Out Of Aifric

Here at CAP Towers, the elves are always on the look-out for new Irish crime writers, not least because new writers save the elves the trouble of generating fresh material themselves, the lazy midget buggers. So it’s three cheers, two stools and a lusty huzzah for Aifric Campbell (right), whose THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER will be published on April 24. How do we love thee, Aifric? Let us count the ways … Gorgeous? Check. Smarter than us? Check. Writing superior crime fiction? Check. Operating a state-of-the-art interweb thingy? Check. Did her greyhound win the Irish Derby when Aifric was 15? Check. Quoth the blurb elves:

Jay Hamilton lives a comfortable life in fashionable west London, listening to the minor and major dysfunctions of the over-privileged clients who frequent his psychoanalysis practice. But the darker recesses of his own psyche would not stand up to close examination: his brother Richard, a genius professor of mathematical linguistics, was apparently killed by rent boys in Los Angeles and Jay was the first on the scene. Author Dana Flynn is determined to scratch beneath the surface while researching a biography she intends to write about Richard, and finds that Jay’s professional life is as precarious as his personal relationships – he uses his clients’ case studies as material for his fiction writing. Such is Jay’s hunger for recognition as a creative force that he exploits the vulnerables he counsels, and a decision not to intervene when a troubled patient steals a baby causes his past to unravel.

Lovely, lovely, lovely. But is it any good? “This gripping psychological drama hooks the reader into a compelling labyrinth of sibling rivalry and stealthy passion. It is an intellectual novel of ideas written with real verve and style,” says Patricia Duncker, while Stevie Davies largely concurs: “A profoundly original new writer. THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER leads us on a dark and thrilling quest through murderous spaces of the mind, in a prose of startling and inventive beauty.”
So there you have it. Aifric Campbell. THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER. Sorry, Ms ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards, but it looks like we found ourselves a new stalkee …

A hat-tip to Karen Meek at Euro Crime for the inside dope.