Get It On, Bang A Gong …

A big day today for Irish crime writing, folks, with our own Squire Declan Hughes (right) up for an Edgar ‘Best Novel’ gong, the winner to be announced tonight at the Edgar bunfight. Nominated for THE PRICE OF BLOOD, Squire Hughes has just released the fourth in the Ed Loy series, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, which my two cents reckons is his best yet, and augers well for award noms next year. Those of you who haven’t encountered the throbbing manliness that is Squire Hughes in the flesh can check him out over here, where he’s interviewed on TV3 alongside true-crime writer Niamh O’Connor on the nature and history of crime fic.
  Said interview is just one of a series of interviews TV3’s Ireland AM have been running over the last few weeks, all part of their coverage and sponsorship of the Irish Book Awards Crime Fiction gong, the winner of which will be announced on May 6th. The shortlist is: Alex Barclay / BLOOD RUNS COLD; Brian McGilloway / GALLOWS LANE; Tana French / THE LIKENESS; and Arlene Hunt / UNDERTOW. The outrageously glam Arlene had her 15 minutes in the arc-lights this week, and you can roll it there, Collette, just here …
  Finally, the most important Crime Fic award of ’em all: the Crime Always Pays pre-Awards ‘Who Should Win The Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award?’ Award, which has been running on the top-left of this here blog for the last couple of weeks. A whopping total of 50 votes or thereabouts later – yes, 50! – throws up a rather unexpected result, with Brian McGilloway topping the poll with 44% of the vote, Tana French coming second-first with 28%, Arlene Hunt third-first with 18% and Alex Barclay fourth-first with 8%. Unexpected, given that crime fiction – in fact, most fiction – is read by women, and Brian was surrounded by a bevy of female beauties. Not that I’m dissing GALLOWS LANE, because I think it’s a terrific novel, and Brian an excellent writer … but I’m wondering if all the ladies didn’t split the female vote and allow Brian in on the rails. Or, is it simply the case that there’s more male readers of Crime Always Pays? Or, is it the case that female readers respond positively to Brian’s Inspector Devlin, a family man who loves his kids? Or, does the male-female aspect of it matter not a whit?
  Questions, questions …
  Oh, one last series of awards: the Spinetingler Awards, which are due to be announced today, in which this humble blog was nominated for a ‘Services to the Industry’ award, and in which Declan Hughes and Brian McGilloway were also nominated in various categories. If you’re Irish, step up to the podium …

UPDATE: Just while we’re on the subject of world-dominating Irish crime writers … The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman (right) launches the hilarious MYSTERY MAN at No Alibis, Belfast, tomorrow night (Friday May 1st), which should be fun, given that the ‘hero’ (I used the word advisedly) of the piece is the proprietor of a Belfast crime fiction store called No Alibis. Confused? You will be … although possibly not as confused as one David Torrans. And as if that wasn’t enough Bateman for you, he’s also turning up at Belfast’s Black Box venue on Monday evening, May 4th, alongside Gene Kerrigan, to do a crime fiction special, kick-off 6pm. No idea what ‘crime fiction special’ entails, but there’ll very probably be tap-dancing, ambient jazz and balloon animals ...

UPDATE UPDATE: As exclusively revealed by our commenting correspondent Bob (thanks, Bob!), Bateman’s MYSTERY MAN has been picked as one of the eight books that will make up Richard and Judy’s ‘Summer Read’ campaign (link provided by Bob in the comment box), which can only fan the flames of the rumours that the BBC have snaffled the option to televisualise said novel on the goggle box. So farewell then, Bateman, as you ascend into the Ether of Greatness – it was nice knowing you, even electronically …

Kane And Able: Sam Millar Returneth

The follow-up to Sam Millar’s BLOODSTORM is in the works, as flagged by the tireless Gerard Brennan over at CSNI (terrific cover, right). THE DARK PLACE: A KARL KANE NOVEL is due in October, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

“Young homeless women and drug addicts are being abducted before being brutally mutilated and murdered, and a city is held in grip of unspeakable terror. The cops are unable – or unwilling – to apprehend the elusive killer, and corrupt politicians turn a seemingly blind and almost approving eye to the catalogue of murders. The perpetrator is cunning, wealthy and influential. More importantly, he has never once made a mistake in his grisly calling – until now. By abducting Katie, the young daughter of legendary private investigator, Karl Kane, the killer has just made his first mistake, which could well turn out to be his last.”

  Not that I’m in any position to throw stones after the Hernandez / Mercado debacle in the Adrian McKinty review below, but over at Amazon UK, they’re touting it as ‘A KARL LANE NOVEL’. Which suggests that Amazon has just made its first mistake … which could well turn out to be its last. Sam? My advice is to sic Karl on their case …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: FIFTY GRAND by Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty’s FIFTY GRAND is officially on sale today, and if that’s not enough to send you into dizzy paroxysms of delight, then it suggests you haven’t encountered Adrian McKinty’s unique stylings before. It also means you’re in for a rare treat when you do read FIFTY GRAND, because it’s a terrific novel from a writer who isn’t just a superb wordsmith, he’s a man with important things to say about this world of ours. Trust me on this: FIFTY GRAND is already one of the Top Five Crime Novels of 2009. Peace, out.

Taking its title from a Hemingway short story, Adrian McKinty’s FIFTY GRAND opens in Cuba before moving on, via Mexico, to Colorado, as a Cuban cop, Hernandez, goes illegally undercover in the US to investigate her father’s death. The Hemingway homage is a brave one, inviting ridicule and accusations of hubris, but McKinty has long been purveying a blend of muscular lyricism in which collide the brutalities of the crime novel and a knowing, self-effacing literary style.
  His sixth novel for adults (he also writes the ‘Lighthouse’ series for children), FIFTY GRAND offers a challenging conceit, which is to put the tough, spare rhythms associated with classic hard-boiled novels (think Hemingway himself, James Ellroy, James Cain) into the mind of a first-person female protagonist. The result is an incendiary, adrenalin-fuelled thriller, but one that also functions as a blackly hilarious social satire of the skewed values of pre-Obama America, as Hernandez, in the role of exploited illegal immigrant, infiltrates the glitzy world of Colorado’s ski-resort set, cleaning up the mess left behind by Hollywood‘s jet-set.
  Most successful of all, however, is McKinty’s ability to slip inside Hernandez’s skin. The undercover Hernandez is thrown back on her own resources as she investigates her father’s death and brings those responsible to a very particular kind of justice, without recourse to conventional resources. As vulnerable as she is tough, as scared as she is determined, as fragile as she is lethal, she makes for a highly unusual, creepily authentic and utterly compelling anti-heroine.

  This review was first published in the Sunday Independent

Git Along Lil’ Dogie: Yep, It’s The Monthly Round-Up

Being a pick-‘n’-mix of highlights from the Crime Always Pays archive for April. To wit:

The inaugural Irish Crime Fiction Awards are announced, with Tana French, Brian McGilloway, Arlene Hunt (right) and Alex Barclay shortlisted … and no, the absence of John Connolly is not an April Fool’s Joke.

A quick Q&A with Gene Kerrigan ahead of the launch of DARK TIMES IN THE CITY.

John Connolly announces that the follow-up to THE LOVERS will be THE GATES, a story about quantum physics and, erm, Satanism …

The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman is interviewed ahead of the launch of MYSTERY MAN.

The latest casting announcement for the adaptation of Ken Bruen’s LONDON BOULEVARD, as Ray Winstone, David Thewlis and Anna Friel join Colin Farrell and Kiera Knightley … Mmmmm, Anna Friel

Pre-launch of BLEED A RIVER DEEP, Brian McGilloway offers his Top Ten Irish Crime Novels in The Guardian.

Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE: It goes all the way up to eleven, apparently.

Crhyme Time

Gerald So was kind enough to forward on a sneak preview of THE LINEUP 2, the second anthology of crime fiction poetry, so the least I can do is repay the favour with a word or two. To wit:

“What does poetry have to do with crime?” asks Patrick Shawn Bagley in his thoughtful introduction to THE LINEUP 2, the second anthology of poems on crime edited by Gerald So. Poetry brings stillness and clarity to thought and vision, a precise bearing on the random chaos of everyday life, of which crime is an ever-present. The poems of this collection belong for the most part in that all-too-brief pause between the lurid headlines of journalism and the dramatic reconstructions of fiction, lines that wriggle their way into the crawl-space in our minds that lies between judgement, prejudice and consequence. If poetry is about anything, is about poignant, haunting truth. In ‘Visiting Hours, State Pen’, Amy MacLennan writes:

“Her lipstick
fresh, she unpins a nametag
(an all-night market),
from her blouse.”

… and your heart breaks, or should. “Crime,” wrote W.R. Burnett, “is but a left-handed form of human endeavour.” Crime fiction poetry might well be a left-handed endeavour, but boy, that Southie can punch a hole in your heart.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Nate Flexer

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?
POP. 1280 by Jim Thompson. One of the more subversive books ever written. And a great philosophical discussion on whether pleasuring a pig would constitute rape.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Fred from Scooby Doo. I liked his orange ascot. Plus, the dude got more ass than a toilet seat. By the way, was I the only one who was more attracted to Velma than Daphne? Really? I was?

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I enjoy reading self-help books.

Most satisfying writing moment?
When my mother finished reading THE DISASSEMBLED MAN and asked if there was anything she could have done differently in raising me.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE BUTCHER BOY by Patrick McCabe. McCabe is a master at creating off-centre protagonists, and Francie Brady is the most off-centre of them all. I’m not easily disturbed, and that book frickin’ disturbed me.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
PRIEST by Ken Bruen. THE BIG O by Declan Burke.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best thing is the incredible amount of wealth that I’ve accumulated. I now use hundred-dollar bills to wipe my ass. The worst is the paparazzi. I can’t even go on a date with the local hooker without getting swarmed.

The pitch for your next book is …?
I’m working on a book tentatively titled CROWS IN THE STEEPLE. It’s a Wyoming Gothic. The protagonist is a fellow named Benton Faulk who is either a returning war hero or a delusional psychopath, depending who you believe. It’s a story the whole family will enjoy.

Who are you reading right now?
THE WIDOW by Georges Simenon. Can you say nihilism?

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
I would tell God that he should concern himself with something a little more important than my reading and writing habits. Like that pothole on Steele Street, for example. Well, nobody else in town is doing anything about it!

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Frightening, warped, repulsive. Oh, my writing? I thought you were asking about me.

Nate Flexer’s THE DISASSEMBLED MAN is available now.

“They Say The Fucking Smog Is The Fucking Reason You Got Such Beautiful Fucking Sunsets.”

Andrew Nugent is an interesting man, being a crime fic writer and a monk in Glenstal Abbey, and he had something interesting to say while reviewing Brian McGilloway’s BLEED A RIVER DEEP on the Op-Ed pages of the Irish Times during the week. Quoth Brother Nugent:

“I was so surprised at the frequency of the F-word that I began counting from page 168. From that point there were 55 sightings. Whatever about what real people do or do not say, with such glorious resources of vituperation available to us – especially in Irish – why repeat so obsessively these Anglo-Saxon grunts?”

  Now, the problem with insulting someone in Irish – as gaeilge – is that very few people are going to be offended, unless of course it’s the Irish-speaking few you’re trying to offend ...
  As for the Anglo-Saxon grunts – as Brother Nugent points out, this is how real people speak in the real world, particularly when they’re under pressure, which is how characters in crime fiction tend to be, particularly as the end of a novel approaches. So it’s possible to argue that an author who aspires to realism has no choice but to use foul language, and particularly ‘fuck’, that gloriously adaptable noun / verb/ adverb / adjective.
  You could also argue that foul language has its own poetry, and that there’s a rare joy to be had in reading a master of the profane (cf: the post title, courtesy of Ray Barboni, in the movie version of Elmore Leonard’s GET SHORTY).
  You could also say, ‘Fuck it, I just like the word “fuck”.’ Personally, I also like “shite”, “cunt”, “bollocks” and “me arse”.
  As always, I blame the parents …

THE TWELVE: This One Goes Up To Eleven

Being the ornery kind of cynic who tends to assume that a book’s quality declines in inverse proportion to the amount of hype it generates (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO being a case in point for yours truly), I’m delighted to say that, having just finished Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE, it’s everything it’s cracked up to be. Which is terrific, not least because I know Stuart, and it’d have been embarrassing if it wasn’t. But – huzzah! – it delivers in spades, right from page one. A tale of an ex-paramilitary killer bedevilled by the ghosts of his victims, it’s a timely offering, a superb revenge thriller that is as tender in parts as it is brutal, and a courageously genre-bending story in the way it deploys supernatural elements. No wonder John Connolly loved it. James Ellroy was impressed too, as was Ken Bruen (see vid below for details).
  What’s a little scary for yours truly – this with my writer’s pork-pie on – is the extent to which Irish writers have stepped up a gear in 2009. We’ve already had Declan Hughes’ finest novel to date, in ALL THE DEAD VOICES (not bad going, when you consider his previous novel, THE PRICE OF BLOOD, is up for an Edgar Best Novel), Gene Kerrigan’s superb DARK TIMES IN THE CITY, Colin Bateman’s funniest novel in years, MYSTERY MAN, Adrian McKinty’s excellent FIFTY GRAND, and Alan Glynn’s forthcoming WINTERLAND, which is tremendous. Ken Bruen’s collaboration with Reed Farrel Coleman, TOWER (due in September) is a whole new departure, and we still have to get a sniff of John Connolly’s THE LOVERS. Brian McGilloway has delivered his best to date with BLEED A RIVER DEEP, and Tana French, Arlene Hunt and Alex Barclay are currently beavering away on their latest projects.
  Maybe 2009 will be seen as an annus mirabilis for Irish crime writing, but somehow I don’t think so – at least half of the writers mentioned above are relatively new to the game, and are still on their second, third or fourth novels. Exciting times, people. Very exciting times …
  Meanwhile, the vid below is the book-trailer for Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE. Roll it there, Collette …

“Ah, The Roar Of The Sawdust, The Smell Of The Crowd …”

Yours truly tripped the lights fantastic and briefly stumbled into the bright glare of showbiz yesterday morning, courtesy of TV3, which is due kudos for its coverage of Irish crime writing, which has pretty decent for quite a while now, but which has cranked up a considerable few notches ever since Ireland AM announced it was sponsoring the inaugural Irish crime fiction gong at the Irish Book Awards. Shortlisted author Brian McGilloway (yep, it’s Brian McGilloway week on CAP) was interviewed last week, when he revealed that BLEED A RIVER DEEP was titled for an Ed Harcourt song, while another shortlistee, Tana French (right, and shortlisted for THE LIKENESS), got a grilling on Tuesday, although I can’t pretend to know what she actually said, being too distracted at how radiant the lady was looking.
  Thursday morning’s interview lowered the tone a little, as The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman and The Artist Forthwith To Be Known as Some Dodgy Chancer gave it large about crime fiction and the movies, and the best book-to-movie adaptations of all time. My split vote goes to THE GODFATHER, a masterpiece derived from (if memory serves) a not particularly brilliant novel, and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? / BLADE RUNNER, which is a novel of uneven pleasures, but a terrific sci-fi neo-noir movie, and genre-bending at its best.
  Clickety-click here for Brian McGilloway …
  … here for Tana French …
  … and here for Bateman and S.D. Chancer. Roll it there, Collette …

McGilloway Or The Highway

Brian McGilloway (right): mild-mannered teacher by day, exquisitely-mannered crime writer by night. You don’t want to mess with him, he’ll give you detention … at the school of hard knocks!!! (dum-dum-DUM, etc.). Anyhoos, to celebrate the launch of his latest fine novel, BLEED A RIVER DEEP, Brian had his Top 10 Irish Crime Novels on The Guardian’s blog today. Quoth Brian:

“Crime fiction has taken off in Ireland over the past few years with a number of our best writers winning awards and making an impact on the international scene. If anything marks out the movement it’s the sheer diversity of sub-genres, from PI novels to police procedurals, by way of political satire and screwball comedy. And that’s not including John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series which is absent here only because it is set in the USA. Many of the recent group of Irish crime writers (myself included) cite Connolly as the inspiration that got them writing. As an introduction to this recent growth and range in the genre, here are 10 of my favourites from the past decade.”

  As you might well guess from the fact that I’m featuring said Top 10 on CAP, Brian had the extraordinary good taste to include our humble offering THE BIG O in his list. The Big Question: Did Benny Blanco (from the Bronx) make it? To find out, clickety-click here …
  And then come back here and tell us all what novel(s) Brian left out that should have made it in …

The General Reading Public: Morons?

I got a pretty depressing email yesterday, from a guy who is a terrific writer (names not mentioned, for courtesy’s sake), the gist of which ranneth thusly:

“I have pretty much decided to treat fiction writing the way I did before I started making a living at it (appropriate, since I no longer am), which is to just do it for my own amusement, if it gets published and I get a little check once in a while so much the better.”

  Which followed hard on the heels of a very similar email from another terrific writer, who’s pretty down in the dumps about his latest book, which is marvellous, but which he reckons might well be his last, because he’s a grown man with real responsibilities and who the hell can waste time writing brilliant novels when there’s kids to be fed and roofs to be kept over little heads …?
  Meanwhile, the publishing world is agog with rumours that there’s record printings of Dan Brown’s latest waste of a rain forest.
  There’s something not quite right, folks. Either the general reading public are morons, which I very much doubt, being one of said public, or the people running the industry are the morons.
  But I have to say, while writing novels ‘just for my own amusement’ is the best reason in the world to do it, writing novels for fun because no one wants to buy them, while the likes of Dan Brown, that plank Grisham and Waistoid Patterson sell by the barrow-load … Actually, hold on – scratch the paragraph above. The general reading public are morons.
  This blog will self-destruct in 10 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 …

Another Dahlia, Another Dollar

I bumped into Garbhan Downey last summer, at a nice little books festival in Kilkenny organised by Neville Thompson, and a nice bloke he was too, and still is, presumably. More importantly, perhaps, or certainly as importantly, he’s a damn fine and funny writer. His latest, THE BLUE ROSE, looks to be a sort-of follow-up to RUNNING MATES (2007), which is terrific news for yours truly, because I loved RUNNING MATES, even though it was funnier than my own stuff, which is something I generally hate, but which put me in mind of a kind of crime fic Norn Iron Tom Sharpe. Anyhoos, quote the blurb elves:

Who says flower growing is for pansies …?
  A gardening competition in a little country village ends up throwing three governments into turmoil when it sparks an international race to grow the world’s first blue rose.
  Irish premier John Blake is forced to team up with semi-reformed gangsters Harry Hurley and Vic McCormack to stop British and American politicians shanghaiing the Mountrose Prize and walking off with a billion-dollar patent.
  Bugging, burglary, sabotage, murder and sexual deceit – it’s all part of the rose growing business. And the bad guys are even worse …

  So there you have it. Garbhan Downey. THE BLUE ROSE. If it’s not the funniest politically inspired crime fic caper you read all year, I’m a lesser-spotted greenfly.

Publish and Be Damned # 237: Will Hoyle

Here at Crime Always Pays, I occasionally post an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, mainly because I’m a parasite feeding off the talent of others. So I’m delighted to announce that a previously CAP-published exclusive will land on a shelf near you early in 2010, as the good folk at Mercier Press have signed up Kevin McCarthy’s PEELER. Nice one, Kevin.
  Anyhoos, on with the post in hand, being an excerpt from Will Hoyle’s (right) TIME AND TIDE. Will Hoyle has previously featured on CAP here or hereabouts, so feel free to clickety-click when you’re done here …

TIME AND TIDE

1. DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN
South Boston, MA – 2008:

Guys that look like me don’t do well in prison.
  They just don’t, it’s proven fact. If you’re not one of the blacks or the Mexicans or the skinheads or the chinks, you’re in no man’s land and you might as well kill yourself on the first night because you’d only last two days, maybe a week tops and that’s if you get yourself thrown in solitary. If you’re just an average guy who’s not quite white trash but who’s not exactly white collar either, the only way you even think about taking a long hot shower or eating a peaceful meal at chow time without finding your own dinner fork oscillating in your back is if you’re a degenerate mick convict who at one time worked for my old man, if you’re still loyal to him now. And as blind luck has it, I’m a spitting image of the sonofabitch, the soft-spoken but equally seedy criminal, racketeer, loan shark, gunrunner and convicted cold-blooded murderer.
  Billy Ray Landry.
  I know that his death will mean my death but when you got nothing and when you know he takes away and takes away without ever giving a single thing back, the color of your skin and the status of your prison popularity starts to mean a lot less. When he took away that one thing in the world and came away with a menial forty-five year sentence, up for parole in twenty, the color of daylight, of your own blood starts to mean a lot less to you.
  Leaning against the brick structure of the Kelley’s Pasta Village on the corner of E. 3rd and L Streets, dragging on my Marlboro and slowly working my way into doing what I swore to myself I’d do.
  Still dark, still early.
  The sky a deep blue watery grave, the morning sun a ravenous, reclusive beast. Car horns, ambulances, cop cars screeching and wailing and serenading the city with their monotonous, luminous nocturnes.
  The unmistakable stench of diesel fumes and car exhaust, grime and garbage, dirt and desperation.
  A massive hangover from of a night of blood drunkenness, the smell of Italian food that’s been sitting cold and clumpy throughout the night, forcing my stomach and the world around me to spin against one another like yin and yang.
  I fish my cell phone from my pocket and check the time. Nearly five in the morning, the bitterly cold sea breeze whispering up the port and through the streets, as unseen and unmerciful as the Angel of Death. I stand and wait in this northeastern nebula of a city, crammed and packed into this blue-collar community, this hard knocks haven. Restless, can’t sleep, and honestly who could when you have as much weighing on your mind, your shoulders and your heart as I do? It was a long walk to get here, and I know it’ll be an even longer one into the loving arms of Boston’s finest.
  The brown leather jacket covers the gray wife beater with the frayed edges and the snag and the sweat stains in the armpit and that just barely covers the black Smith & Wesson .44 hiding in the waistline of my jeans. The one Billy Ray gave me, ions ago. Another lifetime ago. The one he used to chase her with down the dark and muddy and lonely Eagle View Road back when I was still a baby. Before I was big enough to actually defend her.
  The one I plan to raise some hell with even though it’s not even loaded.
  Through the thick clouds of cigarette smoke, I squint over at the Exxon across the street, Newhill Plaza opposite the gas station on the corner of E. 3rd. When I cut my eyes back over to the station, I pay close attention to who goes in, and more importantly, who comes out.
  Flailing headlights, the warm buzz of the occasional car and the clunking and roaring and grating motors that propel them, all blazing down L Street ahead of me and all around me. I wait for the cattle to clear the beaten path before I even attempt to cross the street and do what I told myself I had to do.
  What I have to do or I won’t respect myself later tonight or any other night for that matter.
  I run a surprisingly steady hand through the long and unruly dark blond curls on my head and use my dirt-caked fingernails to scratch my dry scalp. I reassure myself it’s just a deep itch and not a nervous tick. I reassure myself that I’m not apprehensive at all because actually getting away with this crime is not something I’m really trying to do anyway.
  I’m the ticking time bomb who will intentionally fail to detonate.
  Now that the sunrise has finally managed to crane its neck up from behind the navy blue skyline of downtown Boston and up from over the top of Southie’s brand new row of condos, I know I look more than suspect as the unrefined, tattooed construction worker type, loitering and staking out the gas station across L Street, the enclave’s main drag. My location is completely intentional but no one else in the world would know that and after I’m apprehended, I’ll probably end up on one of those World’s Dumbest Criminals programs. Maybe I should’ve come later in the day, rush hour maybe when I’d cause a lot more attention. It’s common knowledge that most criminals don’t want to be seen, noticed. But even though I look the part of the lowlife, the grimy and seedy petty crook, I think I’ll just take a seat on the dirty tile floor and light up another smoke and wait until the cops take me willing and grinning to Cedar Junction Maximum Security Prison after I stick-up the Exxon.
  It’s not like I have a deathwish or I’m scared to be a contributing member of society because I have been for the past eight years. It’s just that now she’s gone and she was the only family I had except for Billy Ray.
  I wait and I smoke and I continue to lean against the pizzeria until I see the subtle hints of the sunrise, batting its eye up from behind the John Hancock Tower. That’s when I leave behind any lingering apprehensions along with the shortened cig butt I crush beneath one of my steel-toed Wolverines. That’s when I quickly secure the .44, take a deep breath, wait for the Pest Control van to clunk its way through the yellow light and then cross L Street without waiting for the pedestrian crosswalk sign.
  A jaywalking armed gunman, off to do the Devil’s work.

  © Will Hoyle 2009

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Mark Billingham

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?
Well as so many people say Chandler, I’ll be awkward and plump for Hammett. Almost eighty years on and THE MALTESE FALCON is still nigh-on perfect. It’s fizzing, fat-free and I sometimes think the key to its longevity and brilliance is the fact that there aren’t really any nice people in it at all.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Oh, Tom Ripley, definitely. Money, fine wine, French cheese, a harpsichord, a deliciously ambiguous sexuality and the ability to murder anyone who gets in your way without a moment’s guilt. What’s not to like?

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I’m not really guilty about anything I read, though I would probably need a long hot shower if I lost my mind temporarily and accidentally read any Jeffrey Archer. I read a lot of crime fiction, probably way too much, but many good friends are crime writers and I’m going to read their books anyway, because they’re mates. So the crime novel usually wins out if it’s a toss up between that and a slim volume of indescribably moving poetry. Actually, the poetry would make me feel guilty...

Most satisfying writing moment?
Generally, finishing something, or getting some piece of feedback from a reader or a colleague that validates something you’ve tried to do. When I was at school I did something fairly beastly, involving a frog and a cricket bat. Look, I was a KID, OK, and a bigger kid made me do it. Anyway. I used that scenario in a book and a writer called Kevin Wignall, when he read the book, mailed me and said “You did that, didn’t you?”. I was really chuffed that I’d obviously managed to put across the shame and horror of that moment so vividly. Or maybe Kevin just saw through my sad attempt at catharsis. It was a HELL of a shot though ...

The best Irish crime novel is ...?
I think John Connolly is a unique voice (he’ll be REALLY mad at me for saying that) and his are always books that I will rush to read. I’m going to plump for the first, EVERY DEAD THING. I read it while I was struggling with my first book, and I almost gave up trying because EDT was so bloody good.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
John is understandably protective of Charlie Parker, so I’d love to see his stand-alone BAD MEN at the movies, but if he ever does let the rights go, THE BLACK ANGEL could be a wonderful film. And I know it’s not a crime novel, but if Guillermo Del Toro got hold of THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS ...

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best? It’s a close-run thing between the free books and being asked where you get your ideas from. There aren’t too many bad things (let’s face it, it’s a bloody marvellous way to make a living) but I’ve never got used to the creative schizophrenia; the fact that you look at something you wrote the day before and thought you were happy with, and it suddenly appears to be unpublishable rubbish.

The pitch for your next book is ...?
It’s tricky because there are different books coming out here and in the US. They’re a book behind in the states, so they’ll be publishing DEATH MESSAGE, while the newest book, BLOODLINE, will be out in the UK this August. Er ... both will have Tom Thorne in, and a body or two. There may be some country music. And the murder will not be solved by a cat.

Who are you reading right now?
OK, the best thing is actually getting free books that haven’t even been published yet. So, once I’ve finished THE SMOKING DIARIES by Simon Gray (shock, horror: not crime at all, but an attempt to enjoy cigarettes vicariously) I’ll be getting stuck into the forthcoming books by George Pelecanos and the aforementioned Mr Connolly. Can’t wait.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Oh, read, no question. Reading is always an enormous pleasure and sometimes, writing ... isn’t.

The three best words to describe your own writing are ...?
Better than Archer’s.

Mark Billingham’s BLOODLINE will be published in August.

Literary Hi-Jinks; and, Being A Jinx

Off with us then on Tuesday night to Waterstone’s, to hear Brian McGilloway and Declan Hughes (left and right, respectively) give it large about their new novels, BLEED A RIVER DEEP and ALL THE DEAD VOICES, in particular, and crime fiction in general. Interesting it was too to hear the gents chat about how the crime writer needs to be on his or her toes to keep abreast of events, in terms – here in Ireland, at least – of the boom-to-bust economy, and the recent upsurge in dissident Republicanism.
  Among the glitterati were Alan Glynn, whose forthcoming WINTERLAND is a terrific read; Professor Ian Ross of Trinity College, the proverbial gentleman and scholar; Critical Mick, the proverbial saint and scholar; and John Connolly, whose perfectly coiffed barnet Squire Hughes appears to be measuring in the pic above, perhaps for some bizarre phrenology cult they’ve got going on (note too the tome FROM POVERTY TO POWER, cunningly located between two crime writers for maximum irony).
  Anyhoos, post-Q&A it was off to the pub for the second leg of the annual Mighty Pool vs Chelski Chumps League face-off, which ended 4-4. I got there just in time to miss the second of the Pool’s goals, when they went 2-0 up, and left just before they knocked in the second brace with ten minutes to go. It may be coming time to consider the possibility that I’m a jinx.
  Back in 1981, I went over to Anfield to see the Mighty Pool play Brighton (& Hove Albion) F.C. Back then the Pool could boast the likes of Dalglish and Hansen, Clemence and Souness, Neal and Kennedy (possibly even two Kennedys), Terry McDermott, Phil Thompson … in essence, it was the side that beat Real Madrid to win the European Cup later that year. The result on the day? 1-0 to Brighton, Michael Robinson bundling one in at the Kop end. Jinx?
  But back to business … A little birdie tells me that Alex Barclay (right) will be taking part in the inaugural Image Author Evening, alongside Claire Kilroy and John Boyne. It takes place in the Fitzwilliam Hotel, Stephen’s Green, Dublin, at 6.30pm on April 23rd, and you’re promised ‘refreshments, canapés and a book-filled goodie bag’, the event to be hosted by our good friend Bert Wright. If that all sounds a bit too good to be true, well, tickets are €40 a pop, with group rates available. Seems pricey to me, but then I’m a penniless scribe, so what do I know…? For details and or / booking, contact Jennifer Ryan on 01 280 8415 or email jryan@image.ie.
  I won’t be there, obviously. Not because it’s too expensive, but because I’m a jinx, and if I turn up Alex Barclay will probably start speaking in tongues or summat …

Yet More Trouble A-Bruen …

It’s still only Wednesday, and already it’s a good week for Sir Kenneth of Bruen. First off, he’s been nominated in the ITW’s ‘Best Short Story’ category, with the full shortlist looking a lot like this:

BEST SHORT STORY
Between the Dark and the Daylight (Ellery Queen Magazine) by Tom Piccirilli
Last Island South (Ellery Queen Magazine) by John C. Boland
The Edge of Seventeen (The Darker Mask) by Alexandra Sokoloff
The Point Guard (Killer Year Anthology) by Jason Pinter
Time of the Green (Killer Year Anthology) by Ken Bruen

  For all the details on all the categories, clickety-click here. The winners will be announced at ThrillerFest 2009, July 8-11 …
  Meanwhile, more casting details for ‘London Boulevard’ have popped up, with Ray Winstone, David Thewlis and Anna Friel joining Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. Quoth Variety:

Ray Winstone, David Thewlis and Anna Friel are set to join Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell in ‘London Boulevard.’ William Monahan directs the crime drama this summer in London, with financing coming from Graham King’s GK Films. Drama revolves around a freshly paroled London criminal who becomes involved with a reclusive young actress. Winstone will play a former crime boss. Thewlis will play the reclusive actress’ agoraphobic business manager, while Friel will portray the criminal’s sister.

  Ray Winstone as a former crime boss? Altogether now: “You caaaaaaaaant ...”

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Matt Rees

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 really would be prepared to strangle fluffy kittens and bite the heads off chickens to have written THE BIG SLEEP.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Hammett’s Continental Op. So that I’d finally know his actual name.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels. Makes me feel like a manly man and an excited little boy at the same time.

Most satisfying writing moment?
In my second crime novel THE SALADIN MURDERS, I found myself crying during as I wrote one particular scene in which the hero, a Palestinian schoolteacher, is being stoned by kids. At the time I thought, “Wow, I must be good. I can even make myself cry.” After the novel was finished, I realised I had been experiencing a traumatic memory of the same thing happening to me as a foreign correspondent during the intifada. That was even more satisfying, because I saw that I had been able to take a very deeply felt emotion of my own and make it belong to a character on the page. I also saved myself some psychiatrist bills.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR by Gene Kerrigan. I like that fact that he tosses out a lot of what the genre holds sacred, mainly in the character of his detective. I’ve found as a journalist everything ends up black and white, but as I’ve reported more and more on the Palestinians and Israelis I’ve seen that the truth lies in the grey areas, where only fiction can find them. I detect a similar element in Gene’s writing, after all his years as an investigative journalist. That comes through very strongly in THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR, where the detective is forced to confront his own immorality: the bad he’s done in a good cause may simply be bad.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
As a Celt and a history buff, I think one of Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma novels would make the transition to the big screen rather well. (Ok, he’s not Irish, but his father was from Cork, I believe, and Sister Fidelma’s certainly Irish.)

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst: I get quite a few emails to my website from rabid anti-Semites who assume that because I write about the Palestinians I must hate Jews. I don’t enjoy that, at all. Best: Every moment I write feels like a meditation, such deep concentration. I just know that it’s good for my brain. (Second best: no bow ties. Anyone who’s ever sat at the next desk to a boss who wore a bow tie will understand what I mean.)

The pitch for your next book is …?
Omar Yussef goes to New York for a UN conference. He takes the subway to Brooklyn to visit his son, who lives in the part of the borough known as Little Palestine because of all the new immigrants from the West Bank. When he reaches the apartment, he discovers a dead body in his son’s bed … It’s the fourth in my series. It’s called THE FOURTH ASSASSIN and it’ll be out early next year, examining what it's like to be a Muslim in a city where many people think all Arabs are terrorists.

Who are you reading right now?
Peter Hoeg (THE QUIET GIRL). Set in Copenhagen, where I just visited on a book tour. He wrote MISS SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW. Before that, THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy, which, as a new father, I found devastating because of the main character’s hopeless attempts to protect his son from a hostile world.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
I’ve lived in the holy city of Jerusalem for 13 years. I don’t eat kosher food and I smuggled a sandwich into the Palestinian parliament during Ramadan. If God hasn’t cracked down on me for that, he isn’t going to be bothered about whether I’m reading or writing. But if you put me on an island and said: “The complete works of Shakespeare, or a laptop computer?”, I’d go with the book and make up stories in my head (without God noticing).

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Not bloody journalism.

Matt Rees’s THE SAMARITAN’S SECRET is published by Atlantic Books

“Unaccustomed As I Am To Saying The Word ‘Unaccustomed’ …”

Those of you in the greater Dublin area could do a lot worse on Tuesday evening than take a jaunt in to Waterstone’s on Dawson Street, where two of Ireland’s finest scribes, Brian McGilloway (right) and Declan Hughes, will be doing a joint reading, from BLEED A RIVER DEEP and ALL THE DEAD VOICES, respectively. Proceedings kick-off at 6.30pm. My advice, Brian? Go first. Try reading after Hughes and you’ll end up looking a right plum. That boy can project … The Brian and Declan Show then heads north to Belfast and No Alibis, on Thursday evening, kick-off at 7pm …
  Meanwhile, another double-act, Gene Kerrigan and The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman, grace Galway’s Cuirt festival with their presence as they promote their latest tomes, DARK TIMES IN THE CITY and MYSTERY MAN, respectively. They’ll be reading, cracking gags and soft-shoe shuffling from 6.30pm at the Town Hall venue, on Friday, April 24th.
  Man, I need to get myself a side-kick. Any volunteers?

The Sunday Review

It’s Sunday, they’re reviews, to wit: Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE isn’t due until July, but Library Thing is already impressed: “The book is a savage, tender tale of the futility and fragility of the search for peace in Northern Ireland … Neville is uncompromising about violence and the truly terrible situations that his duplicitous characters and innocents alike find themselves in, but the tale itself storms along like a runaway train and all the reader can do is watch with bated breath as it hurtles towards a brilliant finale. I found the ending surprisingly unpredictable and utterly satisfying. The story is poignantly relevant, and the premise absolutely original and something which raises this novel well beyond a run-of-the-mill thriller.” Nice one … Derek Landy’s new Skulduggery Pleasant gets the big up at The Times: “Derek Landy’s latest Skulduggery Pleasant caper, THE FACELESS ONES, has the detective and his sidekick, Valkyrie, on the track of a killer and the ‘Faceless Ones’. Hard-boiled detective wisecracks mixed with magic will not suit every 9+, but it’s fast and funny.” Over at Euro Crime, Michelle Peckham likes Declan Hughes’s ALL THE DEAD VOICES: “This is a tense, well-written thriller … It weaves together the different threads of the story expertly, and every word counts. So, read and enjoy, but pay attention or you might miss something!” You have been warned … Staying with Euro Crime, Paul Blackburn was impressed by Geraldine McMenamin’s THE SAME CLOTH: “The story moves along at a fast pace until the surprising conclusion. This is the first book by Geraldine McMenamin and I will certainly be looking forward to her next.” Over at the Irish Times, Kevin Power reviews Gene Kerrigan’s DARK TIMES IN THE CITY in the ‘Book of the Day’ slot: “This is a novel that uses a beautifully spun crime narrative to say something interesting about Ireland in the here and now … DARK TIMES IN THE CITY is a serious book, but it wears its seriousness lightly, and never forgets that it’s a thriller. It is – to coin a phrase – seriously entertaining.” Finally, it was a pretty good week for Brian McGilloway. First Cathi Unsworth larged up GALLOWS LANE in The Guardian: “McGilloway, with his lovingly rendered landscapes and all-too-fallible detective, continues to investigate invisible demarcations of power, ancient lines of conflict and the shadowlands of the human psyche.” Crikey! But there’s more! The Waterstone’s Crime Squad are on the case with BLEED A RIVER DEEP: “Inspector Devlin is a fascinating addition to the ranks of crime fiction’s favourite detectives and is surely here to stay … All you fans of the police procedural should make sure that this writer’s latest book is number one on your shopping list for BLEED A RIVER DEEP has barely a word out of place, carries the faint tickle of sly wit and is as satisfying as a long, slow sip of Jameson’s on ice.” Corks! What say you, Sue Magee at The Book Bag? “The book is well-written with enough twists in the plot to keep a corkscrew happy … It’s been suggested that this series could be up there with Rebus, Resnick et al. That’s a little generous at the moment (or too high an expectation, depending on your viewpoint) but the book compares well with early- to mid-period work by Rankin and Harvey. You’ll not be wasting your time reading the book and this could well be a series to watch in the future.” So there you have it. Brian McGilloway: a fine writer, stud muffin, and all-round top bloke. Make you sick, wouldn’t it?

Crime Fiction: The Second Draft Of History # 341

I’ve mentioned before how the Irish Times has been bucking the global trend by increasing its books coverage, with a ‘Book of the Day’ review on the Op-Ed pages supplementing its traditional coverage in Saturday’s Review section. It’s a ballsy move, and they’re not above getting down ‘n’ dirty with the crime fic crew either. Ava McCarthy’s debut THE INSIDER got a rave two weeks ago, and this week it was Gene Kerrigan’s turn, with Kevin Power reviewing DARK TIMES IN THE CITY. To wit:

“Kerrigan, no slouch, is alert to the possibilities of the thriller form. This is a novel that uses a beautifully spun crime narrative to say something interesting about Ireland in the here and now. (It’s strikingly up to date: Kerrigan has, I think, written the first Irish novel that manages to take account of the global financial crisis – doubly impressive when you remember that most Irish writers haven’t even caught up with the boom years yet.)”

  DARK TIMES … is strikingly fresh as a snapshot of Ireland’s crumbling façade, but it’s not the only novel to capture the current mood and tone. Declan Hughes’s ALL THE DEAD VOICES is not only mired in economic failure, it also dared to predict the recent upsurge in murderous dissident Republicanism. Alan Glynn’s forthcoming WINTERLAND is similarly pessimistic about Ireland’s economic future, in a story which quite literally lays bare the shaky foundations of the boom years as politics, business and gangland conspire to hoodwink Dublin’s denizens. And Ken Bruen has been writing about the decline and fall for a couple of years now, as Jack Taylor notes how Galway’s glossy party rep gets duller by the year.
  Being a pompous windbag, I’ve said before that if journalism is the first draft of history, crime fiction is its second. I’m generalising, of course, and as always, but crime fiction does seem to me to be the most relevant kind of writing out there. Is it because writers need to keep up with the always innovative criminals? Does the form itself have an immediacy that lends itself to the now? Is it simply a matter of recycling the classic three-act structure and filling in the gaps with tomorrow’s headlines? Or a more cynical case of today’s taboo being next year’s best-seller?
  Over to you people. Comment is free …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: BRODECK’S REPORT by Philippe Claudel

“My name is Brodeck and I had nothing to do with it.”
  The opening line of Philippe Claudel’s novel is as stark and affecting as that of any classic hard-boiled noir, but BRODECK'S REPORT is much more than a crime narrative, or even a narrative of crimes. Set in a remote village somewhere in the German-speaking part of France, in the wake of ‘the war’, it opens with Brodeck being commissioned by his fellow villagers to tell the truth of what happened to the ‘Anderer’, the ‘Other’, a mysterious outsider who arrived in the village with his horse and donkey, took up residence over the village inn, and was subsequently murdered by the villagers.
  Brodeck, who writes reports on the locality’s flora and fauna for the Administration, is one of the few educated men in the village capable of recording what happened. That Brodeck is himself an outsider, who arrived in the village as a child, a refugee in the wake of an earlier war, gives his tale an added poignancy. The story of the novel, however, runs parallel to the report he is compiling, and is in effect Brodeck’s autobiography. The murder of the Anderer is simply the wedge that cracks open a haunting tale of love and loss, of pogroms, death camps and war-time atrocities.
  A Professor of Literature at the University of Nancy, Philippe Claudel is a prize-winning author in his native France. He is best known outside of France for writing and directing the recent Kristin Scott Thomas movie, ‘I’ve Loved You So Long’. The narrative of BRODECK'S REPORT, however, is anything but linear. Instead Claudel favours an elliptical approach, drawing the reader into the horrific truth at the core of the story by utilising time-loops, segues and digressions, flashbacks within flashbacks, all the while building towards a climax with the weight of the accumulating narratives pushing the tale forward inexorably.
  The combination of circuitous narrative and allusive setting may prove problematic for some readers. The village’s locality is never pin-pointed, and nor is the historical period. ‘The war’ is frequently referred to, but never specified, and while there are modern references – to trains, say, or robots – the bucolic village setting, and its lack of machinery, could easily mean that the story is for the most part set in an earlier century. Brodeck, meanwhile, is deported to the death camp because he is a ‘Fremder’ – a ‘foreigner’ – rather than for any of the justifications the Nazis employed.
  But Claudel has bigger fish to fry than the uncovering of any one particular atrocity, or even Brodeck’s harrowing personal testimony. Man’s inhumanity to man may sound like a thesis worthy of a sixth-form school essay, but it is one worth repeating, especially when Claudel pins it to a timeless backdrop that allows parallels to be drawn with Srebrenica, say, or the Sudan, or any other conflict, past, present or future, where individuals can be characterised as less than human for the purpose of eradicating them and their kind from the face of the earth.
  The overarching theme may be epic, but what gives BRODECK'S REPORT its haunting quality is Claudel’s ability to make intimate the details of losses suffered, his skill at exposing the flesh-and-blood humanity of not only the victims, but also that of the killing machine. Beautifully written, in a terse yet lyrical prose that is a credit to the translator, John Cullen, it is a superb novel, equal parts Kafkaesque disorientation, Primo Levi’s devastating accounts of the killing camps, Italo Calvino’s post-modern playfulness, and Jean Genet’s unflinching eye for the sewers through which the blood of our histories flow. – Declan Burke

This review first appeared in the Sunday Business Post

Masturbation, Pink Sharks And THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL: Yup, It’s The Bateman Interlude

MYSTERY MAN is the latest novel, squire. What’s the skinny?
“I kind of wrote it by accident. I’ve launched nearly all of my three hundred and twenty-seven novels in No Alibis bookshop in Belfast, a fine mystery bookstore indeed, the best an only one in that city of twelve stories. Mmm, good title for book … The Stories … but when I do a reading I always read from the first chapter - you don’t need any confusing set up. But when I was launching DRIVING BIG DAVIE about four years ago the first chapter was all about masturbation, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that – the reading – in front of my relatives. So instead I wrote a short story using the shop as the location, and the owner as a part time detective. It just got a lot of laughs. So when I launched the next book, I wrote a second story, it went down just as well, and then the novel just seemed to write itself.”

The No Alibis-style crime fiction bookstore; the famous Irish literary author turned crime writer; a snivelling weakling as first-person narrator – aren’t we dangerously close to meta-fiction here, if not actual autobiography?
“Absolutely right, it is almost entirely autobiographical. I hope it’s an affectionate tribute to crime writers, book sellers and readers, even if I do depict them all as being sad and mental. Actually, squire, I think the entire book has been as much influenced by CAP as anything, it’s one of the first sites I turn to in the morning. Although I’m now definitely bracketed as a crime writer, I’ve never really been or felt part of a ‘scene’ or attended many conferences or the like, and I don’t mix with other crime writers at all (not out of choice, out of being a lazy bugger), so CAP is like a nice club to visit.”

The whole Norn Iron Prods vs Taigs thing – why can’t you just get along? Eh?
“We may fight, but at least we can add up, which clearly you lot south of the border can’t do. The Celtic Tiger, hah!”

Rafa Benitez: messiah or messer?
“When he was good he was very good, when he was bad he was awful. If you remember that eventually, your team ALWAYS, lets you down, then you can be fairly relaxed about it all. And having won the Champions League in ’05, we, and I mean WE, really don’t have to do anything else for about twenty years.”

You’re obviously a terrific writer. How come you’re wasting your time on that crime fiction trash?
“I love that ‘obviously’! I think most of us writers can only write what we can write - we can’t suddenly put on a ‘literary’ hat or start writing poetry, or for that matter a Mills & Boon novel. I suppose it’s whatever floats your boat. That said, when I started out I was asked if I wanted to be in the crime section and I said no, I wanted to be free to write whatever stories I wanted. So twenty three books down the line, including the children’s ones, there hasn’t been one that hasn’t featured crime or thriller elements. So I guess it’s in the DNA.”

Do you write comedy crime fiction or crime fiction comedy? Is there a difference? And why the comedy? Yon crime’s a serious business, like …
“I just write the stories and let other people decide what they are. I kind of half-remember watching a Charlie Drake movie on TV when I was a kid in which he was a comedian who tried to go straight, but people kept laughing at him, and I think that has always been my fear. I have been re-branded with a comedic look, which I’m fine with and the books all look great together, but it can be a bit restrictive - my last book ORPHEUS RISING was as far from a comedy as I can imagine, but you wouldn’t necessarily have known that from the large pink shark on the cover. A shark which only appears in the first paragraph. And wasn’t pink. MYSTERY MAN, however, IS supposed to be a comedy, probably the purest comedy I’ve written.”

Who were your big inspirations and / or heroes?
“Marvel Comics, science fiction magazines, pulp fiction, movies, movies, movies, Robert B Parker, Liverpool. I would give it all up to play for Liverpool, but the bloody phone never rings. I still play twice a week, but the clock is ticking.”

If you could assume authorship for one writer’s back catalogue, who would it be?
“Do you know, the only writer in recent years whose books I’ve consistently enjoyed has been Robert Harris - FATHERLAND, THE GHOST, etc. The problem with 95 per cent of what we call ‘crime fiction’ is that it’s all exactly the same, like it’s written by a software programme. Harris is very understated, and all the more thrilling for it. I’ve started reading David Peace now, and I like the style. Has also made me think a bit more about going back to The Troubles for a book; I was fed up with writing about terrorists etc. but it might be the right time to re-visit.”

Who’s the sexiest living crime writer?
“Alex Barclay, obviously. She said the same about me. And then I woke up.”

Any new Norn Iron writers we should be keeping our eyes peeled for?
“No. I REALLY don’t need the competition.
Stuart Neville’s book obviously is coming soon, and Brian McGilloway seems to be taking off and Adrian McKinty’s new one ... I am) in the process of putting together an anthology of Noirish fiction, and I’ve seven or eight really good stories, but not quite enough for a book - we are a very small country though, and maybe I shouldn’t expect there to be a dozen or so good crime writers. But I think we’re punching above our weight.”

You don’t read a lot of crime fiction. Why so?
“I’m very easily influenced, mostly. As you’ll see from above, I’m coming over all David Peace and I’ve hardly started him. And also, a lot of it makes me want to throw it through the window of a bus.”

The next one is called THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL. What’s all that about?
“Well, we had a marketing meeting, and decided if we married THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS with MARLEY & ME we might have a hit on our hands. Actually, it’s the sequel to MYSTERY MAN. And I used to have a Jack Russell. Also, I was wondering, has there been a crime novel where someone actually flogs a dead horse?”

Finally, why aren’t there more redhead crime writers? Is it a conspiracy?
“My favourite joke of all time is: ‘My wife’s a redhead. No hair, just a red head.’ Actually, it’s the one about the news report saying a car has crashed through a wall into Dublin cemetery, and so far Garda have recovered two hundred and thirty bodies.”

Bateman’s MYSTERY MAN is published on April 30th

JC Vs The Satanists

When is a stalker not a stalker? When he’s a queue. If John Connolly (right) looks out of the windows of his mansion any time soon, to see a man in a shabby raincoat standing at the gates, it’ll be yours truly, waiting not to flash him again (he laughed the last time, and had his coachman lash me with a quirt) but for a copy of THE GATES. Quoth JC:

After finishing THE LOVERS, I worked flat out on THE GATES. It was a labour of love. I so wanted to write it, and I didn’t care if it was going to be picked up or not. Oh, it would have hurt a bit if it had been rejected by my publishers, but I wouldn’t have regretted a moment of the time that I spent writing it. I was able to let my imagination run riot, while at the same time retaining a thread of pure science. At times, it felt like a bit of a balancing act, and I’ve asked the physics department of my old university to check the science to make sure I haven’t mangled some very complicated stuff too much, but I hope that the enthusiasm behind it is communicated to those who read it. We’ll see.
  So THE GATES is a book that combines quantum physics and, well, Satanism, I suppose …

  I. Am. So. There.
  Mind you, it puts paid to my own quantum physics-inspired novel THE GATES, in which computer whizz Bill Gates, ’70s crooner David Gates, and be-mulleted crafty schemer for Ipswich Town FC’s early ’80s UEFA Cup winners Eric Gates all fall into a black hole and come out mind-melded in a parallel universe – a universe where there are no gates, only revolving doors. Oh, the humanity …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Sean Chercover

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 honestly don’t wish I’d written other people’s books. Just doesn’t occur to me to think that way. But if I had to pick one, it might be A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Lawrence Block. Or any of the Factory series by Derek Raymond. Or PORT TROPIQUE by Barry Gifford. Or ...

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Popeye, the sailor man.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I spend far too much time reading cookbooks.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Probably when my two-year-old son held up a copy of TRIGGER CITY and said, “Trigga Ciddy! Da-Da book!”

The best Irish crime novel is …?
The Jack Taylor series, by Ken Bruen. PRIEST may be my favourite, but I look at that series as one long episodic novel. Another that I could wish I’d written, if I thought that way.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Well, I’m very excited that a couple of Ken’s books are being made into movies. I’m a big fan of Declan Hughes and I think his work would play well on the big screen. And John Connolly is awesome. THE BLACK ANGEL would make a great movie.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst? The critical voices in my head that jeer at me when the writing isn’t going well. Best? Everything else. I absolutely love this job.

The pitch for your next book is …?
... a secret, for now.

Who are you reading right now?
God. Well, not God, but those cats who wrote the Bible. And a bunch of books on Buddhism and Voodoo and quantum physics. All research for my current work-in-progress.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
That’s just cruel. I suspect that if stopped reading, my writing would start to suck after a while, so I’m tempted to choose reading. But if I’m tempted, then maybe it isn’t really God. Maybe it’s Satan. So maybe I should choose writing. Either way, I’m screwed.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Modesty forbids. But if you want to see what words other people use to describe my writing, scoot on over to www.chercover.com, where you can read plenty of review quotes, learn more about me and my books, and even enter a contest and maybe win stuff.

Sean Chercover’s latest novel is TRIGGER CITY

The Sunday Review

One of these kids has to be wrong, and for once I’m hoping it’s Myles McWeeney. Reviewing the new Declan Hughes novel, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, in the Irish Independent, McWeeney says: “This is the fourth Ed Loy mystery and Declan Hughes continues to up the Irish noir ante with this assured and gory examination of the relationship between IRA splinter groups and crime in Dublin.”
  Nice. But then Claire Kilroy, in the Irish Times, has this: “Hughes’s four previous Loy novels were characterised by a strain of high Gothic which centred around the Big House, the notion of fate, and of corrupted bloodlines … Loy is a winning combination of caustic cynicism and romantic idealism, an adept at Beckettian failing better … Hughes gives the reader an ending which confounds the expectations of the genre, and which is all the more satisfying for it.”
  So – is ALL THE DEAD VOICES the fourth or fifth Ed Loy novel? Does Claire Kilroy know something we don’t know? And if so, how come Squire Hughes is holding out on us? Was it something we said? Something we didn’t say? Questions, questions …
  Anyhoos, upward and onward to the new Derek Landy, THE FACELESS ONES, being the third in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, which Sarah Webb in the Irish Independent likes a lot. To wit: “It’s non-stop action from the first page on … Landy’s dialogue crackles with authenticity and wit … If you want to keep your youngster reading, look no further. It’s Landy to the rescue again.”
  Nice. Over at RTE, Tara Loughrey-Grant is loving Twenty Major’s second novel, ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: “As shockingly entertaining as his debut novel was, ABSINTHE is a better read. The plot is tighter, more mature with added suspense keeping the reader glued until the very last page. Twenty brings Barcelona to live, in full 3D colour, enabling the reader to become part of his hedonistic, dysfunctional team.”
  Lovely. Meanwhile, Henry Sutton at the Daily Mirror is bigging up Gene Kerrigan’s rather marvellous DARK TIMES IN THE CITY thusly: “The dark side of Dublin is the star in this brilliantly written slice of Irish noir, featuring a good man who gets himself on the wrong side of a very bad lot.”
  Gorgeous. Last word this week goes to the inimitable Glenn Harper over at International Noir, who’s been perusing the latest from The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman: “Bateman’s last novel, ORPHEUS RISING, was magic realism rather than crime fiction, and in the new one, he has come back to crime with a comic vengeance … Good news, since MYSTERY MAN is the funniest crime novel since Bateman’s own DIVORCING JACK and CYCLE OF VIOLENCE.”
  Lovely jubbly.

Being Benny Blanco

One of the nicest things about running this blog, and being a freelance journalist, is that you get to meet terrific writers on a semi-regular basis, and ask them stuff you’ve always wanted to know, being an inveterate nosey-parker. In the last week or so alone, I’ve hooked up with Alan Glynn and Gene Kerrigan, and I’ll be meeting with Declan Hughes in the coming week. Which is nice, because you never know the day nor the hour when some of their pixie dust might settle on your own shoulders and turn you into a terrific writer too.
  All three regular readers of CAP might be pleasantly surprised to learn that I met with John Banville (right) during the week, John Banville being perhaps better known to readers of this blog as Benjamin Black, or Benny Blanco (from the Bronx). They might also be surprised to learn that he was courteous and cautious to begin with (it was an interview scenario, loosely based around his ‘Being Benny Blanco’), and then became eloquent, funny and considered when talking about crime fiction in general, and Irish crime fiction in particular. There was, to be quite frank about it, a refreshing lack of bullshit about the proceedings (from his side of the table, at least).
  Incidentally, ‘Benjamin Black’ was at an early stage ‘Benjamin White’, named for a character from NIGHTSPAWN, Ben White. Man, they really should have gone with ‘Benny Blanco’, shouldn’t they?
  John Banville’s reputation as a difficult interviewee precedes him, but I have to say I found him thoroughly entertaining company. Perhaps he was demob-happy, having finished the latest John Banville novel last week, a novel he began in 2004. The good news for Benjamin Black fans is that he plans to complete two Black novels before the year is out.
  So – one John Banville novel takes the best part of five years, and two Benjamin Black novels takes eight months (give or take). Does that piss me off? Certainly (although mostly because it takes me eight months to write a first draft). Is it because I think he disrespects crime writing by writing the Black novels so quickly? Not after listening to him explain why he writes them so quickly, and why he can. It helps, of course, that I’ve been a fan of the Banville novels since God was a boy.
  Anyhoos, the point of the exercise was for a project I’ve mentioned previously, which is / will be a collection writings by Irish crime authors about crime writing. Originally conceived as a series of essays, it has since broadened out to include interviews and short stories, and will hopefully be something of a Rattlebag of crime writing. The working title is now ‘DOWN THOSE GREEN STREETS … Irish Crime Narratives in the 21st Century’, and the ‘narratives’ aspect will be broad enough to encompass film, theatre and journalism as well as novels. Contributors confirmed include, in no particular order: John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Alan Glynn, Gene Kerrigan, John Banville, Julie Parsons, Eoin McNamee, Brian McGilloway, Arlene Hunt, Colin Bateman, Gerard Brennan, Neville Thompson, Adrian McKinty, Ingrid Black, Paul Williams, Tana French, KT McCaffrey, Paul Charles, Professor Ian Ross, and Cora Harrison.
  A small but perfectly formed commissioning fund has been provided by the Irish Arts Council, and some of the pieces have already started to filter through, not least those from Adrian McKinty, Gerard Brennan, Neville Thompson and The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman. If the rest of the material is of the same standard, and I have no reason to doubt that it will be, it’ll be a terrific read. I’ll keep you posted.