Launch: BELFAST NOIR, ed. Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty

BELFAST NOIR (Akashic Books), edited by Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty, will be launched at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, on November 22nd. To wit:

An event for crime fiction fans guys, one that is certainly not to be missed!

No Alibis Bookstore invite you to the Crescent Arts Centre on Saturday 22nd November at 6:30pm for the launch of BELFAST NOIR. This FREE event sees a variety of authors come together in a new anthology.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan.

From the introduction by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville:

“Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968–1998) dominated life in Ireland’s second-biggest population centre, and during the darkest days of the conflict—in the 1970s and 1980s—riots, bombings, and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. The British army patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and civilians were searched for guns and explosives before they were allowed entry into the shopping district of the city centre . . . Belfast is still a city divided . . .
  “You can see Belfast’s bloodstains up close and personal. This is the city that gave the world its worst ever maritime disaster, and turned it into a tourist attraction; similarly, we are perversely proud of our thousands of murders, our wounds constantly on display. You want noir? How about a painting the size of a house, a portrait of a man known to have murdered at least a dozen human beings in cold blood? Or a similar house-sized gable painting of a zombie marching across a postapocalyptic wasteland with an AK-47 over the legend UVF: Prepared for Peace—Ready for War. As Lee Child has said, Belfast is still ‘the most noir place on earth.’

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

BELFAST NOIR; Or, Northern Ireland Is The New Black

Here’s a nice way to wake up to 2014. Over on his blog, Adrian McKinty (right) announces that the short story collection BELFAST NOIR (Akashic) has just gone off to the printer, with said tome co-edited by Adrian and Stuart Neville. Quoth Adrian:

“We were delighted to get stories from Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Arlene Hunt, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar and Gerard Brennan. A pretty impressive list I think you’ll agree.”

  Yes, I do, especially when you add the names of McKinty and Neville to that list. Untypically, the normally reserved McKinty (koff) then makes a bold prediction about the future of Northern Irish fiction and the demise of its Scandinavian counterpart:

“I think the wheel may finally turning towards Northern Irish fiction. For years the words ‘The Troubles’, ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Belfast’ caused book buyers, programme makers and publishers to either shrug with indifference or shudder in horror; but the new generation of writers coming out of Belfast is so good that a previously reluctant audience has had their interest piqued. I’ve been saying on this blog for the last three years that the Scandinavian crime boom is going to end and the Irish crime boom is going to begin and I still believe that. The depth of talent is there. All it needs is a spark, hopefully Belfast Noir will add kindling to a growing fire ...”

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

But Really, What’s THE POINT?

The first thing to say about Gerard Brennan’s THE POINT is that the cover is an absolute cracker - menace a-plenty in a beautifully retro style. The second thing to say is - well, over to the Pulp Press blurb elves:

Small time crook Paul Morgan is a bad influence on his brother, Brian. When Paul crosses one thug too many, the cider-fuelled duo flee Belfast for Warrenpoint, the sleepy seaside resort of their childhood memories. For Brian, a new life in the Point means going straight and falling in love with Rachel, while Paul graduates to carjacking by unusual means and ‘borrowing’ firearms from his new boss. Brian can’t help being dragged into his brother’s bungling schemes but Rachel can be violently persuasive herself . . . and she isn’t the only one who wants to see an end to Paul’s criminal career.

  Now, given that Brennan is the blogmeister behind Crime Scene Northern Ireland, or CSNI to you, from which vantage point he’s cast a cold eye over huge swathes of Irish crime writing over the last few years, there’s a lot of pressure on for him to deliver the goods. The good news is, from the sounds of things, he’s done exactly that. To wit:

“Gerard Brennan is a master of gritty violence.” - Colin Bateman

“A Coen Brothers dream, via Belfast ... Gerard Brennan grabs the mantle of the new mystery prince of Northern Ireland ...” - Ken Bruen

“THE POINT is the real deal - the writing is razor sharp, the characters engaging, the ending a blast. From start to finish it’s true Northern Noir, crafted with style and wit.” - Brian McGilloway

“Gerard Brennan’s THE POINT is terrific. Scorchingly funny, black humour at its finest and the most inventive car theft ever!” - Arlene Hunt

“THE POINT is top stuff. Engaging from the start, the characters are loveable, the story is strong and the pace never lets up.” - Adrian McKinty

  So there you have it: if it’s good enough for Bateman, Bruen, Hunt and McKinty, it’s good enough for us. So - Gerard Brennan, THE POINT. You know what to do, people …
  Oh, and if you’re roundabout Derry way this evening, Tuesday, October 18th, you can catch Gerard wittering on about the Booker Prize in the company of Kate Newman and the very fine novelist, Garbhan Downey, at the Central Library. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Stop The Press: Dublin Dead!

As a title, DUBLIN DEAD may well be the Platonic essence of the current wave of Irish crime writing, quite a lot of which is set in Dublin, and - unsurprisingly - features dead bodies. It’s the second offering from Gerard O’Donovan, following on from his debut PRIEST, and features that novel’s journalist Siobhan Fallon and DI Mike Mulcahy. Quoth the blurb elves:

Journalist Siobhan Fallon needs the help of DI Mike Mulcahy with a story she’s covering about the disappearance of a young woman from Cork. When he agrees, the duo find themselves dragged into the ruthless world of international drug smuggling - and finding a link between the murder of a retired drug dealer in Spain, the suicide of an estate agent in Bristol and a yacht abandoned off the south coast of Ireland. Once again justice and journalism make awkward bedfellows as Mulcahy and Fallon run a desperate race against a remorseless enemy determined to silence the one person alive who knows the truth ...

  Given the number of Irish criminals who operate out of southern Spain, it’s remarkable that it has taken this long for a writer to embrace the Mediterranean as a setting, even in part. Is there anyone out there writing an Irish crime novel set entirely on the south coast of Spain? Or, for that matter, Amsterdam? I know that Ava McCarthy’s forthcoming HIDE ME is set in the Basque region …
  Gerard O’Donovan, incidentally, is yet another former or current Irish journalist turning his hand to crime writing: the list, in no particular order, includes John Connolly, John Banville, Niamh O’Connor, Liz Allen, yours truly, Brian O’Connor, Gene Kerrigan, Colin Bateman, Conor Fitzgerald, Alex Barclay, Ingrid Black, Garbhan Downey and Ruth Dudley Edwards. Is there something about the Fifth Estate that turns a writer’s fancy to blood and gore? Is the daily grind of pursuing facts so punishing that it persuades an unsuspecting scribe to write fiction? Or is it that said authors wanted to be writers all along, and journalism was a substitute in order to earn a crust? Or is it simply the pursuit of the publishing game’s (koff) glamour?
  Answers on a used €50 note to Declan Burke’s Bouchercon Fund, c/o Funny Money Investments Inc., Grand Cayman, The Caribbean, The World. Alternatively, you could just leave a comment in the box below …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer, as they say, has form. Best known for his young adult series of novels featuring the teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, Colfer has also written HALF-MOON INVESTIGATIONS (2006), in which 12-year-old Fletcher Moon is a pre-teen private eye who mimics the iconic heroes created by Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.
  In the same year, Colfer made his first foray into adult crime fiction, contributing ‘Taking on P.J.’ to DUBLIN NOIR (2006), a collection of short stories edited by Ken Bruen.
  Colfer’s first adult crime novel, PLUGGED, concerns itself with Dan McEvoy, an ex-Irish Army sergeant who is a veteran of peacekeeping tours of the Lebanon. Now living in voluntary exile in Cloisters, New Jersey, McEvoy’s life as a casino bouncer is shattered when his on-off girlfriend Connie is murdered in the parking lot on the same day his best friend Zeb, a cosmetic surgeon, goes missing from his surgery. Forced to kill in self-defence when confronted with a knife-wielding gangster, McEvoy taps into his soldier’s survival instincts as he races to stay one step ahead of a posse composed of corrupt cops, a vengeful Irish-American mobster boss, and a megalomaniac lawyer with homicidal tendencies.
  Colfer dedicates the novel to Ken Bruen, and PLUGGED is in part an homage to the author credited with a radical reimagining of the role of the first-person protagonist in the contemporary crime novel. Colfer goes so far as to adopt some of Bruen’s narrative strategies, including an anarchic and frequently implausible plot, surreal flights of fancy, and a story that blends frenetic action sequences with an internal monologue that regularly digresses into the realms of the absurd.
  The result is a gloriously ramshackle comedy crime caper; as a narrative vehicle, the story is a getaway car careering downhill and losing wheels at every corner. Colfer, however, is too experienced a storyteller to get carried away himself. The propulsive chaos masks a palpable appreciation of the crime novel itself, not simply in terms of his playful subversion of the genre’s tropes, but also in Colfer’s willingness to warp the parameters of what is essentially a conservative narrative form. Successfully blending the sub-genres of comedy crime caper and hard-boiled noir is no mean feat, as those who have read Donald Westlake’s pale imitators will confirm, and Colfer’s exuberance in this respect will delight the connoisseurs jaded by crime novels which insist on adhering to an established and predictable norm.
  Colfer isn’t the first Irish crime writer to incorporate comedy, of course. Ruth Dudley Edwards, Garbhan Downey and Colin Bateman are among those who sugar the pill for appreciative readers, and PLUGGED has more than its fair share of gags, puns, prat falls and punchlines. Colfer works from a particularly dark palette throughout, such as when he parodies the genre’s penchant for the verbose antagonist:

“Thank God for grandstanding killers. Back home my squad were once brought in to hunt for an IRA kidnap squad who had crossed the border. We only caught them because they delayed a scheduled execution so they could film it from a couple of angles. Everyone wants their moment.” (pg 82-83)

  The county of Sligo, incidentally, previously lampooned in AND ANOTHER THING … (2010), Colfer’s contribution to the Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy series, takes another lick here when Colfer sidesteps a sexist joke “that there is no place for in the modern world, except perhaps in County Sligo, where they love a good mysognism.”
  Humour aside, and given that the novel unfolds as a first-person narrative, the story stands or falls on Colfer’s ability to convince us that Dan McEvoy is a man worth following. Here Colfer has an unerring instinct for the genre’s most conventional hero, the good man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. McEvoy ticks all the boxes in this respect, yet he is sufficiently deranged, and simultaneously conscious of his foibles, to make him a character worth the reader’s investment of time and emotion.
  Scabrously funny, furiously paced and distinctively idiosyncratic, PLUGGED ultimately comes to a belated reconciliation with the genre’s conventions, but only after a titanic and entertaining struggle that suggests Colfer’s first adult crime novel will not be his last. - Declan Burke

  This review first appeared in the Irish Times.

  Meanwhile, Eoin Colfer had a chat with Barry Forshaw over at Crime Time, where he explains his reasons for writing PLUGGED, with the gist running thusly:

“PLUGGED is a slice of modern noir fiction where I have tried to genre-bend a little by introducing a Walter Mitty internal monologue and large sections of black comic humour. What I am trying to achieve is a sense of ‘pleasant surprise’ in the reader where they get a little more than they had expected. So perhaps the reader expects a straightforward ‘gorgeous dame walks into a PI’s office’ yarn and they get something slightly more frenetic. Of course, what you don’t want to do is give the reader an unpleasant surprise where they really wanted the dame/P.I. yarn and you have ruined their day - so the humour is built around a standard noir skeleton where a guy’s girlfriend is murdered and the finger is pointed at him because of his past.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Laughing All The Way To The Bank

The Independent carried an interview with Eoin Colfer on Sunday, to celebrate the forthcoming PLUGGED, Eoin’s first foray into adult crime fiction. A nice piece it is, too, although there was one line that jarred. To wit:

The book is unusual because it’s funny, although Colfer says he originally tried to write it straight. “He was initially very much the implacable hero, in the Lee Marvin type, out for revenge, no messing around. But I couldn’t sustain it. It just felt like I was trying to write someone else’s book. Then one joke got in, and then another one. Initially the character wasn’t the brightest guy, but then I started to leak in a bit of psychology and he became more knowing and aware of his own foibles, so I had to go back and change it all and make it much funnier.” He is full of ideas for future adventures, but adds: “It’s a very fickle world. The public might decide there’s already a funny crime writer so we don’t want you.”

  All of which suggests that PLUGGED won’t be entirely unlike the Parker novels rewritten Carl Hiassen - I haven’t read it yet, but that should be rectified in the next couple of weeks or so (the book is officially published on May 12).
  The line that jarred, though - ‘The book is unusual because it’s funny …’ Not to cast asparagus on Susie Mesure’s research for the piece, but there are at least four Irish authors writing comedy crime fiction, among them Colin ‘Nine Inch’ Bateman, Garbhan ‘Girth Unknown’ Downey and Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards. Broaden it out to the international stage, and (off the top of my head) you have the aforementioned Carl Hiassen, Christopher Brookmyre, Donald Westlake, Simon Brett, Alexander McCall Smith, Chris Ewan, Jasper Fforde, Christopher Fowler and LC Tyler. In fact, there are so many comedy writers that Bristol’s Crimefest has a dedicated ‘Last Laugh’ award.
  That said, humour is a very subjective thing. I think Elmore Leonard is a very funny writer. Sara Gran’s forthcoming CITY OF THE DEAD is a comic masterpiece. James Patterson, of course, is the funniest writer alive.
  Anyway, niggling aside, I’m pretty sure that (a) PLUGGED will be very funny, and (b) the public will find room in their hearts for another funny crime writer, especially one who’s earned his licks with the Artemis Fowl series.
  Over to you, folks. Any comic crime writers I’ve missed?

Origins: Garbhan Downey

Being the latest in what will probably be yet another short-lived series, in which yours truly reclines on a hammock by the pool with a jeroboam of Elf-Wonking Juice™ and lets a proper writer talk about the origins of his or her characters and stories. This week: Garbhan Downey (right), author of THE AMERICAN ENVOY. To wit:

“I never base my characters on actual people – apart from one, which I’ll get to in a minute. But I do accept that now and again my heroes and villains unwittingly adopt attributes of punters I’ve met in real life.
  “Five years ago, for example, a retired IRA man asked me to sign a copy of OFF BROADWAY – a book of short-stories set in the North’s post-ceasefire underworld. I looked at him deadpan and wrote, “To X, an inspiration”. I then handed the book back to him, saying nothing. In fairness, he had the grace to burst out laughing – and told me he was away to ring his lawyer.
  “It would be silly to deny that life inspires art. The Barkley family – a gang of dirty businessmen who appear in all six of my novels – share many traits with the rash of carpet-baggers who infest modern Ireland. “Sparkly”, “King-Size” and “Darkly” Barkley have each been responsible for shed-loads of scams, which are thinly disguised accounts of real-life cons I was never to expose as a newspaper editor.
  “Sparkly runs a host of quasi-legal shop-fronts for the Boys; King Size is a race-fixing jockey with sidelines in property development and blackmail; while Darkly is a consultant or, if you’d prefer, “the type of guy who stands in front of the brothel and offers to sell you your photo back”. And though I never met a triumvirate quite so crooked in my day job, I’m sure there are a few out there who will occasionally wince with recognition – and perhaps even a little pride – as they’re reading the books.
  “Unlike in the real world, however, I have taken great care to spoon out proper retribution to my Barkleys: suspending one from a window-ledge; affixing another to a bunny-boiling wife; and infecting a third with a vicious STD. None of them, you’ll be pleased to learn, live happily ever after – indeed, two don’t live at all any more ...
  “The Hurleys – who are central to both RUNNING MATES and THE WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES - are a mostly-decent republican clan, representing those in Northern society who struggle valiantly to put the old ways behind them but occasionally fall back into bad habits. Or, as they’re more often referred to nowadays – “the government”.
  “The Hurleys, as you’d expect, are known as “The Hurlers” as a tribute to our national sport and a formerly-preferred method of chastisement. But it is important too that characters develop with the changing times. Hence, Harry the Hurler, the family patriarch, becomes entangled with a glamorous senior police chief; his brother Gerry gets himself a “late-learners degree” and becomes an MLA in Stormont; Jimmy Fidget, the youngest, has a guilt-induced breakdown before setting up his own security company; while Donna, the white sheep, shacks up with the Taoiseach. And again, I would insist that the Hurleys are certainly not based on real people, despite several claims to the contrary (and two unproven lawsuits).
  “Lou Johnston, aka Letemout Lou, the leading lady in several of my books, is a bossy and beautiful lawyer-turned judge, who - despite her cranky shell - is kindness itself. I would stress for the record, however, that although I myself am married to a beautiful lawyer who is kindness itself, any and all resemblances are purely coincidental. (Note to editor – I took great care to drop “bossy” from that second clause...)
  “The identities of my players are very important to me – I have to have a firm grip in my head as to who they are, when I’m writing them. So it helps if the names are obvious and pertinent: Tommy Bowtie is a solicitor; Shakes Coyle is a dried-out drunk; Getemup Gormley is the failed bank-robber; Time-Gents is a barman; Hate the World is a hitman; Nora Tora Tora has a bad temper; Ruth Ball, the man-eater, becomes “Buster”; Chiselling Phil is a barrister-turned-negotiator; Stammering Stan is a not-very-confident newsreader; the priest who “cures” homosexuals is Fr “Bend-em-Back” Behan; and the Taoiseach’s intelligence expert is John the Bugger.
  “Derry people, I believe, are particularly talented at summing up people in a single word or pithy phrase. They work hard at it. I once asked in a pub why a particular man was known as “Jimmy Choo-Choo”, to be told that he had taken part in a training course at the railway station 20 years previously. It always makes sense. A prominent Glasgow republican, now living in Derry is, naturally, known by locals as “Taff”.
  “My late brother was an artist at it. He was never bested for the mot juste – so much so that I once even dedicated a story to Rónán “Give Everyone a Middle Name” Downey. I remember sitting with him as we listened to a very stoned friend attempt to sing “Just a Gigolo”. Rónán immediately dubbed him John “I Ain’t Got No Body” Smith*. The name stuck.
  “On only one occasion did I directly transpose a real person into a novel. He was heavily fictionalised, though for obvious reasons I am happy that he will never out himself as my muse.
  “I have to confess it was Mark Durkan, the Foyle MP, who put the idea into my head. We were swapping yarns in Radio Foyle one morning, when Durks started chatting about a constituent who, when asked to leave his office, went down on all fours and ran around the desk, barking like a dog.
  “I couldn’t resist it. In my first novel THE PRIVATE DIARY OF A SUSPENDED MLA, I just had to give him a cameo role. A man whose mission in life is to torment rising political stars. A man who breaks the wing-mirrors off your car, if you don’t come quick with the bail money. A headcase among headcases. The nemesis of all would be young Kennedys. The curse of all Camerons.
  “Step forward Mister J. “Bite Me” O’Boyle. You know who you are.” - Garbhan Downey

  * Identity changed to protect the victim.

  Garbhan Downey’s THE AMERICAN ENVOY is published by Guildhall Press.

Norn Irons

Yon Brian McGilloway has more than a few irons in the fire these days. Not only is he going to be yakking and yukking with one Lee Child over in Belfast’s No Alibis on Wednesday evening, the 24th, he’s also releasing THE RISING, the fourth in the Inspector Devlin series. the following week, Wednesday 31st, this time in Derry, at the Verbal Arts Centre. Quoth the blurb elves:

When Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin is summoned to a burning barn, he finds inside the charred remains of a man who is quickly identified as a local drug dealer, Martin Kielty. It soon becomes clear that Kielty’s death was no accident, and suspicion falls on a local vigilante group. Former paramilitaries, the men call themselves The Rising. Meanwhile, a former colleague’s teenage son has gone missing during a seaside camping trip. Devlin is relieved when the boy’s mother, Caroline Williams, receives a text message from her son’s phone, and so when a body is reported, washed up on a nearby beach, the inspector is baffled. When another drug dealer is killed, Devlin realises that the spate of deaths is more complex than mere vigilantism. But just as it seems he is close to understanding the case, a personal crisis will strike at the heart of Ben’s own family, and he will be forced to confront the compromises his career has forced upon him. With his fourth novel, McGilloway announces himself as one of the most exciting crime novelists around: gripping, heartbreaking and always surprising, THE RISING is a tour de force – McGilloway’s most personal novel so far.

  For more details on both gigs, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and staying oop North, the firm-but-fair guardian of Crime Scene Norn Iron, Gerard Brennan, announces the publication of REQUIEMS FOR THE DEPARTED, a rather intriguing collection of crime short stories adapted from Irish mythology. Gerard was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to submit an offering to the anthology, which generosity I was stupid enough to decline, and I’ve already dislocated one hip trying to kick my sorry ass. Anyway, the line-up of contributors includes Ken Bruen, Stuart Neville, Adrian McKinty, Garbhan Downey, Arlene Hunt, Maxim Jakubowski, Sam Millar, Tony Black and – oh yes! – Brian McGilloway, among others. Gerard and Mike Stone are on editing duties, and it sounds like an absolute cracker, chaps. Come the launch party, the dry Pimms are on me …

The North Will Rise Again

Yon Norn Iron blokes have been busy lately. First up is Stuart Neville (right), who hasn’t been resting on the laurels garnered by his debut, THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST). Quoth the Scotland Herald:

Neville’s next novel, COLLUSION, is in part a sequel to THE TWELVE. It follows one of the minor characters from his debut, a policeman investigating his missing wife and child, but the novelist says the similarities between the new book and its predecessor end there. “The Twelve is about frustration, about knowing that people will never be held to account for what they did. COLLUSION will not touch on those issues. It has nothing to do with party politics or Stormont.”
  Decades of fatuous Hollywood IRA flicks may have given audiences Troubles fatigue, but there is now an appetite for understanding Northern Ireland. “I think the next 10 years are going to be a very interesting time,” Neville says. “You have to remember that great fiction never emerges until a conflict is over. Look at the Second World War: while that was going on, the only things coming out were propaganda films, but in the years after, it inspired so much. Part of the reason is that, after the fact, you don’t need to be so politically sensitive.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here. Meanwhile, COLLUSION is due in August, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan wanders New York City, hiding from a past he escaped at a terrible cost. But he made a fatal mistake: he spared the life of Bull O’Kane, a ruthless man who will stop at nothing to get his revenge. Too many witnesses survived a bloody battle at his border farm, and now he wants them silenced, whether man, woman or child. O’Kane calls the Traveller, an assassin without pity or remorse, a killer of the purest kind. Back in Belfast, Detective Inspector Jack Lennon, father of one the witnesses, is caught up in a web of official secrets and lies as he tries to uncover the whereabouts of his daughter. The closer he gets to the truth about the events on O’Kane’s border farm, the more his superiors instruct him to back off. When Fegan realises he can’t shake off the trail of violence that has followed him across the world, he has no choice but to return to Belfast and confront his past. The Traveller awaits Fegan’s return, ready for the fight of his life. A fast-paced thriller about duty and revenge, COLLUSION is a blistering sequel to THE TWELVE, one of the most highly acclaimed debuts of recent years.

  Elsewhere, Garbhan Downey has just published THE AMERICAN ENVOY, even though it seems no more than minutes since he brought you THE WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES. Quoth the blurb elves:

Money ... Power ... Drugs ... Women. Just another day at the office ... Boston journalist Dave Schumann is in line for a major posting from the US Secretary of State. But instead, his big smart mouth gets him exited to Derry, the rainiest city in Ireland. There, the new envoy is forced to contend with psychotic drug smugglers, a leftie shock-jock who wants to burn him live on air and a renegade security team who are monitoring his every move. Schumann’s letters to his father and friends reveal his increasingly precarious – and hilarious – struggle to cope with the most thankless job on earth. And that’s before he discovers there’s a spy in the camp who has dark plans for the Presidential visit.

  Finally, and even though his novels are set in the South of Ireland, Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, which makes him a Nordie whether he likes it or not. The video below has Brian wibbling on about the latest in the Inspector Devlin series, THE RISING, which hits a shelf near you next month. Roll it there, Collette ...

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE DARK PLACE By Sam Millar

Garbhan Downey gets in touch, not to promote his current tome, THE WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES, as you might expect, but to ask if I’d be interested in running a review of fellow Norn Ironer Sam Millar’s THE DARK PLACE. The answer is yes, and thank you kindly, sir, and the review runneth thusly:

THE DARK PLACE by Sam Millar (Brandon Press)

Little children look away now.
  There’s a tagline running across the back of Belfast writer Sam Millar’s new crime novel, THE DARK PLACE, which I really hope isn’t true. It reads: “While most writers sit in their study and make it up, Sam Millar has lived it ...” For no-one, but no-one, deserves the type of punishment Sam metes out to his detective hero Karl Kane in this darkest of tales.
  Kane is beaten to near-death twice, force-fed narcotics, raped by a crazed (and possibly venereal) vamp, cuckolded by at least one partner, and then blown up in an underground tunnel.
  The people around him don’t fare much better either – his daughter is kidnapped by a particularly monstrous serial killer, his father develops late-onset Alzheimer’s and his best friend gets his throat slit helping our man track down the villain ...
  But for all the gore, Millar is a riveting story-teller, leading the reader from crisis to catastrophe at a frenetic pace. And he skilfully punctures the darkness with moments of sharp humour too, getting great mileage out of Kane’s bawdy relationship with his new girlfriend. Indeed, the sarcastically suggestive pre-coital interchanges between Kane and Naomi are as highly charged as anything Chandler or Hammett ever scripted.
  Like Marlowe, Kane has a touch of the white knight about him, and his idealism – and refusal to do the wrong thing – saves the book from its occasional lurches into horror-schlock. Indeed, if the book has a failing, it is that Millar has an inclination to lay it on too thick.
  But then, what do I know? I sit in the study and make it up. Sam, I suspect, while he mightn’t have lived all of it, certainly has spent a lot more time in dark places than me.
  If ever a novel were aptly named. - Garbhan Downey

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS on Crime Always Pays: In Which It All Gets Even More Self-Referential Than Usual

Rafe McGregor has been kind enough to post a review of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, the forthcoming opus from your humble host, which will be available at a Kindle near you in the very near future. The gist runs thusly:

“CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is excellent, even better than THE BIG O. It has a great plot, cool characters, and there isn’t a single word wasted. This is really fine writing, masterful to the point where if I’d received the MS anonymously, I’d have assumed it came from one of the big bestsellers like Connelly, Crais, Rankin, or Child.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here ...
  CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, for those of you who aren’t this blog’s three regular readers, is the sequel to THE BIG O, in which most of the characters from THE BIG O take off on a variety of trans-Europe road-trips, fetching up in the Greek islands for fun, frolics and the occasional Bellini. Join Karen, Ray, Madge, Doyle, Rossi, Sleeps, Frank, Melody and Sleeps for another screwball noir romp in which the money is just a McGuffin with extra cheese! Or, don’t!! You – yes, YOU! – decide.
  Rafe was also kind enough to descend into a mild form of existential angst over the fact that CRIME ALWAYS PAYS – as all three regular readers will be aware – was dropped by its intended publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I should say at this point that the decision wasn’t as simple as the book not being good enough to publish – it was all a bit complicated, actually – although my brand of existential angst, when I first heard the news, was fairly raw.
  But at this point, I’m pretty much okay with it. That’s partly because I’ve spent the last few days formatting the story for Kindle, which is also a good opportunity to give the story one last proof-edit, and I’m as happy as I’m likely to get that the story stands up. It’s not perfect by any means, and at this stage – which is probably the 14th or 15th time I’ve read it through – I’m wondering why anyone else would want to read it.
  On the basis that some people might want to read it, however, I’ve been every bit as diligent on the Kindle proof-edit as if it was for a conventional publishing. No reason I shouldn’t be, of course: when it comes down it, for yours truly, the story is sacred and everything else is just detail. Apart from the fact that most people don’t have access to Kindle – a rather relevant factor, it has to be said – the format is virtually irrelevant. It matters not a whit whether the book is published electronically, on paper between cardboard, uploaded to the web, or scratched onto papyrus. As with the sob story about the book being dropped by its publisher initially, nothing bar what people think of the story itself will have any lasting value.
  I’m hopeful that the Kindle publishing will lead to a more conventional publishing, not because, as Rafe suggests, there’s more money to be made that way – the writer’s royalties aren’t that different when you publish to Kindle – but because more people are likely read it, in 2009, as an ordinary book. But if that doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen, and I’ll be as proud of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, as a story, as if it had appeared as a conventional book.
  Meanwhile, and speaking of proper books, here’s a review by Garbhan Downey of Adrian McKinty’s FIFTY GRAND that’s worth checking out; and Ali Karim casts an eye over John Connolly’s THE LOVERS.

All Aboard The Brandwagon

Brandon Books delivered a rather tasty package late last week, which contained the latest offerings from Sam Millar and Paul Charles. First up, Sam Millar’s sequel to BLOODSTORM, which rejoices in the title THE DARK PLACE and is set in Northern Ireland:

Young homeless women and drug addicts are being abducted before being brutally mutilated and murdered and the city is held in a grip of unspeakable terror. The police are unable - or unwilling - to apprehend the elusive serial killer and corrupt politicians turn a seemingly blind eye to the catalogue of murders. But by abducting Katie, the young daughter of legendary private investigator Karl Kane, the killer has just made his first mistake - and one which may well be his last.

Nice. Incidentally, Sam recently carved himself a weblington out of cyberspace; drop on over and say hello …
  Paul Charles, meanwhile, is generally to be found writing about DI Christy Kennedy, who pounds the Camden Town beat over in London Town. FAMILY LIFE, the follow-up to THE DUST OF DEATH, is the second in the Inspector Starrett series, which is set in north Donegal, and precariously close to Brian McGilloway’s turf. To wit:

In ones and twos, the Sweeney clan arrive at Liam Sweeney’s farm on the outskirts of Ramelton, County Donegal, to celebrate Liam’s birthday. The banter and storytelling is great as they await the arrival of the single missing family member. But when Inspector Starrett arrives unexpectedly at the farm it becomes clear that all is not well. The body of a Sweeney family member has just been discovered in the courtyard of a waterfront warehouse in the nearby town and the circumstances are suspicious to say the least …

  Incidentally, if we take Donegal to be a part of Northern Ireland – which it is, culturally and geographically, if not politically – then the last couple of months have seen novels from Norn Iron crime writers such as – obviously – Millar and Charles, Garbhan Downey, Adrian McKinty, Brian McGilloway, The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman and Stuart Neville. What is it, exactly, they’re putting in the water up there? And can I have some?

Git Along Li’l Dogie: The Monthly Round-Up

Being a pick-‘n’-mix of CAP posts from the month of July. To wit:

Brian McGilloway (BLEED A RIVER DEEP) bares his soul to Spinetingler Magazine …

Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE gets some boffo reviews …

Captain Barbelo is a maverick genius …

John Connolly posts Chapter One of his YA novel THE GATES …

Chris Mooney (THE DEAD ROOM) gets the rubber hose treatment …

Bob Burke takes a novel approach to marketing THIRD PIG DETECTIVE AGENCY …

John Banville causes a kerfuffle at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival …

And Garbhan Downey explains how possible homicidal marching Orangemen sparked his latest novel, WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES …

A Good Year For The ROSES

“I guess the reason we’re not talking / There’s so little left to say / We haven’t said …” So warbled Elvis Costello in A Good Year for the Roses, a sentiment that wouldn’t cut much mustard with Garbhan Downey right now. For lo! The author of WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES is rabbiting all over the interweb. Here he is on Culture Northern Ireland:

From the outside 2009 looks like a vintage year for political satirists: expenses scandals rumbling on in Westminster, our own MLAs claims coming under ever greater press and public scrutiny, economic meltdown after years of hubris. ‘But I’d say it’s the opposite - there has never been a harder time to be a satirist’, says Garbhan Downey, a writer who has spent the best part of a decade ripping it out of the political classes on both sides of the border. ‘All these revelations just prove that the real world is so much stranger than anything a novelist could come up with.’

 Truth is stranger than fiction shocker! A pity the truth wouldn’t be half as funny as Garbhan Downey once in a while, but sure you can’t have everything. Anyway, where would you put it, etc. Meanwhile, here’s Garbhan over at the Irish Echo:

“There’s a few things I don’t like about America: nukes, twelve years of the Bush family, illegal renditions. Plus the fact that, for some reason, I can never quite fathom, my home television is now stuck for eight hours a day on the Disney Channel.
  “My novel WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES - though a comedy - picks up on some of these complaints.
  “But it also looks at the age-old kinship and friendship between our two countries, as personified by the taoiseach and the new U.S. president, when they meet up in the White House on the opening page.
  “In the book, the “bromance” between Ireland and the U.S. culminates in the Yanks sponsoring a massive flower-growing competition outside Derry, this to take some of the sting out of the Marching Season.”

  Ah, Norn Iron – the only place where you can still have a March in summer. Finally, here’s Downey over at Crime Scene Norn Iron:

“I thought I’d give McKinty a go because Gerard Brennan clearly rated him – and Ger, along with Peter [Rozovsky] and Dec [Modesty Forbids], is one of the few reviewers I still respect. If they have an angle, I don’t see it. And I say that as someone who has spent his life in journalism looking out for angles.”

  As I’ve told anyone who’ll listen, my angle is I’m in it for the money, the free books and the complimentary reacharounds. Anyway, and while we’re on the subject of Adrian McKinty and/or gobby Norn Ironers, here’s McKinty in the Times introducing his Top 10 Female Sleuths:

“As much as any hairy, beer drinking male can be I believe that I am in touch with my feminine side. I ride a girl’s bicycle, I went to a women’s college at Oxford and I have seen several episodes of Sex and the City (though I am not willing to admit the exact number for fear of damaging my hard-boiled crime writing credentials). As a kid in Northern Ireland I had two older sisters who kept me out of trouble and now I have two young daughters whose agenda is precisely the opposite. I grew up in an era of impressive female role models (Charlie’s Angels, The Bionic Woman, Mrs Thatcher) so I have never had a problem enjoying female protagonists in fiction, especially in detective fiction which became my go-to genre. Now that I have written a XX chromosomed detective in my book FIFTY GRAND, I thought I would share my own idiosyncratic list of 10 favourite female gumshoes …”

  Erm, no Foxy Brown in there, squire?
  Finally, and as this will probably be the only CAP post to reference Elvis Costello and Margaret Thatcher, here’s Costello’s touching paean to the Iron Lady, Tramp the Dirt Down. Roll it there, Collette …

Norn Iron In The Soul

It’s all happening north of the border this week, folks. Yesterday was a big day for Stuart Neville (right), with his debut novel THE TWELVE officially hitting the shelves, although you wouldn’t know it from his interweb malarkeybus, where he’s virtually yawning with ennui … And this despite the fact that Publishers Weekly named THE TWELVE one of its top Fall debuts. Personally, I fell out with PW after I got a dodgy review there, although I never quite made it to the level of wishing cancer on the reviewer, or posting his / her phone numbers and email addresses. Which suggests that I don’t care about my books enough, or at least as much as Alice Hoffman and Alain De Botton do. Maybe I should take up another hobby … Anyway, back to Stuart – he’s currently hosting a competition giving away free copies of THE TWELVE, so get your small but perfectly formed ass over here post-haste …
  Elsewhere in Norn Iron, the tall but perfectly formed ass – oops, sorry – tall but perfectly formed Garbhan Downey launches his latest novel tomorrow, Saturday, at 1pm in Easons in Derry. (You’ll note in passing that I write ‘Derry’ as opposed to ‘Londonderry’, which immediately marks me down as a rampant Taig and / or Croppy who refuses to lie down, or just someone who’s too bloody lazy to write ‘Londonderry’ when you can get away with ‘Derry’). WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES is published by the Guildhall Press, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES is a rollicking black comedy set in the world of gardening and international politics. A US sponsored gardening competition in the little country village of Mountrose ends up throwing three governments into turmoil when it sparks a worldwide race to grow the world’s first blue rose. The Irish premier is forced to team up with semi-reformed gangsters 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 …

  Nice. Finally, a little bird tells us that Adrian McKinty is appearing at Belfast’s No Alibis next Wednesday at 6pm to celebrate the launch of the rather terrific FIFTY GRAND, of which CAP is currently giving away two signed copies. I’d love to make it up there for the festivities, but I’m not sure it’ll happen … which is a shame, because I’d imagine it’ll be a very nice turn-out indeed. Plus, the chap is flying in all the way from Oz just to do a reading. Plus, it’s his round since the last time he was home. Plus, his sister owns a pub. You can see where I’m going with this … Oh, and did I mention that FIFTY GRAND is a dynamite novel? I did? Well, I’m telling you again …

More Kicks Than Pricks

A good satirist is a thorn in the side of the status quo, although there’s as many kicks as there are pricks in Garbhan Downey’s latest offering, THE WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES, if Gerard Brennan’s hot-off-the-presses review is to believed. To wit:

“Downey employs a light-hearted and uncomplicated voice in the telling of this tale. Considering the intricacies of the plot, that’s probably a blessing. But what I found most intriguing is how he goes against a lot of the modern advice on writing crime fiction. He head-hops like a madman, sharing multiple character perspectives within paragraphs, and he has nothing against dialogue tagging or adverbs. These are the kind of things that would normally pull me out of the story and make me reach for my editing hat. But when Garbhan Downey does it, it’s okay. He’s that good.” – Gerard Brennan, CSNI

  For the rest of the review, clickety-click here.
  Meanwhile, THE WAR OF THE BLUE ROSES gets the power-point book trailer treatment over at Author Stream. The Big Question: What’s the skinny on whether book trailers are worth the effort? Anyone out there with compelling proof that they add to sales? I’m all ears ...

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.

The Monday Lynx

Being a round-up of mildly interesting stuff-‘n’-such discovered by Jinx the Lynx (right) on his weekly prowl around the interweb. To wit:

John Connolly is interviewed over at Me and My Big Mouth.

Gerard Brennan has interviews with Neville Thompson and Ken Bruen.

Adrian McKinty is running a competition to win a copy of THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS.

Tana French tells The Guardian about her ‘Top 10 Maverick Mysteries’ …

… while her second novel, THE LIKENESS, gets reviewed at the Irish Independent.

Garbhan Downey talks journalism and crime writing at Detectives Beyond Borders.

Back to The Guardian for James Lasdun’s review of Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR.

And this was the saddest news of the weekend …

“Just A Perfect Day / I’m Glad I Spent It With Youse …”

I don’t generally have much truck with Kilkenny, this on the basis that its hurlers knocks the stuffing out of Wexford on an annual basis, but yesterday, at the invitation of organiser Neville Thompson (right), I headed down country for the inaugural Castlecomer Writers’ Festival. A fine day it was too, with the sleepy hamlet bathed in sunshine and none of the locals inclined to boast that their county’s hurlers are the finest specimens of the art known to mankind, and are therefore the finest sportsmen ever to grace the planet.
  Anyhoos, I did my best to ruin the convivial atmosphere by injecting some crime into proceedings but no one seemed to take it personally, and the morning’s crime writing workshop went off without a hitch, apart from the fact that I was unforgivably late. It being Castlecomer, no one was rude enough to point out this fact, and it was only afterwards I realised it. Folks? Sincere apologies …
  Bizarre as it was to be asked for my advice on how to write (“Erm, I dunno – rip off someone good, like Elmore Leonard …?”), it was a terrific experience. Because the truth is that I’m about a half-a-rung up the publishing ladder from the folks who are currently struggling to piece their first novels together, which made the whole process a fairly chastening reality check. Mind you, the highlight of the morning was the nun who recounted how she’d taught a hardened prisoner the meaning of the acronym ‘fuck’.
  Upward and onward to lunch, where I met James Lawless, whose novel PEELING ORANGES sounds like a good one. To wit:

PEELING ORANGES tells the story of Derek Foley, who, while sifting through his late father’s diaries and his mother’s correspondence with an IRA man, discovers that Patrick Foley, a diplomat in Franco’s Spain, was not really his father. Derek’s mother, who is ailing, is unwilling to discuss the past, forcing her son on a quest that will plunge him into the early history of Irish diplomacy, taking him to Spain and later to Northern Ireland, until he discovers who his real father was – with tragic consequences.
  PEELING ORANGES is a novel full of personal and political intrigue, fraught with ideology, as it intersects the histories of two emergent nations – Ireland and Spain. It is also a beautiful and lyrically written love story of childhood sweethearts – the apolitical Derek and the passionate nationalist, Sinéad Ní Shúileabháin. “A book to lose oneself in. I highly recommend it.” – Gabriel Byrne.

  I also – finally – got to meet Garbhan Downey, who followed me outside when I slipped out for a post-prandial smoke. “I recognised you from the cigarillo,” says he. A top bloke. After lunch we co-hosted a workshop on journalism, during which I felt like a total fraud. I tried to buy a copy of OFF BROADWAY, his Damon Runyon-inspired collection of short stories, but apparently my money is no good in Castlecomer. “If I never wrote another book,” he said, handing it over, “this is the book I wanted to write.” Always nice to hear a scribe say that …
  Back into the Vizmobile, then, and off to Dublin, where I took part in a discussion on the sudden popularity of Irish crime fiction on Newstalk 106 hosted by the ever-radiant Sinead Gleeson. Tana French and I were in the studio, with Paul Charles on the line from London. The verdict? Irish crime fiction is suddenly popular because there’s a whole heap of terrific authors writing crime fiction. Here endeth the lesson.
  Back into the Vizmobile again and hey-ho for Arklow and the afters of a wedding reception, where I got quietly and very pleasantly drunk to the soundtrack of a covers band knocking out pretty decent versions of offerings from The Stones, The Monkees, The Beatles and Joe Dolan. Nice. Mind you, I did make a faux pas when I told one of Mrs Viz’s cousins that I really liked her shoes. What – aren’t married men supposed to notice women’s shoes anymore?
  Anyhoos, back home and off to Sleepytown, not neglecting to give the Princess Lilyput a little cuddle before my pillow finally claimed me for its own. A perfect day? Damn close …

The Embiggened O # 44,106: Yep, It’s That Blummin’ Book Again

Chances are you won’t be in the vicinity of Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny, this coming weekend, but if you are you might want to drop in on the inaugural Castlecomer Writers’ Festival, where yours truly (right) will be hosting two workshops, one titled ‘Fictional Crime’, the other ‘Crime Always Pays’. Or leading everyone in a chorus of All Kinds of Everything, depending on how it goes … Other contributors to the weekend include Neville Thompson, Anita Notaro and Garbhan Downey, and Emerging Writer has all the details …
  Meanwhile, the on-line crime fic community continues its generous cheerleading on THE BIG O’s behalf, with Salman Rushdie’s stunt-double, Uriah Robinson, wibbling thusly:

“Fun is the word I associate with Declan’s book and in my review I wrote that ‘THE BIG O is a loveable rogue of a novel ...’ and great read. The full review is here.”

  Thank you kindly, O Salman-ish of Knowledge. Over at Pitched Up, Mack Lundy does us proud too:

“You know how there are television shows where the cast is perfect and they complement each other – Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Shield, The Wire, shows like that. That’s the way I felt about the characters in THE BIG O. I liked many of them but was interested in all of them.”

  Nice one, Mack. Oh, and by the way – in Monday’s round-up of BIG O big-ups, I disgracefully neglected to mention the New Mystery Reader. Folks? I’m currently wearing sackcloth and ashes. Mea culpa …