Uptown, Top Rankin

The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman gets in touch to avail of the two molecules of oxygen publicity Crime Always Pays offers, suggesting that we might like to mention the fact that tonight, Thursday 22nd, he’ll be interviewing one of the crime writing world’s luminaries tonight in Bangor, Norn Iron. To wit:

“I’m launching ‘Colin Bateman’s Crime Night’ at the Aspects Literary Festival in my local manor of Bangor, which will in a very minor way feature the launch of my new novel, NINE INCHES, and in a very major way see me attempt to interview Ian Rankin in the festival marquee before 300 baying fans of yon Scottish bloke. Amongst other questions, I will ask him if he would ever considered dropping his first name and just being called Rankin, because it’s all the rage.”

  Short notice, I know, but hey - that’s the way the Batemeister rolls. For booking details, clickety-click here.
  Meanwhile, I understand that said whippersnapper Ian Rankin also has a new title for your delectation, said tome being called THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

Malcolm Fox and his team from Internal Affairs are back. They’ve been sent to Fife to investigate whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague, Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of misconduct with his own uncle, also in the force, having proved to be his nephew’s nemesis. But what should be a simple job is soon complicated by intimations of conspiracy and cover-up - and a brutal murder, a murder committed with a weapon that should not even exist. The spiralling investigation takes Fox back in time to 1985, a year of turmoil in British political life. Terrorists intent on a split between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom were becoming more brazen and ruthless, sending letter-bombs and poisonous spores to government offices, plotting kidnaps and murder, and trying to stay one step ahead of the spies sent to flush them out. Fox has a duty to get at the truth, while the body count rises, the clock starts ticking, and he fights for his professional and personal life.

  So there you have it. Two titans of the contemporary crime writing scene together at last, in Bangor, Norn Iron. The place may never be the same again …