKinty (right) makes a rare appearance on these shores next Thursday evening at the No Alibis bookstore in Belfast. To wit:

No Alibis are very pleased to invite you to celebrate the launch of Declan Burke’s latest novel, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, and FALLING GLASS, the latest novel from Adrian McKinty, in the shop on Thursday 18th August at 6:00 PM.

  Adrian McKinty, as all Three Regular Readers will be well aware, is a firm favourite on these pages, mainly because he has a very good habit of writing very good books. The latest is FALLING GLASS, which I reviewed recently on Crime Always Pays; his previous offering, FIFTY GRAND, was longlisted earlier this summer for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. In short, the man is a terrific writer, and given that he currently resides on the other side of the planet, the No Alibis gig is a welcome opportunity to hear him read in person.

  Doing his manly best to play Falstaff to McKinty’s Prince Hal will be yours truly, and delighted and humbled I most certainly am to be invited to the hallowed halls of No Alibis to celebrate the launch of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. David Torrans, the legendary and possibly even semi-mythic owner of No Alibis, was good enough to micro-manage the Northern Ireland launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS a couple of months ago, this in conjunction with the Belfast Literary Festival. A terrific evening it was, too, not least because I got to meet David Peace, although the one disappointment for me was that the event wasn’t actually held in No Alibis. I’d twice stood outside a closed No Alibis prior to that evening, not unlike a book-nerd Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, pretty much pawing at the glass frontage and drooling at the very fine offerings within. On the evening of the GREEN STREETS launch, I finally got to step inside the door; a very pleasant experience, even if we were all very quickly whisked away to the GREEN STREETS event.

  Anyway, it’ll be nice to actually do a gig at No Alibis. There’s a rites-of-passage aspect to it, or a kind of anointing; you’re no one, really, in this Irish crime writing game until your weedy voice has strained for profundity under the No Alibis rafters. The fact that it’ll happen in the company of Adrian McKinty isn’t so much a bonus as a gift.

  Tickets are free, by the way, and all the booking details can be found here …

Go North, Young-Ish Man

Off with us yesterday to Belfast for the second launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, and a marvellous day out it was too. The launch was incorporated into the Belfast Books Festival, and thus took place at the Crescent Arts Centre rather than the hallowed halls of No Alibis, which was initially something of a disappointment. Happily, the turn-out was such that No Alibis would have struggled to cope with the volume, and anyway David Torrans was on hand to MC proceedings, introduce the various speakers, and generally just about stopping short of clucking like a mother hen.
  Said turn-out included some of the Northern Irish contributors who couldn’t make the Dublin launch for GREEN STREETS, including Colin Bateman, Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville and Eoin McNamee; Niamh O’Connor, who made the trip North having missed out on the Dublin launch; Kevin McCarthy and Cormac Millar, who’d been at the Dublin launch and was attending the Belfast Books Festival; Gerard Brennan, who’d ventured South for the first launch and couldn’t get enough GREEN STREETS; Belfast-based scribe Andrew Pepper, who had chaired a conversation between Eoin McNamee and David Peace on Friday night; and the aforementioned David Peace.
  Yours truly was up first to deliver some thanks on behalf of Liberties Press, and then David introduced Brian McGilloway, who provided something of an unexpected treat by reading not from his current tome, LITTLE GIRL LOST, as promised in the programme, but his next Inspector Devlin novel, ISLES OF THE BONES, which will be published next year. Stirring stuff it was too, and whetted the appetite for what sounds as if it will be the most fascinating Devlin story to date.
  David Torrans then introduced a panel composed of Brian, Colin Bateman and Stuart Neville (above), who took part in a Q&A on the past, present and future of the crime novel in Northern Ireland, in the process referencing their present and forthcoming offerings - LITTLE GIRL LOST for Brian, NINE INCHES for Colin, and STOLEN SOULS for Stuart. Great stuff it was too, as entertaining as it was insightful, and terrific value for money and time. All told, it was a hugely enjoyable evening, and many thanks to all who took part, facilitated and helped out in any way.
  Incidentally, I’ve written many times on these pages before about David Peace (right, with Kevin McCarthy), and how much I admire his Red Riding quartet, most recently on Friday, so it was lovely to actually meet him. It was slightly disconcerting to discover that he’s a disappointingly nice man in person - given the intensity of his prose, I was half-hoping he’d be mad, and as likely to bite as shake my hand. But no. He was the very model of friendly approachability, although it was more than surreal when he approached me, with a copy of GREEN STREETS in his hand, and asked me to sign it. Such moments are rare, folks, and I’ll be treasuring that one for a long time to come.
  Anyhoo, that’s the official functions for DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS finished, and there’s a certain amount of relief involved, given that it was a very busy fortnight, and that I was concerned first and foremost that the book, and my efforts on its behalf, would do justice to the very fine body of writers who contributed, and to Liberties Press for publishing it in such elegant fashion. Incidentally, Dave Torrans had all the Northern-based writers sign copies of GREEN STREETS, this on top of all those who signed copies at the Dublin launch, so anyone requiring a multiple-signed copy should clickety-click here …
  Back now to the cave for yours truly and the rather more prosaic business of hacking a plausible narrative out of the wilderness I’ve managed to cultivate around my latest humble offering, working title THE BIG EMPTY, although experience tells me that a machete will hardly suffice, and it won’t be long before I’ll be reaching for the flame-thrower and napalm. I’ll keep you posted if and when any reviews of GREEN STREETS pop up, but hopefully the hard sell on said tome is over, and it’ll be business as usual. Well, until August rolls around, and Liberties Press publish my own novel, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. But that, dear friends, is a story for another day …

Peace Comes Dropping Slow

I’m three-quarters way through the Red Riding quartet, and it’s fair to say that David Peace (right) is a rather intense writer. In fact, I’ve been reading the quartet sparingly, not least because it takes me a James Ellroy afterwards to come down from reading a Peace. I should add that Peace, on the evidence of the Riding Riding quartet at least, is a brilliant writer: he brings a rare quality of psychological intimacy to the page, and his stories get under the skin in the way that most writers, quite frankly, don’t.
  I have no idea what David Peace is like in person, but the good burghers of Belfast will find out at 6pm this evening, Friday 17th, when he takes to the stage for a conversation with Eoin McNamee as part of the Belfast Book Festival, with Andrew Pepper playing the dapper host. The event is titled ‘States of Crime: The State in Crime Fiction’, and should be an absolute cracker. All the details can be found here …
  Later that evening, at 8pm, David Torrans will be interviewing John Banville at the Crescent Arts Centre, this to mark the publication of Banville’s latest Benjamin Black offering, A DEATH IN SUMMER (for a review, scroll down). Taken together, the Peace / McNamee and Banville / Black mash-up has the makings of a splendid night’s entertainment for the discerning crime fic fan.
  Meanwhile, the Belfast launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS takes place on Saturday evening, also as part of the Belfast Book Festival, with David Torrans of No Alibis doing the honours, although the event itself will take place at the Crescent Arts Centre. Authors in attendance will include Brian McGilloway, Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt, Niamh O’Connor, Eoin McNamee and Gerard Brennan, and if it’s half as good as the Dublin launch, it’ll be a terrific night for all concerned. For the full details, clickety-click here …
  In other news, the confusion between Declan Hughes and Declan Burke is reaching crisis point - I’ve been contacted three times this week alone on Twitter by people presuming that I’m Dec Hughes. The first thing to say about that is that it sounds like Dec Hughes is having a much more interesting war than I am; the second is that, as I’ve pointed out before, Dec Hughes is the Declan with the looks and talent; I’m the other guy. Anyway, RTE’s Arena programme has very helpfully offered to put the Declan / Declan crisis to bed by featuring us both on tonight’s programme, in conversation about DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, which airs at 7.30pm GMT. You can listen live here, but if you miss it, don’t worry: the archive will be up on Arena’s website within a day or two …
  Finally, the ladies at the Anti-Room blog were kind enough to yesterday feature Anti-Room contributor and author Arlene Hunt’s essay from DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, ‘A Shock to the System’. The essay is reprinted in full, and is in my not-very-humble opinion well worth ten minutes of your time. The Anti-Room blog can be found here …

Yet More GREEN STREETS: Or, Dropping Murder Back In The Alleyway, Where It Belongs

(l-r: Claire Coughlan, Jane Casey, Cormac Millar, Declan Hughes, Sara Keating, Kevin McCarthy, Ingrid Black, Arlene Hunt, Declan Burke, Gene Kerrigan, Alex Barclay, John Connolly, Ian Ross, Alan Glynn and Ken Bruen.

Back to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS duty today, folks, and what I consider to be a rather interesting and possibly even historic photograph (above), which was actually taken in a (sadly metaphorical) green alleyway, as opposed to on a green street, outside the Gutter Bookshop at Tuesday night’s launch of said tome. The photo was taken outside, of course, because of the sheer volume of the combined egos involved; one wrong word, one perceived slight, and the Gutter Bookshop could have gone up like the Hindenburg.
  Thankfully, everyone was excessively polite to one another, and very nice it was to see so many excellent writers in the same company. Hopefully we’ll all get the chance to do it again some day. For more pics of the night, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, a certain Ray Thornton of the Evening Herald has the dubious honour of being the first to hit the mainstream newsprint media with a piece on DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY. The article was more in the way of an article offering an overview of Irish crime writing, using GREEN STREETS as a jumping-off point, but Thornton was suitably impressed by chapters from, among others, John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Cora Harrison and Tara Brady. He was particularly impressed by the guys ‘n’ gals of Norn Iron. Quoth Thornton:

“One of the most fascinating aspects of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS is the contributions made by writers from the North. If authors in the Republic were reluctant to tack the Troubles then one can only imagine how difficult it was for those operating in the Six Counties. And yet, the travails of trying to figure out a way of writing entertaining books about killers when there was murder and mayhem going on around you adds a blackly humourous edge to the pieces by Colin Bateman, Adrian McKinty and Brian McGilloway.”

  We thank you kindly, sir.
  Incidentally, and if you’re interested, I appeared with Eoin McNamee on TV3’s Ireland AM programme last Wednesday, to talk about GREEN STREETS and the phenomenal rise in Irish crime writing. The link is here …
  Finally, the second launch of GREEN STREETS takes place in Belfast on this coming Saturday, June 18th, at the Crescent Arts Centre, in conjunction with No Alibis and the Belfast Books Festival. I’ll be there, but don’t let that put you off - Brian McGilloway, Eoin McNamee, Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt and Gerard Brennan will also be in attendance. If you’re in the Belfast area next Saturday, you’re more than welcome along. All the details can be found here …
  Oh, and by the way - if you’re in Belfast on Friday night, there’s an unmissable gig planned for No Alibis. Titled ‘States of Crime: The State in Crime Fiction’, it’s a conversation between Eoin McNamee and David Peace, which will be hosted by BLOODY WINTER author Andrew Pepper. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Tangled Up In BLUE

The paperback of Eoin McNamee’s ORCHID BLUE has finally arrived, and a very handsome piece of work it is too. It also features, and for the very first time to the best of my knowledge, a pull quote from one of my reviews on the back cover, during the course of which I described ORCHID BLUE as ‘A stunning meditation on the nature of justice’ (Irish Times, Top Ten Thrillers 2010).
  Chuffed? Yes, and particularly because ORCHID BLUE is a superb novel from one of Ireland’s finest living novelists. It raises more questions than it answers, as all the great novels do; in fact, I’m very tempted to open it once more, and get tangled up in its haunting web of lies all over again.
  I reviewed the novel at length late last year, and found myself writing this kind of thing:

McNamee has described the noir novel as a very ‘Calvinist’ kind of storytelling, with its undertones of implacable fate and predestination. What hope is there for a person if he or she has been fingered by Fate before they’re even born? And what hope if the ultimate arbiter of justice - God, for the most part, although McNamee’s arbiter of justice in ORCHID BLUE is Justice Lance Curran - is already prejudiced against the person in the dock?

  For the full review, clickety-click here …
  I also got to interview Eoin, last November, in which he waxed lyrical about the ethics (or otherwise) of writing novel-length fictions based on true-life crimes. To wit:

“You’re always walking a moral tightrope,” he agrees, “to a certain extent. Looking back it seems quite easy, the story is what it is. But when you start talking about historical fact, you’re not really talking about the facts at all, you’re talking about the historical record. And that’s a different thing entirely to what the facts were.
  “So you are making judgements all the time, asking yourself where you should take it, wondering if you’ve taken it over the line. But it’s an artistic line you don’t want to cross, if I can put it that way. If you get it wrong in the moral sense, then you get it wrong. But I’m a writer, not a priest. And as a writer, you answer to the god of fiction.”

  For the full interview, clickety-click here …
  Incidentally, Eoin’s contribution to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS is a very fine essay called ‘The Judge’, in which he explores his personal take on the historical and moral backdrop to ORCHID BLUE, and the murder of Pearl Gamble. In my humble opinion, it’s a piece of writing about crime fiction that’s worth the price of admission alone. The book will be officially launched on June 7th in the Gutter Bookshop, Dublin, with a further launch in No Alibis, Belfast, on June 18th, with the bulk of the contributing authors appearing at both launches. If you fancy a sneak peek at GREEN STREETS prior to that, just clickety-click here …

The Collusionist

That cradle and lair of all things Irish crime fiction, Belfast’s No Alibis, hosts the official launch of Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION tomorrow, July 30th, with the details running thusly:

No Alibis Bookstore is pleased to invite you to the launch party for Stuart Neville’s second novel, COLLUSION, on Friday 30th July at 6:30PM.
  Stuart Neville has been a musician, a composer, a teacher, a salesman, a film extra, a baker and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian, but is currently a partner in a successful multimedia design business in the wilds of Northern Ireland. COLLUSION is his second novel, the follow-up to the hugely successful and award winning THE TWELVE.

  In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST) came complete with a blurb from none other than James Ellroy (“THE TWELVE will knock you sideways. This guy can write.”) and scooped the LA Times’ Mystery / Thriller of the Year a couple of months back. Not bad for a debut, but THE TWELVE has also been nominated for a Best First Novel gong in each of the Anthony, Barry and Macavity awards, to be announced at this year’s Bouchercon.
  I mentioned a couple of weeks back that COLLUSION is a finer novel than THE TWELVE, not least because it’s rather more cynical than its predecessor about joining the dots between ‘the Troubles’ and post-conflict Northern Ireland. Here’s another snippet:

Did anyone live here now? He searched for signs of someone, anyone, making a life on this street. Not a soul. Less than a mile away, millions were being pumped into brownfield sites, building apartments, shopping centres, technology parks. Just across the river, property was changing hands for prices never imagined just a few years before. One-bedroom flats sold for a quarter of a million, snapped up by investors looking to make a killing out of Belfast’s peace boom, desperate to get rich before the bubble burst, as it surely would. And here, not ten minutes away, stood two rows of empty houses with generations of memories rotting away along with the mortar and woodwork, all because small-minded thugs couldn’t see beyond the world of Them and Us.

  In my humble opinion, COLLUSION is a very fine novel indeed. A good old-fashioned page-turner of a thriller, it should be required reading for those Ivory Tower types who bemoan the paucity of novels addressing social and political flux of contemporary Ireland, and the lack of post-ceasefire literature concerning itself with Northern Ireland.

Meet Dave, He’s A Goliath

A veritable giant in the world of Irish crime fiction, aka Dave Torrans of Belfast’s crime bookshop No Alibis (right, with Stuart Neville and James Ellroy), goes into hospitality overdrive next week. First up, John Connolly, who is currently promoting the new Charlie Parker novel, THE WHISPERERS:

On Monday 3rd May at 7:30 PM, the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and No Alibis Bookstore will be hosting a screening and talk with author John Connolly in the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. Tickets, priced £5 each, are now available from CQAF and from No Alibis.

  Nice. Then, on Wednesday, May 5th, Dave and No Alibis hosts Declan Hughes and Brian McGilloway, both of whom will be reading from new works, CITY OF LOST GIRLS and THE RISING, respectively, with the gig kicking off at 7pm …
  And as if that wasn’t a busy enough schedule, Dave will be in Dublin on Thursday, May 6th, to take part in a seminar at the Royal Irish Academy (there’s posh) entitled ‘Writing and the Possible in 2010’, sitting in on a panel that ‘will focus on reading and the ways in which we read literary texts in Ireland in 2010’. The seminar is free, but if you want to get along you’ll need to register here …
  To book tickets for the Connolly and Hughes / McGilloway gigs, contact No Alibis on +44 (0)28 9031 9601.

Woof! ’Tis A Dog, A ROVER And A Roving Newshound

It’s hi-ho for Belfast this coming weekend, to see / hear / watch Stuart Neville interview the Demon Dog, aka James Ellroy (right), in a gig sponsored by No Alibis. To wit:

No Alibis Bookstore is very pleased to announce that we will be hosting an event with none other than the Demon Dog of American crime fiction, James Ellroy, in early November to celebrate the release of the final book in his Underworld USA trilogy, BLOOD’S A ROVER. This event will be held in the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, on Saturday 7th November at 8:00PM. Tickets are now on sale, and are priced £12.

  There’s also a special screening of LA Confidential at the Queens’ Theatre at 2pm, for those interested.
  I’ll be interviewing James Ellroy myself over the weekend, shortly before Stuart gets his grubby mitts on the man, so that should be – said he, putting it mildly – interesting. If you’ve ever wanted to ask James Ellroy a question, just let me know what it is and I’ll pass it on and post the results here next week …

What Do You Call A Man With A Sheet Of Paper For A Head?

Russell. Or, if you wanted to be particularly cruel, Jack Russell. All of which is a non-sequiturish way of announcing (trumpets there, please, maestro) that The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman releases his sequel to MYSTERY MAN on November 12th, said offering being THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL, a title so tongue-in-cheek we’re afraid that said cheek might in fact be a buttock. Quoth the blurb elves:

The Small Shopkeeper With No Name is back. Hired to find the vandals responsible for spraying graffiti on an aspiring insurance magnate's advertising hoarding, he soon finds himself up to his ears in intrigue and battling to solve murders which echo in the corridors of power. With MI5 getting involved and everyone on the hunt for a missing Jack Russell, can Our Man Behind the Counter stay alive as well as keep his world renowned but criminally ignored No Alibis mystery bookshop afloat?

  I finally made it as far as the ‘world renowned but criminally ignored No Alibis mystery bookstore’ last weekend, but it was a Sunday morning and the place was locked up tight. There I stood, criminally ignored and not even the crumb of being world renowned to comfort me. Mind you, I only discovered it when I nipped out mid-breakfast for a sly smoke from the café next door, so I suppose I shouldn’t take it personally. Oh, and did I mention that No Alibis is hosting James Ellroy at Belfast’s Waterfront on November 7th, with Stuart Neville providing the Qs in a Q&A? No? Well, maybe I’ll give that a plug tomorrow, then …

Two Tales, One City

Work commitments – not to mention an irrational phobia of bowler hats – will keep me away from Belfast next Wednesday evening, although maybe that’s just as well, given that there’d be something of a conflict of interest were I to wander north. For lo! There’s not one but two quality book launches happening that evening in Belfast, the first for AFTERMATH, Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards’ new tome about the Omagh bombing. Quoth the blurb elves:

The Omagh bomb was the worst massacre in Northern Ireland’s modern history - yet from it came a most extraordinary tale of human resilience, as families of murdered people channelled their grief into action. As the bombers congratulated themselves on escaping justice, the families determined on a civil case against them and their organisation. No one had ever done this before. It was a very domestic atrocity. In Omagh, on Saturday, 15 August, 1998, a massive bomb placed by the so-called Real IRA murdered unborn twins, five men, fourteen women and nine children, of whom two were Spanish and one English: the dead included Protestants, Catholics and a Mormon. Although the police believed they knew the identities of the killers, there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. Taking as their motto ‘For evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing’, families of ten of the dead decided to pursue these men through the civil courts, where the burden of proof is lower. This is the remarkable account of how these families - who had no knowledge of the law and no money, and included a cleaner, a mechanic and a bookie - became internationally recognised, formidable campaigners and surmounted countless daunting obstacles to win a famous victory. How these mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers turned themselves into the scourge of the Real IRA is not just an astonishing story in itself. It is also a universal story of David challenging Goliath, as well as an inspiration to ordinary people anywhere devastated by terrorism.

  The launch for AFTERMATH takes place at the Bookshop at Queen’s University on Wednesday 8th, with the gig kicking off at 5.30pm and featuring Michael Gallagher, Brett Lockhart QC and Jason McCue as speakers.
  Meanwhile, over at No Alibis on Botanic Avenue, Adrian McKinty (right) will be doing a reading from FIFTY GRAND, to mark the UK publication of said opus, that event kicking off at 6pm. I’ve pretty much run out of superlatives to describe FIFTY GRAND, so suffice to say that if you scroll down a smidgeroo, you can avail of the opportunity to win a signed copy of this very, very fine novel.
  Happily, Belfast is a pretty compact city, and those of you dedicated to the cause can scoot along to Queen’s for the AFTERMATH launch, and then nip around the corner to Botanic Avenue for the McKinty jamboree. If you time it right, you might even get to skip the boring bit (McKinty reading) and cut straight to the entertainment (McKinty trying to juke out of paying his round for the rest of the evening). Bon chance, mes amis …

That Pesky ‘Sexiest Irish Crime Writer’ Poll: The Envelope Please, Whoopi …

I’m away this weekend, so I’m writing this post in advance, so bear with me if the details are just a bit skewy, but with John Connolly leading the field by about three lengths (Oo-er, Missus, etc.) with only a day’s voting left, it’s safe to say – trumpet parp please, maestro – that Lord John Connolly (right, in louche mode) is officially the Sexiest Irish Crime Writer!
  Now, between you and me, there were sharp practices underpinning the win, given that Lord JC linked to CAP from the John Connolly interweb-forum malarkey, suggesting that forumites might want to vote for him (and me, as it happens, although precious few did, the ungrateful sods) – but there was nothing in the rules to prevent anyone from utilising the interweb to boost their vote, so we have no choice but to award JC his gong. The official presentation may or may not take place at The Dublin Bookshop, Grafton Street in Dublin, on June 24th, when JC officially launches the latest Charlie Parker novel, THE LOVERS, or at No Alibis in Belfast on June 26th, when JC launches THE LOVERS with Stuart Neville, who’ll be launching THE TWELVE. (For details of all John Connolly’s Irish and UK tour dates, clickety-click here …)
  Anyway, the rather manly Adrian McKinty was second in the Sexiest Crime Writers poll, with a very creditable 17% of the vote (by comparison with Connolly’s 42%), while the gorgeous Alex Barclay came in third with 12%. At the time of writing, Your Humble Host was in fourth place, with 8%, mainly because I couldn’t work out how to multi-vote for myself, while the delectable Arlene Hunt and the equally delectable Brian McGilloway were tied on fifth with 7%.
  So there you have it. John Connolly is the inaugural winner of the Sexiest Irish Crime Writer Award. Three cheers, two stools and a resounding huzzah! Of course, things could have been very different had ‘Dreamy’ Gene Kerrigan not ruled himself out of the running early on …
  That Gene Kerrigan, eh? Sigh …