My Daddy’s Santa Wish-List

“Hi, my name is Lily. My daddy, Ol’ Sillyput, is currently seeing four keyboards and three PC monitors as a result of the ongoing ‘Operation Eggnog’, so he has asked me to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and an even happier New Year. If you’re reading this, Santa, here’s Daddy’s wish-list:

World peace
The Subbuteo Dukla Prague away kit
Two front teeth
An extra hour’s writing time – per day – in 2009
A modicum of talent
Good health and happiness for all Crime Always Pays readers
For each and every Irish crime writer to buck economic and industry trends to become rich beyond their wildest dreams and / or pay the mortgage, depending on which is the more reasonable aspiration

  “And that’s it. Have a good one, people, and we’ll see you all back here again in January. Boopy-doop!”

God Bless Us, Every One

Just the other day I was wondering how books fared during the Great Depression, in terms of the kind of books being written and their sales. Our Florida correspondent, aka Michael Haskins, sends us Tom Engelhardt’s answer, which comes via the Los Angeles Times. Warning: if you’re a writer, this piece might well ruin your Christmas. To wit:

As for the third factor fostering the illusion of prosperity, it was well known in the business that, during the Depression, books, like movies, had done splendidly. They were an inexpensive distraction, consumable at home at a time when not much else pleasurable was going on. Ergo, books would be no less recession-proof in the next big downturn.
There was no reason to believe otherwise ... unless you happened to focus on just how many dazzling entertainment options had, in the interim, entered the American home at prices more than competitive with the book. After all, most Americans can now read endlessly on the Internet, play video games, download music, watch movies and even write their own novels without stepping outside. The $27.95 hardcover and the $15.95 paperback, meanwhile, are hardly inexpensive. Publishers nonetheless clung to this bit of Depression-era lore for dear life as economic bad times bore down. Wrongly, as it turned out …
  The book remains a techno-wonder that not even the Kindle has surpassed. But it’s a wonder in a very crowded entertainment universe and a world plunging into the worst of times. The chain bookstore, the bloated publishing house and the specific corporate way of publishing that goes with them are indeed in peril. This may no longer be their time. As for the time of the book, it does seem to be shortening as well.

  All of which is pretty gloomy, it has to be said. But here’s the thing: for writers like me, by which I mean someone who isn’t making enough money out of writing to justify doing it, nothing has changed. I’ll keep writing anyway, hoping someone will pick up my next book, and the next book after that. Besides, what else would I be doing with those three spare minutes a day?
  Meanwhile, publishers can’t afford not to support their big sellers, and they can also afford to take relatively cheap punts on the bottom-feeders, hoping that one or two of them will pay off. Which means that it’s probably the mid-listers who are going to get squeezed over the next couple of years. Or am I being excessively pessimistic?

Santa’s Little Helper

’Tis the season to be busy, tra-la-la-la-lah, etc. So, rather than write full posts, here’s a few Weinmanesque Irish crime fic link-type smatterings that have popped up over the last week or so …

Gerard Brennan’s MYTHS AND MOBSTERS sounds like a terrific idea.

Colm Keegan interviews Kevin Power at Uiscebot.

Yet more good news for Stuart Neville …

… and here’s Stuart on AMERICAN TABLOID.

Who knew Ali Karim had a blog?

John McFetridge is still on his meta-fiction crime spree at Bouchercon.

Finally, the Irish Sentinel prints the truth in the news. Ish.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Charlie Williams

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?
I admire tons of books - even worship some - but don’t wish I had written them. However, there’s one by John Franklin Bardin called THE DEADLY PERCHERON that seemed to be successfully doing a lot of the things that I try to do, so I guess I wish I had written it.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Probably a boring, minor character. Most great protagonists are seriously flawed in some way, which is what makes them great but doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness for them. Added to that, my favourite crime novels are the noir ones, where the hero is always doomed. But it would be cool to see a werewolf or a ghost or something, wouldn’t it? OK, Arthur Holmwood from COUNT DRACULA - he gets to help destroy Dracula. Plus he inherits a massive estate during the story.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t feel guilty for anything I read. Books, anyway. I hate the idea of certain genres of books having more worth than others. You know what? I’d rather be seen reading something trashy than the latest Booker-nominated snooze-fest. But sometimes I’m caught looking at things like Hello magazine, so I guess that is the answer.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Any time I have actually laughed at something I’ve just written ... good or bad.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
RILKE ON BLACK by Ken Bruen. Not actually set in Ireland but he’s your boy. I love his other books but this is my fave. Brilliant and underrated.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Probably the above. Amazing that it hasn’t been done yet.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Getting to tell new people you meet that you are a writer. That is both the best and worst thing, depending on who you’re telling it to.

The pitch for your next book is …?
“In the 1970s, David Bowie used to store his urine in the fridge to stop people from stealing it and using it for black magic. What if someone got hold of it anyway? What if that person was Jimmy Page?” Hey, you asked. And no, it’s not really a crime novel in the accepted sense.

Who are you reading right now?
Nothing. this is one of those rare inter-book times. The literary world is my oyster! You know what? I can’t even remember the last novel I read. Can’t have been that memorable.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Hmm ... you need sustenance but you need an outlet too... OK, I’ll say read. And I’ll take up painting or something.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Strange. Funny. Compelling.

Charlie Williams can be found right about here

With Dark Joy, The Madness

The tiny but perfectly formed feedback to the post below suggests that folks aren’t all that optimistic about the short-term future for books, and particularly sales, but I don’t know. I think bad times can produce more great books than good times ever will. As the Chinese proverb-curse goes, ‘May you live in interesting times …’
  Anyhoo, I’m going to end the year on a up-beat note, for – lo! – I got good news last week regarding a project I’ve thinking about for quite a while now. The idea is for a book of essays, interviews and conversations about various aspects of Irish crime fiction, each chapter being written by an Irish crime writer. The names already confirmed include – although this may be subject to change – Colin Bateman, Gerard Brennan, Ken Bruen, Paul Charles, John Connolly, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Reed Farrel Coleman, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty and Neville Thompson. Messers, sorry, Messrs McKinty and Brennan are also on board as editors. Some of the writers’ chapters have yet to be confirmed, but the proposed material that has been is, in my entirely biased opinion, seriously interesting stuff.
  Anyway, the good news is that the project has been given the green light by the Arts Council with regard to commissioning funding, which means that we can afford to pay the writers a token gesture, at least. That means we’re over the second hurdle, and there’s only about 198 left to clear.
  The only downside at the moment is that there’s so few women on board. I have approached a few, but they’ve all been too busy to commit, unfortunately; and I’m still waiting to hear back from a few more. Hopefully the finished product won’t be entirely drenched in testosterone.
  Anyway, if the sound of this beeps even your smallest jeep, don’t be shy about letting us know or spreading the word. Oh, and feel free to suggest a title. I was thinking about using “WITH DARK JOY, THE MADNESS”, which is from a line in Liam O’Flaherty’s THE ASSASSIN. But I don’t know, it doesn’t sit right. Any ideas?

And The Award For ‘Most Endearing Blind Optimism’ Goes To … Salon.com!

“The conventional wisdom in publishing holds that tough economic times are good for books, because books provide more hours of entertainment per dollar, more life-enhancing education and more grist for post-materialistic soul-searching than any other form of purchasable culture …
  “There’s no doubt that escapism pays, especially when there’s plenty to escape from, but great books continue to be published and read, and many of these also provide welcome respite for jittery readers. Remember what it was like to slow down, take the phone off the hook and immerse yourself in a story, true or invented, that made the world around you disappear for hours on end? Or to give yourself the time to understand some important aspect of this world in a deeper and more comprehensive way than any newspaper or magazine can offer?”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

The Sunday Review

Being a cornucopia of reviews of Irish crime writing wot have popped into my inbox this week. To wit:

Siobhan Dowd, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY (Malaysia Star)

Siobhan Dowd, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Siobhan Dowd, BOG CHILD / A SWIFT PURE CRY (Toronto Star)

KT McCaffrey, THE CAT TRAP (Bookspot Central)

John Boyne, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (Publishers Weekly)

Tana French, THE LIKENESS (Seattle Times)

Derek Landy, SKULLDUGGERY PLEASANT: PLAYING WITH FIRE (The Independent)

The Gospel According To Paul. And Philip.

Two relatively new non-fiction crime tomes for your perusal, folks. First up is Paul Williams, crime correspondent with the Sunday World, and scribe of many non-fiction titles on Ireland’s criminal underworld, the latest of which is CRIME WARS. Quoth the blurb elves:

CRIME WARS is a chilling exposé of Ireland’s brutal underworld from the beginning of the new Millennium. In this powerful investigation Williams reveals the stories behind the gangland warfare that erupted, with devastating results, at the start of the 21st Century. He exposes the godfathers and the stories behind the international drug deals, the murders and the mayhem which have all dramatically escalated since the year 2000. Williams reveals the secret worlds of brutal godfathers Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland and paedophile, drug trafficker Christy Griffin. He tells the chilling inside story of the ‘cursed’ Finglas murder gang and the blood-soaked McCarthy / Dundons in Limerick. CRIME WARS uncovers the background of the horrific Grand Canal double murder – one of the worst atrocities of recent years – and tells the story of Joey the Lip, a desperate young man who became a vital witness in a gruesome execution case. Williams also follows the trail of the Syndicate, a huge international drug trafficking conspiracy organised by Irish criminals, which led to one of Europe’s biggest drug seizures. CRIME WARS is a terrifying account of organised crime in modern Ireland.

  Tasty stuff. And then there’s Philip Bray’s INSIDE MAN (written with Anthony Galvin), which gives a flavour of what it’s like to be the guy who locks up the less-than-salubrious types. To wit:

Philip Bray joined the Irish prison service in 1977, working in Limerick Prison. At the time prisons were places where pillows, blankets and even food were scarce. Most prisoners were illiterate and luxuries such as television and books were unheard of. Philip's story of the changes in the prison service charts Ireland's first female high-security prison in Limerick, a place where wealthy Englishwoman-come-IRA-operative Rose Dugdale’s pregnancy went unnoticed, while Limerick Prison's cells were filled with leading Republican figures and later notorious feuding Limerick families and the ‘Dublin Mafia’, whose imprisonment fuelled a violent protest. Philip offers a bridge between the Ireland of yesterday and the Ireland of today in this intriguing account of life in the prison service in one of the most turbulent eras in recent history.

  So there you have it – Granny’s stocking-fillers all wrapped up in one quick post. No, don’t thank me. It’s all part of the service …

In Which The CLOTH Maketh The Woman

Had a bit of a strange albeit pleasant dream last night, in which evil genius Critical Mick descended from his eyrie-style lair to whisper in my shell-like, “Here, what do you make of yon Geraldine McMenamin?”
  “Who dat?” says I.
  “Debut author,” says he – not whispering now, because I’m awake, in the dream at least – “who released THE SAME CLOTH just last month.”
  “Ashamed as I am to admit it,” says I, “but I’ve never heard of her.”
  “You have now,” says he. “Oh, and lay off the cheese before you go to bed. Now go back to sleep and remember to write something about Geraldine in the morning. Or else.”
  “Or else what?”
  “Or the next time I come visit, I’ll be going commando in your Snoopy pyjamas.”
  “Fair go,” says I.
  So – Geraldine McMenamin, THE SAME CLOTH. Quoth the blurb elves:

When Helen Rafferty returns to the village of her childhood in rural Ireland, a chain of events is set in motion that leads her on a chase to discover who has kidnapped her only son. Old childhood friends, haunting images of her past, deep family secrets and the stark reality of her present life are all laid bare as she races frantically to catch up with the kidnapper’s demands. Nothing is as it seems as Helen, submerged in self-doubt and deception, struggles to distinguish facts from hearsay, reality from ruse and trickery. As the truth emerges, so also does Helen’s understanding of who she is and the fundamental lies that have shaped her life. The final denouement is sure to startle.

  Yes indeedy, and I’m reliably informed that the denouement before the final one is a cracker too. Geraldine? If you’re out there, drop us a line – we’d love you to do a Q&A. And if that Critical Mick bloke gets in touch with you, tell him I want my Snoopy jammys back. Ta.

I Can See Clarely Now

The Ennis Book Club Festival in the County Clare has announced its line-up for 2009, and there’s a smattering of interest for Irish crime fiction fiends. Gerard Donovan (right), author of JULIUS WINSOME will be in attendance, as will Aifric Campbell, whose debut THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER appeared earlier this year. Journalist Kevin Myers will also be participating, and no doubt chatting about covering the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, as detailed in his WATCHING THE DOOR; and Gerry Stembridge, who wrote and directed the recent Irish movie Alarm, which was a Hitchcockian tale of paranoia, stalking and double-crosses.
  Meanwhile, says the press release, students from Trinity College Dublin will stage an exclusive performance of “The Trial of Oscar Wilde” at Ennis Courthouse. Nice thinking, folks. Round up all the Trinity thesps in the courthouse under some suitably ‘orty’ pretext, and then send ’em all down for 30 years.
  Sadly, the whole tone of the weekend will be let down by the appearance of one Allan Guthrie, who’ll be there to blather on in his deceptively quiet and droll way about gore, torture and murder. There’s always one, isn’t there?
  The balloon goes up in County Clare, March 6th-8th. For all the details, clickety-click here …

O’Toole’s Of The Trade

Irish journo Michael O’Toole (right) is the crime reporter with the Daily Star, and has just kicked off what could well be a very interesting blog, entitled ‘Crime, Ink: The Blog of an Irish Crime Reporter’. Quoth Michael:

“I’m just trying to show what it is like to be a crime correspondent in Ireland today. I want to talk about crime and what it’s like to report on it. Being a crime reporter today is the most interesting, the most frightening, the most exciting, the most rewarding and most challenging of jobs. Read on and I’ll tell you why ...”

  O’Toole was a co-author, with John Mooney, of BLACK OPERATIONS: THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE REAL IRA (2005). The Big Question: Will O’Toole do the right thing and get scribbling crime fiction? Only time, that notoriously prevaricating doity rat, will tell …

It’s Millar Time

It’s happening tonight, so apologies for the short notice, but the Irish Writers’ Centre didn’t tell me about it and Critical Mick only got in touch with the heads up last night. Anyhoo, it’s ‘Crime Story Night’ at the IWC, and the press release burbles thusly:

Masters of crime fiction: Cormac Millar (Ireland) (right) and Marek Krajewski ( Poland) discuss the subtleties of genre noir.
  Cormac Millar (Ó Cuilleanáin) - writer, translator and lecturer at the Dep. of Italian at the Trinity College Dublin. Author of critically acclaimed and extremely popular crime stories, such as An Irish Solution and The Grounds. he is currently working on another Dublin-based crime story.
  Marek Krajewski - the most popular contemporary Polish crime story writer and one of the most frequently published contemporary Polish writers in the UK; lecturer at the Dep. of Classical Studies at the Wrocław University; awarded various prestigious literary prizes in Poland. His books have been translated into 11 languages.

  It all kicks off at The Irish Writers’ Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 at 7pm, and admission is free to all. Yours truly is otherwise engaged, but if anyone gets along, be sure to let me know how it went …

On Bludgeoning Puppies: Yep, It’s The John Banville Interview

Our good friend Peter Murphy posts a quite superb interview with John Banville (right) on his Blog of Revelations (as far as I know, it’s also carried in the current issue of Hot Press magazine), which intros thusly:

Banville the Booker Winner. Banville the Book Reviewer. Banville the master craftsman who fashions beautifully written novels like MEFISTO, THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE and THE SEA, mapping the inner psyches of his protagonists with forensic precision while co-opting neo-classical themes and allusions.
  Banville the cold Nabokovian prose sculptor who couldn’t make us care about his characters if he bludgeoned their puppies to death before our eyes. Banville the pariah of the chattering literati who accuse him of aloofness and arrogance. Banville the highbrow stylist slumming it in the noir genre under the non de plume Benjamin Black to the derision of an Irish crime-writing contingent who maintain he couldn’t plot his way out of a paper bag.
  Banville the hatchet-jobber who’s driven his pen into the hearts of everyone from Nadine Gordimer to Ian McEwan (whose SATURDAY he termed a “dismayingly bad book”). Banville the ungracious victor, who, after scooping the Man Booker with THE SEA in 2005, sniffed something about being glad that the prize went to a work of art for a change …

  Trust me, it’s a terrific piece, and well worth your time, and especially if you think Banville = Blandville …

LaBeouf: No Beef

Good news and bad news for Alan Glynn, people. The bad news is that Shia LaBeouf has had to pull out of the movie version of THE DARK FIELDS. The good news is that Glynn is on the Fox News radar. To wit:

LaBeouf was supposed to star in director Neal Burger’s new feature, “Dark Fields”. Burger, the man behind “The Illusionist” and “The Lucky Ones”, was supposed to start shooting this fall.
  But the shoot was postponed because LaBeouf had smashed his hand in a car accident last July. He had hand surgery, according to reports, and the injury was worked into “Transformers 2”, which was held up for a month while LaBeouf recuperated.
  Burger had signed him for “Dark Fields”, in which the 21-year-old star of “Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was supposed to play a man who stumbles on a one of a kind smart pill. The screenplay, by Leslie Dixon, is based on a novel by Alan Glynn.
  But now I’m told that LaBeouf has withdrawn completely, and the search is on for a new leading man. “Shia’s hand is totally shattered, it’s much worse than anyone thought,” says a source, indicating the area around the thumb needs more surgery.
  So stay tuned, as all the young actors in Hollywood line up to take Shia’s place.

  Meanwhile, and staying with Alan Glynn-related malarkey, I’m about halfway through his second novel, WINTERLAND, and it’s living up to all the hup-yas so far …

The Sunday Review

Being a cornucopia of reviews of Irish crime writing wot have popped into my inbox this week. To wit:

Cora Harrison, MICHAELMAS TRIBUTE (Monsters and Critics)

Eoin Colfer, ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE TIME PARADOX (Inquirer.net)

Benjamin Black, THE LEMUR (Sunday Telegraph)

Benjamin Black, THE LEMUR (Courier Mail)

Tana French, THE LIKENESS (Sunday Independent)

Andrew Nugent, SOUL MURDER (Shots Magazine)

Philip Bray, INSIDE MAN (RTE Arts)

Brian McGilloway, BORDERLANDS (Mystery Scene Magazine)

Sam Millar, BLOODSTORM (Mystery Scene Magazine)

Ken Bruen, AMERICAN SKIN; Arlene Hunt, UNDERTOW; Andrew Nugent, SOUL MURDER (Irish Times)

The Embiggened O # 2,039: Whither Setting?

Yep, it’s Self-Aggrandizing Saturday, and your host this week is Doug Levin over at Levin at Large, who was kind enough to review our humble tome, with the gist running thusly:

“It’s a compelling, strange, and original novel … The ending is odd and amusing, combining farcical revelation and viciousness.”

  Thank you kindly, sir, your reward will be in heaven. Doug goes on to make some interesting points about the setting of THE BIG O – or, to be precise, it’s lack of specific setting. To wit:

“Many of the reviews / blurbs peg Burke as an Irish writer, which he is, but THE BIG O is not dripping with the overt markers of Ireland -- in terms of landscape, cultural reference, and so on … I like novels (and films) sometimes that seem as if they could be in any city or town, a generic place that could be almost anywhere. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), for instance, depends on its weird surreal, small town setting -- and some of its effect would be mitigated if we all thought the action was isolated to a place like Eureka, California, or Roseburg, Oregon.”

  I’m kind of split on this. I’m happy enough reading stories with non-specific settings, but sometimes I get a real hunger for an exotic setting, and usually one with plenty of sunshine splashing around. Anyone have any plans to set a crime novel in the South Pacific?

On Little Nell, Crime Fiction And The Social Fabric

Yours truly tripped gaily along to the theatre last night to see The Old Curiosity Shop. The director, Alan Stanford, who also adapted the novel for the stage, had this to say in the programme notes about Charles Dickens (right, in ‘sultry belle’ mode):

“His novels, his short stories and his articles have become not only a major portion of world literature but also an important record of the social fabric of his own time. He wrote stories, but his stories were a record of the truth. His books tell us of an England and a London at the start of a new age. An age of Industrial revolution – an age of new Empire – an age of new wealth. But it was also an age of unspeakable poverty, suffering and disease. And of those evils, Dickens chose to write. To a great extent, he opened the eyes of his generation to the sufferings of the poor and weak. The tale teller could not only create characters of such size and range as to fascinate and enthral the imagination of the nation but could even make them, occasionally, examine their own consciences.”

  I’m not saying every genre, including the literary genre, can’t do the same. But it strikes me that crime fiction is the genre best placed to do so, and not only because it’s the most popular kind of writing, and thus likely to result in more occasionally examined consciences, but also because it’s the most immediate record of the social fabric of its time. Does that make it an ‘important record’? I think so. But I also think that things are generally only important up until they begin to revel in their own importance. Here’s hoping crime fiction never crawls up its own fundament in search of self-importance.
  Finally, because it is Friday, arguably my favourite piece of literary criticism, courtesy of Oscar Wilde on dismal fate of Little Nell in THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP: “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it.”

All You Need Is LOVERS

Taking the briefest of breaks from bigging up practically every Irish crime writer out there, John Connolly (right) was last Sunday chatting with the Sunday Tribune about next year’s THE LOVERS, which has just gone off to the publishers. Quoth John:

“The new book is a follow-on from my first book where we found out Charlie’s dad, Will Parker, a cop, was accused of murdering two young people in a car before killing himself.
  “It’s something which has hung over Charlie so this book is an examination of what happened. Most of the book is people sitting around in rooms talking about the past and it’s a challenge to make that interesting to readers.”
  “Then again, it would be too easy to write the same book over and over.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Burke And McFetridge, Going Dutch: Part The Second

John McFetridge is telling a story about over at his internet lair how he and I got stuck into some good old-fashioned blagging on the way to the Baltimore Bouchercon. All I’m saying is I never got no Timbits. Quoth John:

I was next in line when Declan came in and stood beside me, saying, “Couldn’t do it here, though, have to stand in line so long there’d be miles of footage,” and he motioned to the camera on the wall behind the cash.
  I said, “Yeah, and these places are always crowded.”
  We ordered, me explaining that a double-double is coffee with two cream and two sugar and Declan saying, “There’s still room for the coffee, then,” and asking for it black with sugar. We also got a box of Timbits.
  Walking back through the parking lot to the car I said, “I wonder sometimes what Tim Horton would have thought about Timbits,” and Declan said, “There’s really a Tim Horton?”
  “People think he’s like Ronald McDonald. No, he was a hockey player. Started the first one of these places with a cop in Hamilton.”
  Back on the road, Declan said, “But there are some places you don’t have to stand in line?”

  The only quibble I have with all this is that 'Declan' is not a cool name for a stick-up guy. Now read on …
  Part 1 is here.
  Part 2 is here.

(Note To Self: Use Terrible “RIVERs Of Babble-On” Pun Here)

It’s still early doors for Brian McGilloway’s third offering, BLEED A RIVER DEEP, which isn’t due until next April, but already I’m reduced to culling second-hand big-ups from CSNI. John Connolly has been a supporter of McGilloway’s Inspector Ben Devlin series from the off, but here he outdoes himself thusly:

“Inspector Ben Devlin is that rare creature: a detective who is not violent or tortured, but who is intensely, movingly human, and it is his humanity and decency that grip the reader and give these novels a searing honesty. The Devlin books are set to become one of the great series in modern crime fiction.”

  Nice. And just in case you think JC was having an off-day (JC? Having an off-day?) when he penned that little love-bomb, here’s Sir Kenneth of Bruen all a-blurb-o on the back of BLEED A RIVER DEEP:

“Devlin is going to join the ranks of Rebus, Resnick, Davenport and Scudder as one of the reference points of character series.”

  So there you have it. Connolly and Bruen united as one voice. How often is that likely to happen, eh?
  Kidding aside, though – Rebus? Scudder? Let’s hope no one compares Our Brian to James Lee Burke. He’d probably just hang up his quill and retire …

On Equal Writes For Wimmin

I recently interviewed four Irish female crime writers – Ruth Dudley-Edwards (right), Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay and Ingrid Black – for the Sunday Independent about being, y’know, crime writers who are Irish and women. Anyhoos, one of the questions was about why Irish crime writing has so far been dominated by men. Quoth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley-Edwards:

“It may be that Irish crime fiction is dominated by men because so far, it has tended toward the noir,” suggests Dudley-Edwards. “Certainly, very many of the most famous names in classical English crime fiction are female: Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, PD James, Ruth Rendell. Indeed Reginald Hill has a story of being at a cultural event in France where an earnest man rose to ask why most of the writers of the Golden Age [the Thirties] of detection were women. ‘Because,’ explained Reg, ‘all the men were dead.’”

  Oh, and Arlene Hunt is adamant that women no longer need fainting couches. For the rest, clickety-click here.

The Year of La French

I’m coming to this a little late, I’m afraid, but I can’t let it go unremarked – Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet notes how Tana French’s THE LIKENESS topped the Amazon.com editors’ ‘Best Books of the Year’ picks for 2008. No mean feat, it has to be said, and serious kudos to our Tana. Quoth Jeff:

“I don’t know how reliable Amazon.com’s “best books of the year” picks are anymore, now that most of the knowledgeable editors there have been let go. But for what it’s worth, here are Amazon’s top 10 choices of crime novels released in the States in 2008.”

1. The Likeness, by Tana French
2. Duma Key, by Stephen King
3. The Bodies Left Behind, by Jeffery Deaver
4. Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
6. The Dirty Secrets Club, by Meg Gardiner
7. The Fifth Floor, by Michael Harvey
8. The Black Tower, by Louis Bayard
9. The Cold Spot, by Tom Piccirilli
10. Blackman’s Coffin, by Mark de Castrique

  Meanwhile, in a not entirely dissimilar vein, here’s the best 10 crime novels, from any year, I read during 2008:

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, John McFetridge (Jan)
LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (Jan)
The Reapers, John Connolly (Apr)
Fifty Grand, Adrian McKinty (m/s) (Apr)
Dirty Sweet, John McFetridge (Jun)
Swap, John McFetridge (m/s) (Jul)
The Dark Fields, Alan Glynn (Sep)
The Snake Stone, Jason Goodwin (Oct)
The Ice Harvest, Scott Phillips (Oct)
When Eight Bells Toll, Alistair MacLean (Nov)

  Please feel free to disparage my taste in crime fiction / post your own Top Tens / ignore this nonsense entirely, all in your own sweet time …