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.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Niamh O’Connor

Some reviews for your delectation, O Three Regular Readers, the first batch of which were published in the Sunday Independent earlier this month, and which concentrate on Irish crime offerings. First up, Adrian McKinty’s FALLING GLASS. To wit:

FALLING GLASS is Adrian McKinty’s sixth offering, a thriller in which an underworld enforcer, Killian, is commissioned to track down Rachel, the ex-wife of a wealthy Northern Ireland businessman, who has absconded with his two daughters. Naturally, things do not go smoothly for Killian, for the most part because a ruthless killer, a Russian soldier and veteran of the brutal conflict in Chechnya, is also on the woman’s trail. Framed by an increasingly violent game of one-upmanship, the story hurtles down the tortuously twisting byways of rural Northern Ireland.

  However, a number of elements set FALLING GLASS apart from conventional shoot-’em-up thrillers. McKinty has established himself as a writer who blends riveting plots, a muscular kind of poetry and blackly comic flourishes, investing his fully rounded characters with thoughtful insights that frequently veer off at tangents into something akin to philosophy …

  For the rest, which includes reviews of Benjamin Black’s ELEGY FOR APRIL and Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN, clickety-click here …

  Elsewhere, the Irish Times published the latest ‘Crime Time’ round-up of new titles two weeks ago, said column containing reviews of the latest offerings from Lynda La Plante, Karin Fossum, John Hart, Stella Rimington and Charles Cumming. I particularly liked Karin Fossum’s THE CALLER and Charles Cumming’s THE TRINITY SIX, with the latter review coming in the wake of the Stella Rimington, and kicking off thusly:

More deserving of the Le Carré comparisons is Charles Cumming’s fifth novel, THE TRINITY SIX. As a young man, Cumming was recruited by MI6, and his experience working for the Secret Intelligence Service is so palpable here that Cumming can at one point even afford to allow his hero, Dr Sam Gaddis, to wander into post-modern territory near the Ferris wheel made famous by Orson Welles in the classic movie ‘The Third Man’ ...

  It’d been years since I’d read a good old-fashioned spy thriller, and THE TRINITY SIX reminded me of how much I used to love them. Good timing, too, with the film adaptation of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY on the way in the next couple of weeks. Anyway, for the rest of the Irish Times column, clickety-click here …

  Meanwhile, if anyone can point me in the direction of some good contemporary spy thrillers, I’d be very grateful indeed …

Taken, Not Stirred

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself referring frequently to an Irish Top Ten bestsellers list from about two months ago, in which eight of the ten titles were crime fiction. Proof positive of the Irish public’s voracious appetite for crime fiction, although none of the titles, unfortunately, were by Irish writers. Exactly why Irish readers have remained so resistant to the fine body of Irish crime writers is something of a mystery, especially given the best-selling and prize-winning calibre of some of said writers in the US, UK and Germany, in particular.
  The following week, Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN catapulted into the Top Ten, landing with its feet firmly planted in the # 2 slot. I haven’t read TAKEN yet, but the unnamed reviewer at this link from the Irish Independent (although I suspect that said reviewer is the redoubtable Myles McWeeney) obviously approves. To wit:

“Niamh O’Connor, the true crime editor of the Sunday World, has written five successful true crime books, and burst onto the burgeoning Irish thriller scene last year with her first Jo Birmingham adventure, IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN, which was a best-seller. With TAKEN, O’Connor has pulled off the elusive feat of delivering a second novel that betters the original.”

  O’Connor writes police procedurals, has been compared to Lynda La Plante, and TAKEN bears a blurb from no less a writer than Tess Gerritsen, who acclaims the novel as gripping and terrifying. All of which explains why Niamh O’Connor is one of the few Irish crime writers to crack the Top Ten this year. The Big Question is, why so few others? Answers on a used twenty to Declan Burke’s Funny Money Stash, c/o Dodgy Facilitators Inc., Freeport, Grand Bahama. Or you could just leave a comment …

Down These Green Streets: Niamh O’Connor on John Banville and Pat McCabe

Being the latest in Crime Always Pay’s erratic series to celebrate the publication of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, in which contributors to the collection nominate their favourite Irish crime novel. This week, it’s Niamh O’Connor:

“For me, it comes down to the choice between Pat McCabe’s THE BUTCHER BOY and John Banville’s THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE. Both were shortlisted for the Booker because both voices are so strong, reading either is like being in a vacuum. Both achieve that Holden Caulfield effect of managing to slightly warp the readers’ own view of the world. To pick one over the other, I had to ask myself who is more terrifying? Francie - a troubled boy with a suicidal mother, and an alcoholic father; or Freddie - a scientist, husband, and father who in the cold light of day makes a clinical confession that is as logical as it is conscience free. Who poses the greater threat to society? Frankie is a victim of his circumstances, intent on wreaking his revenge. Freddie is beyond hope of redemption, a man who has managed to master the maze of his own mind. Ultimately I think the answers, combined with the fact that THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE is based on the chilling true crime case of double murderer, Malcolm McArthur, the same case which prompted Charlie Haughey to coin the GUBU (Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unprecedented) phrase, gives the Banville book the edge.” - Niamh O’Connor

  Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN is published by Transworld Ireland.

TAKEN, Not Stirred

Niamh O’Connor’s TAKEN, the follow-up to her debut IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN, isn’t out until May, but already I’m feeling a tad queasy. I know I’m supposed to be a hard-boiled crime writer and all the rest of it, but stories about abducted kids send me weak in the guts these days. That said, TAKEN should make for a rollicking read. Quoth the blurb elves:

It’s a cold wet winter night when a car pulls into a service station on Dublin quays. Strapped on to the back-seat is a three-year-old boy. Asleep. Five minutes later he’s gone – kidnapped in the time it’s taken his mother to pay for her petrol. Distraught and fearing for his safety, she has only one option. DI Jo Birmingham. One of the few female senior officers on the Dublin police force, Jo has a keen reputation for solving crimes and righting wrongs. Her search for the little boy takes her into a dark world of lies and corruption, where hard cash is king, where sex is a commodity to be bought and sold – and where the lost and vulnerable are in terrifying danger …

  She’s done very nicely for herself, has Niamh O’Connor, since the publication of her debut. The quote adorning the cover of TAKEN is from Tess Gerritsen, and suggests that Ms Gerritsen is well impressed: “Gripping, terrifying … If you like Martina Cole, you’ll love this.” Very nice indeed …
  Actually, it’s shaping up to be an interesting year of offerings from the ladies of Irish crime writing. Casey Hill’s TABOO is a debut courtesy of husband-and-wife writing team Melissa Casey and Kevin Hill, and is either available now or coming in July, depending on what interweb source you prefer. Ava McCarthy returns to the fray with her third thriller, THE DEALER, in October; Tana French’s BROKEN HARBOUR will be with us in August; Jane Casey’s third offering, THE RECKONING, will be thumping down on a bookshelf near you in July; and - intriguingly - Arlene Hunt leaves QuicK Investigations behind to present us with a standalone novel, which is currently rejoicing in the working title of FAIR GAME and is set in the US.
  I kid you not, folks, it’s a marvellous time to be writing about Irish crime fiction …