The Hound Of The Launchervilles

I mentioned last week that Liberties Press will this month publish my latest novel, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, said tome being a Harry Rigby mystery. It’s going to be an interesting time, I think, because SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is a more traditional kind of crime novel than was my last offering, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which played around with narrative and character and was something of a meta-fiction.
  SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, on the other hand, is a private eye story - at least, Harry Rigby starts out as a private eye, or ‘research consultant’, in EIGHT BALL BOOGIE, which was first published in 2003 and is being republished by Liberties complete with a gorgeous new cover.
  So I’m a little bit nervous, I have to say, as to how SLAUGHTER’S HOUND will be received. AZC garnered some very nice reviews from people who liked the fact that it wasn’t a traditional crime novel, and I’m hoping that those people won’t be disappointed by the fact that SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is. In fact, I may start taking bets as to how long it’ll take for a review to conclude with the words, “ … but unfortunately, this book is all bark and no bite.”
  Mind you, if it wasn’t that then I’d be nervous about something else. Publishing a book is one of the most wonderful and simultaneously nerve-wracking experiences there is. And on top of all that there’s BOOKS TO DIE FOR, which I co-edit with John Connolly, and which also hits a shelf near you later this month.
  Good times …
  And now, a trumpet-parp please, maestro. For lo! It is my very great pleasure to announce that the Dublin launch of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND will take place on Wednesday the 22nd of August at 6.30pm, at Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street, Dublin 2.
  If you’re able to get along, it really would be terrific to see you there.
  Meanwhile, on August 30, I’ll be in Belfast’s Ulster Museum with John Connolly for the three-way launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, John’s latest Charlie Parker novel THE WRATH OF ANGELS, and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND. The event takes place at 6.30pm, and is a free-but-ticketed event - to book a ticket, call David at No Alibis on 44 (0) 28 9031 9601, or email david@noalibis.com.
  So there you have it. Feel free to RSVP for the Dublin launch in the comment box below. Or, y’know, just turn up on the night and surprise us all …

Cry Havoc, Etc.

I crave an indulgence, good people, for today I will be mostly plugging my forthcoming tome, aka SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which is a sequel to my first novel, EIGHT BALL BOOGIE. It will be published by Liberties Press, the very fine publishing house responsible for ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, and the Liberties blurb elves have been wittering thusly:

‘I glanced up but he’d already jumped, a dark blur plummeting, wings folded against the drag like some starving hawk out of the noon sun, some angel betrayed. He punched through the cab’s roof so hard he sent metal shearing into the petrol tank. All it took was one spark. Boom …’

Harry Rigby is right there, an eye-witness when Finn Hamilton walks out into the big nothing nine stories up, but no one wants to believe Finn is just the latest statistic in Ireland’s silent epidemic. Not Finn’s mother, Saoirse Hamilton, whose property empire is crumbling around her; and not Finn’s pregnant fiancé, Maria, or his sister Grainne; and especially not Detective Tohill, the cop who believes Rigby is a stone-cold killer, a slaughter’s hound with a taste for blood …

Welcome to Harry Rigby’s Sligo, where death comes dropping slow.

Studded with shards of black humour and mordant wit, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is a gripping noir from one of the most innovative voices in Irish crime fiction.

  So there you have it. Meanwhile, two of the planet’s finest crime writers have been kind enough to offer an actual blurb, with the gist running 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

  With which, as you may imagine, I am very well pleased …

  In tandem with the SLAUGHTER’S HOUND publication, Liberties Press will also be republishing EIGHT BALL BOOGIE. When first published, way back in 2003, said tome was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in the crime fiction category, and managed to pick up some nice reviews for itself in the process. That was about as far as it went for EIGHT BALL, so it’d be nice to think that it might reach a slightly bigger audience this time around.
  Before I forget, I really should mention that the covers were designed for Liberties Press by Fidelma Slattery, and a very fine job it is too.
  So there you have it. I’ll be telling you more - much more, I’m afraid - in the weeks running up to the launch of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND next month, so don’t say you haven’t been warned …

Around The Web In 80 Seconds*

You lose some, you win some. Hot on the heels of Publishers Weekly dissing THE BIG O on the basis that it’s not as good as Elmore Leonard (oh, the infamy!) comes this dinky little treat courtesy of Amazon’s Listmania, titled “The Crime Writing Kings Of All Time (and a great new guy!)”. Yep, it’s lil’ ol’ EIGHT BALL BOOGIE nestling in there with Chandler, Hammett and Thompson, et al. Joelle Claire Barrios, you are officially our newest VBF …
  Staying on the subject of Elmore Leonard, Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD gets a nifty big-up from John Dugdale in tomorrow’s Sunday Times, under the heading “Eight new thrillers for holiday readers”. To wit:

“It’s the unlikely pairing of Elmore Leonard and James Joyce that seems to shape Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD (Serpent’s Tail £10.99), a pacey, violent caper that, like ULYSSES, runs from breakfast time to midnight on a single June day. Belfast gangster queen Bridget Callaghan wants Michael Forsythe dead for killing her fiancé, but when her daughter is abducted, Callaghan decides he’s the only man who can find her. As Forsythe hurtles around the city, McKinty vividly portrays its sleazy, still-menacing underbelly.”

  Hmmm, nice. Upward and onward to the Booker Prize nominations, and while the howls of anguish that greeted CHILD 44’s nomination have abated a tad, Philip Stone at The Bookseller has an interesting piece about the sales figures for the various nominees. Salman Rushdie’s THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE leads the way, having sold 15,433 copies before the nominations were announced, but four of the eleven nominees have sold 1,000 copies or less, with Michelle de Kretser’s THE LOST DOG selling a less-than-whopping 363 books. Now, anyone who has read James Patterson can vouch for the fact that big sales don’t always (koff) equate with quality, so those figures have nothing to say about whether or not the books are entitled to be considered as possible Booker winners. Still, it’d make you wonder about how in tune, or otherwise, the judging panel is with the reading public.
  Meanwhile, Boyd Tonkin at The Independent laments the novels that didn’t make the Booker long-list, among them David Park’s THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER:

“I will miss several other notable absentees from the later Booker heats. David Park’s wise and moving novel of the search for reconciliation in post-Troubles Belfast, THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER, should have caught the judges’ eye.”

  Finally, some groovy news for Eoin Colfer’s legion of fans, courtesy of Sarah Webb’s review of ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE TIME PARADOX in today’s Irish Independent:

“Colfer has certainly been busy. Next year his crime caper, HALF MOON INVESTIGATIONS, will be on television, courtesy of the BBC, pitched as Grange Hill for the Noughties. The film rights to the Artemis books have been sold to Miramax and Tribeca (Robert De Niro’s production company) and the film is in development.”

  And the hell of it all is, it couldn’t happen a nicer guy. Happy days.

* Providing you don’t actually click any of the links, of course