A Boy And His Bullet

Anthony Quinn, author of DISAPPEARED (Mysterious Press), has a superb essay over at the Mysterious Press blog on his experience of growing up in Northern Ireland at the height of ‘the Troubles’. An excerpt:

“My tenth year was an overwhelming one for me, brought up as a devout Catholic, receiving in my hands something as frightening as a bullet marked for my father, and then something as holy as the consecrated Body of Christ. You would have thought the latter would have negated the former. The good cancelling the bad. The brutal gift of the bullet reversed by the redeeming gift of the Eucharist. However, it didn’t work out like that. One inflamed the other, like throwing raw alcohol on a wound. To this day, I can still feel the imprint of the bullet in my hand.
“The experience left me feeling conflicted in ways that are hard to explain. I became a deeply spiritual teenager with a guilty fascination for IRA violence. I listened obsessively to the daily morning, noon and evening news bulletins, tuning in to the litany of bombings and shootings, which were always delivered by the newsreader in the same monotone voice with which he announced the weather. I was frightened and at the same time thrilled by what I heard, and I wasn’t the only one. Listening to the hourly radio news became a national pastime during the Troubles. Many of my generation were addicted to those little charges of excitement that flow from bad news, swinging from dread to overwhelming relief and satisfaction, and then back to apprehension again, waiting pensively for the day that the news bulletin heralded a personal tragedy. We were the children of the 1970s, and when darkness fell, we brooded on bullets, guns and bombs. The violence terrified us, but, to an extent, it also entertained and diverted us. Many of us became hooked on it.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

The Turn Of The Screwed

I do love the cover of Eoin Colfer’s forthcoming tome SCREWED (Headline), which concerns itself with the continuing stooooooooooory of Dan McEvoy, the barnet-challenged hero of Colfer’s first adult crime novel, PLUGGED. Quoth the blurb elves:

Dan McEvoy doesn’t set out to get into violent confrontations with New Jersey’s gangster overlords but he’s long since found that once you’re on their radar, there’s only one way to slip off it. So he’s learned his own way to fight back, aiming to outwit rather than kill unless he really has no choice. But when Dan’s glam step-gran Edith shows up on the hunt for his dishevelled aunt Evelyn, it quickly becomes clear that family can provide the deadliest threat of all. In a city of gun-happy criminals, bent cops and a tough-talking woman detective whose inspires terror and lust in equal measure, Dan may just have reached the point where sharp wit won’t cut the mustard. But can he play the heavies at their own game?

  SCREWED isn’t due until May, unfortunately, but if you like your crime fiction with a screwball comedy twist, you could do a lot worse than note this one in your diary, not least because PLUGGED was shortlisted for the LA Times book awards last year, and you’d have to presume that yon whippersnapper Colfer has learned his lessons and got a bit better this time out. Wouldn’t you?

Fade To Black

Born in New York, Stephan Talty’s roots extend all the way across the Atlantic to County Clare, from which fabulously exotic setting his parents hail. What has that to do with his debut novel, BLACK IRISH (Headline)? Erm, nowt. To wit:

Harvard-educated Detective Absalom ‘Abbie’ Kearney has returned to ‘The County’ - an Irish enclave in Buffalo, NY - to take care of her ageing father, legendary former cop John Kearney. In one of America’s most deprived and dilapidated cities, tensions run high and Abbie’s day job is never easy. But when it becomes apparent that a relentless and merciless killer has set to work, it’s about to get a lot harder. Faced with scenes of inconceivable violence, Abbie’s investigation takes her to the heart of this fiercely closed community. And the darkness she finds there will affect her life in ways she could never have imagined ...

  Someday soon I’m going to write a book on Irish-American crime writers, incorporating Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, George V. Higgins, Horace McCoy, et al. And now Stephan Talty. The starting point, of course, will be Raymond Chandler’s sojourn in Waterford. Or perhaps Liam O’Flaherty’s wanderings in the alleys of San Francisco? Hmmmm …

And So To Jerusalem

Laurence O’Bryan’s debut novel, THE ISTANBUL PUZZLE (Avon), did very well for itself, thank you very much, when it was nominated in the Ireland AM Crime Fiction category at last year’s Irish Book Awards. The second in the ‘Puzzle’ series is set in Jerusalem, if the title (THE JERUSALEM PUZZLE) is any clue, with the blurb elves burbling thusly:

An archaic manuscript contains a secret, one that could change the world … Behind Lady Tunshuq’s Palace in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, archaeologist Max Keiser has been found dead. In the same city, Doctor Susan Hunter, who was translating an ancient script discovered in Istanbul, is missing. With his girlfriend Isabel Sharp, Sean Ryan is about to piece together the mystery of his colleague Max’s death and Susan’s disappearance. But as they explore the ancient and troubled city, they soon find themselves drawn into a dangerous and deadly game of fire. A taut thriller in the tradition of Dan Brown and Robert Harris.

  If that sounds like your cup of Darjeeling, get thee hence to Laurence O’Bryan’s interweb lair, where he’s running competitions to win signed first edition copies of THE JERUSALEM PUZZLE over the next couple of weeks …

The Green, Green Grass Of Home

Mick Clifford’s GHOST TOWN was one of the finest of the many Irish crime fiction debuts in 2012, and I’m delighted to see it get a snazzy new cover (right) and - presumably - a massive reprint in the wake of all the excellent reviews it garnered.
  Better yet, it looks like Mick Clifford hasn’t allowed the (koff) grass to grow under his feet. There’s a new title due from him later this year, when Headline publish THE DEAL in May. Quoth the blurb elves:

Karen Riney is at a loose end in Dublin, trying to get a job and straighten things out with crime boss Pascal Nix for her jailed ex-boyfriend, when she hits on a great idea to make money. In the depths of recession, there’s no business like the growhouse business. Kevin Wyman, drowning in a sea of debt, also wants to straighten things out with Nix, but his troubles begin to mount when despair sends him off into the world of online affairs. Dara Burns is a hitman for hire who ends up working for Nix, but his past is catching up with him as somebody is intent on making him pay for his crimes. Three diverse characters are thrown together by fate and set upon a trail of greed, destruction and revenge where the best that can be hoped for is just to stay alive.

  A journalist by trade, Mick Clifford appears to have his zeitgeisty finger firmly on the nation’s pulse - only yesterday a growhouse was discovered in Carlow with half a mill’s worth of weed at home. Yup, Carlow. Or Carhigh, as precisely no one will be calling it from here on in …

When The Going Gets Turf …

There’s a very timely offering on the way from New Island Books next month, when they publish Patrick McGinley’s BOGMAIL, one of the great Irish crime novels. First published in 1978, it’s being reissued as part of the Modern Irish Classics series. To wit:

A truly funny and stunningly well-told tale of murder in a small Irish village near Donegal, BOGMAIL is a classic of modern Irish literature. Set in a remote village in the west of Ireland, the action begins with a murder when Roarty, a publican and former priest, kills his bartender then buries his body in a bog. It’s not long before Roarty starts getting blackmail letters, and matters quickly spiral out of his control. Twisty, turny and enlivened with colour that echoes the landscape and surroundings, BOGMAIL was Patrick McGinley’s first novel, yet it remains just as fresh today as the day it first appeared. BOGMAIL got the five-star treatment from Time magazine and The New York Times, and it was nominated for Best Novel in the 1981 Edgars.

  So there you have it. It’s donkey’s years since I first read BOGMAIL, so I’ll be giving it a whirl again in the very near future, just as soon (koff) as my fabulous new copy arrives from New Island Books …

The Morning Redness In The West

Paul Lynch is a name you’ll be hearing quite a bit of in 2013, methinks. His debut novel, RED SKY IN MORNING (Quercus) won’t be published until April 25th, but it’s already creating something of a word of mouth buzz. Quoth the blurb elves:

Spring 1832: Donegal, north west Ireland. Coll Coyle wakes to a blood dawn and a day he does not want to face. The young father stands to lose everything on account of the cruel intentions of his landowner’s heedless son. Although reluctant, Coll sets out to confront his trouble. And so begins his fall from the rain-soaked, cloud-swirling Eden, and a pursuit across the wild bog lands of Donegal. Behind him is John Faller - a man who has vowed to hunt Coll to the ends of the earth - in a pursuit that will stretch to an epic voyage across the Atlantic, and to greater tragedy in the new American frontier. RED SKY IN MORNING is a dark tale of oppression bathed in sparkling, unconstrained imagery. A compassionate and sensitive exploration of the merciless side of man and the indifference of nature, it is both a mesmerizing feat of imagination and a landmark piece of fiction.

  Nice. Meanwhile, the early word is very positive indeed. To wit:

‘Classic storytelling, rough and haunted people and the times that made them, powerfully conjured, written in language that demands attention. Lynch is bardic, given to sly and inspired word selections, with his own sprung rhythms and angled, stark musicality.’ - Daniel Woodrell

‘This book makes the literary synapses spark and burn. Forged in his own new and wonderful language, Paul Lynch reaches to the root, branch and bole of things, and unfurls a signal masterpiece.’ - Sebastian Barry

  So there you have it. RED SKY IN MORNING by Paul Lynch - mark it down in your calendars, people …