Shivers Down The Spine

Book-spine poetry seems to be a thing. Here’s an offering from a selection of new crime novels sitting on my shelves right now …

Winter Wonderland

As I understand it, John Connolly’s THE WOLF IN WINTER topped the bestseller charts in Ireland and the UK while I was away on holidays, which is marvellous news but not entirely surprising – to my mind, THE WOLF IN WINTER is one of the finest of John Connolly’s books to date. I was particularly impressed by its ambition, as you might guess from this snippet from an Irish Examiner interview published last week:

THE WOLF IN WINTER finds Charlie Parker investigating the disappearance of a young woman and the apparent murder of her father, a homeless man who lives on the streets of Portland in Maine. Far from resting on his laurels, the 46-year-old author has blended a novel of social conscience into his traditional private eye tale, and also explores themes of ancient and contemporary spirituality.
  “It’s because I enjoy doing it,” says John when I ask why it is that he seems so restlessly self-challenging. “I love what I do, and if you love what you do you take a kind of craftsman’s pride in wanting to produce the best work possible. I know that there are writers who object to that word ‘craft’, who say that a book is art or it’s nothing. But I don’t get to decide what’s art and what isn’t. That’s a function of time as much as anything else. And all art is a function of craft. You work with craft and if you’re lucky there’s a moment of transcendence and you produce something that just slips past that barrier, whatever it may be, and becomes something slightly greater than its parts. But you don’t get to decide those things. All you can do is sit down each time and write the best book you can.”

  For the rest of the interview, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, Declan Hughes reviewed THE WOLF IN WINTER for the Irish Times, and a very fine piece it is too. You’ll find it here …

Eyes On The Prize(s)

Apologies for the breakdown in transmission over the last fortnight, folks, but yours truly trundled off to Cyprus for a holiday, where a wonderful time was had by all.
  Back to business, then, and we’ll kick off again with a hearty congratulations to Adrian McKinty (right), Gene Kerrigan and Stuart Neville, all of whom have been shortlisted for Barry Awards. Nice work, gents. Adrian McKinty has all the details and the full shortlists over here …
  And while we’re on the topic of award nominations, it’s an equally hearty bon chance to The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman, who has been shortlisted – for about the seven hundredth time – for the Goldsboro ‘Last Laugh’ gong, which will be awarded at Crimefest next month. Colin Bateman, as I’m sure you all know, is a previous winner of the ‘Last Laugh’ award, which is given for Best Humourous Crime Novel. For all the details – and all the Crimefest award shortlists – clickety-click here …

SLAUGHTER’S HOUND: Now 99p, Apparently

You’ll forgive me, I hope, for pointing you in the direction of the Kindle-friendly edition of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which is currently retailing at 99p, or roughly one-third of what I last paid for a creamy coffee. What the price of coffee has to do with it I’m not entirely sure, but everyone seems to equate the price of books with that of coffee these days, and I’d hate to be the one marching to a different drum (because, perhaps, of an over-indulgence in coffee).
  Anyway, you’ll find the 99p Kindle-friendly SLAUGHTER’S HOUND here, where you’ll also find some big-ups that read a lot like this:

“Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.” – Lee Child

“Slaughter's Hound has everything you want from noir but what makes it special is the writing: taut, honed and vivid . . . a sheer pleasure.” – Tana French

“Declan Burke sets the scene for the most perfect noir novel ... The only way Harry Rigby could be more like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe would be if he rode around in a 1930s Chrysler and called all the women dames ... In the very American realm of hard-boiled crime fiction ... few of his peers over the Atlantic can hold a candle to him.” – Sunday Times

“Many writers of crime fiction are drawn to the streetwise narrator with the wisecracking voice Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have a lot to answer for but only a handful can make it credible and funny. Irish writer Burke is one who has succeeded spectacularly well ... From the arresting opening image to the unexpected twist at the end, this is a hardboiled delight.” – The Guardian

  As always, if you feel moved to share this news by clicking on one of the tiny buttons below, I will be very grateful indeed …

How To Write A Novel: Louise Phillips

The NOIR-WEST Passage

Editor James Martyn Joyce gets in touch to tell us about NOIR BY NOIR-WEST (Arlen House), a collection of short stories out of the West of Ireland that has already staked a strong claim to title of the year. To wit:

NOIR BY NOIR-WEST presents new short fiction by 30 of Ireland’s best established and emerging writers; stories filled with menace and intrigue, with wit, wind and rain.
  From small town streets in millennium Ireland to the frontline trenches of World War 1, these stories represent a new departure in Irish literature, with contributions by Galway writers including: Mike McCormack, Órfhlaith Foyle, Ken Bruen, Geraldine Mills, Kernan Andrews, Cristina Galvin, Des Kenny and Celia de Fréine.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

The Verdict Is In

The latest in Cora Harrison’s ‘Burren Mystery’ series, VERDICT OF THE COURT (Severn House), came across my desk last week. It features, as they all do, the 16th century Brehon judge Mara, a woman who is, to paraphrase Edgar Quinet, as tough and fair as time itself. To wit:

A festive celebration turns into a fight for survival when Mara and her clan come under attack ...
  Christmas 1519: in the midst of celebrations, the Brehon of Thomond is found dead and it is Mara’s difficult task to investigate the murder. Then suddenly the castle is attacked: how will Mara’s husband answer the call for surrender?

  I reviewed Cora’s previous novel, CROSS OF VENGEANCE, last year, and enjoyed it very much. For more, clickety-click here …

Review: IN THE ROSARY GARDEN by Nicola White

The latest crime fiction column in the Irish Times featured offerings by Pierre LeMaitre, Kim Cooper, James Naughtie and Maurizio de Giovanni. It also included a review of Nicola White’s IN THE ROSARY GARDEN, which ran a lot like this:

Set in Ireland in 1984, Nicola White’s In the Rosary Garden (Cargo Publishing) centres on the discovery of a dead infant in the grounds of a convent. Given the place and particularly the time, Detective Vincent Swan has to proceed carefully as he investigates how the child was killed, and why it was left to be discovered in a convent, and matters are further complicated by the fact that this is not the first time that schoolgirl Ali Hogan has discovered a dead baby. White’s debut – the novel won the Dundee International Book Prize late last year – has haunting echoes of recent Irish history, and White has no compunction in pointing the finger at the patriarchal society that plays a significant part in the tragedies detailed here. The novel is by no means a polemic, however. An unusual but absorbingly twisting narrative is hugely enhanced by White’s creation of Detective Swan, a complex man whose own frustrated paternal instincts ensure that a highly politicised case becomes very personal indeed. ~ Declan Burke

  For the rest of the column, clickety-click here …

The Celts Are Coming: aka ‘Celtic Crime’

The good people at Severn House are publishing a number of Irish and Scottish authors under the banner of ‘Celtic Crime’, which – given that I am one of said authors – seems a rather nifty idea to me. The writers involved include Declan Hughes, Cora Harrison, Anna Sweeney, Caro Ramsey, Lin Anderson and Russel D. McLean.
  For more info on any (and, indeed, all) of those writers, clickety-click here …

Launch: THE TEMPORARY GENTLEMAN by Sebastian Barry

Miller Time

It’s not very often I report on publishing deals here at CAP, but this week’s news about Jax Miller (right) – aka Aine Domhnaill – is the stuff every aspiring writer dreams of. A couple of weeks ago, over at the Irish crime writing Facebook page, Aine posted that she’d just finished her book, and was already in talks with Simon Trewin about ‘film potential’. Today, in the Irish Independent, Aine – writing as Jax Miller – confirms to John Spain that she has signed a London Book Fair pre-empt two-book deal for FREEDOM’S CHILD worth ‘a substantial six-figure sum in sterling’. Suh-weet. Quoth Aine / Jax:

“I finished my novel on Tuesday, Simon Trewin of WME literary agents in London read it on Wednesday, signed me on Thursday and sent it to HarperFiction on Friday.
“The deal was finalised overnight on Monday and I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow and find it was all a dream.”

  For all the details, clickety-click here …