Down These Green Streets …

… quite a few men and women must go, very few of whom are in any way mean. In fact, they’ve all been pretty generous in contributing to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY, a collection of essays, interviews and short fictions written by Irish crime writers about the sudden explosion in Irish crime writing (academics in a tizzy, right). Declaration of Interest: the collection has been put together by your humble host.
  As all three regular readers will be aware, this project has been simmering for some time now, but I had a meeting with an Irish publisher last Friday morning and it was finally given the green light. Contracts are in the process of being issued, so it’s probably polite not to name names until all is signed and sealed, but the wheels are in motion and GREEN STREETS should see a shelf near you by spring, 2011.
  As for the contributors, well, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of Irish crime writing. In alphabetical-ish order: John Banville, Alex Barclay, Colin Bateman, Ingrid Black, Gerard Brennan, Ken Bruen, Paul Charles, John Connolly, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Tana French, Alan Glynn, Cora Harrison, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, KT McCaffrey, Eoin McNamee, Cormac Millar, Andrew Nugent, Niamh O’Connor, Professor Ian Ross and Neville Thompson.
  You’ll appreciate that I’m biased, but having read all the submitted pieces, it’s a terrific collection. What’s most interesting about it, I think, is the sheer diversity of the writers and the subjects they chose to write about … a fascinating rattlebag, indeed. I’ll keep you posted on developments, naturally, and I’ll be nailing up a list of contents at some point in the near future …