The Neville Will Find Work For Idle Hands To Do

I interviewed Stuart Neville (right) last week, and a very pleasant experience it was too, not least because Stuart is in a very good place these days. Recently married, he’s on the shortlist for tonight’s LA Times’ Mystery / Thriller Book Awards with COLLUSION, a gong he scooped last year for his debut novel, THE TWELVE, aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST. Could he possibly win two years running? It’s a big ask, as they say, particularly given the quality of the opposition: our own Tana French, for FAITHFUL PLACE; Kelli Stanley for CITY OF DRAGONS; Laura Lippman for I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE; and Tom Franklin for CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, which is the best novel I’ve read this year to date (although my current read, IRON HOUSE by John Hart, is running it close).
  Meanwhile, Stuart is also gearing up to the release of his third novel, STOLEN SOULS, which he describes as ‘a much more streamlined, ticking-clock kind of thriller’, influenced by classic ’70s thrillers such as William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN, and the early novels of Thomas Harris. Sounds tasty. For more on STOLEN SOULS, clickety-click here …
  Anyway, I asked Stuart in passing if he’d like to nominate an Irish crime title to recommend to readers, to which he responded thusly:

“The new Gene Kerrigan book, THE RAGE, is absolutely terrific. It captures that sense of Ireland on the down-slope of the rollercoaster, he’s done that very, very well. But also, his journalistic background makes it seem like there’s almost a documentary feel to it. You feel like you could be reading an actual description of a crime in it, as opposed to a fictional crime. It has a real core of authenticity to it. It’s very impressive. I’d hope that the Irish Book Awards win last year, and the CWA nomination, will help raise his profile. He’s a terrific writer.”

  That makes Stuart’s nod the third very positive recommendation for THE RAGE I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks. It isn’t released until June 2nd, but already it seems set to catapult Gene Kerrigan into the stratosphere. Here’s hoping.
  What I love most about Gene Kerrigan’s books, I think, is the ring of authenticity Stuart refers to, which is very probably derived from his years spent as a court reporter. Not for Kerrigan the demonising of criminals, little or otherwise. I never tire of repeating the line Kerrigan used during a conversation on crime writing a few years ago, when he suggested that the typical criminal isn’t all that different to law-abiding folk. “This guy will babysit your kids on a Friday night,” he said, “then go to work on Saturday morning with a gun in his pocket.”
  I always get an image of some uncle-type babysitter driven demented by an unruly brood who refuse to go to bed on time, whose shoulders straighten the next morning as he leaves the house, checking the safety on his Glock before he slouches off, some rough beast, headed for the mean streets to be born again …

UPDATE: Tom Franklin’s CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER won the LA Times’ Book Awards Best Mystery / Thriller last night, and while I’m disappointed on behalf of our own Stuart Neville and Tana French, there’s no disputing the fact that Franklin’s is a wonderful novel. Here’s the review I wrote back in February as part of that month’s Irish Times column:

Set in rural Mississippi, Tom Franklin’s CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER (Macmillan, £11.99, pb) opens with the shooting of small town mechanic Larry Ott, a semi-recluse who has long been suspected of the abduction and murder of a local girl some decades before. Local deputy Silas Jones is reluctant to lead the investigation into the shooting, as he and Larry were childhood friends before an ugly racial incident drove them apart, but the disappearance of another young girl overrules Silas’s personal distaste for the case. Ostensibly a police procedural, Franklin’s third novel deploys the genre’s narrative conventions as a framework for a much deeper exploration of the psychology of small-town America and its recent racist past. Both Larry and Silas are superbly drawn and fully fleshed characters, their personalities and conflict chthonic to rural Mississippi but luminously relevant, in Franklin’s hands, to any locale on the planet. Factor in a mesmerising evocation of rural Mississippi, language of sinuous and shimmering elegance, and a finely tuned ear for the nuances of dialogue, and you have a novel that is an early contender for one of the great novels of the year. - Declan Burke

The Irish Are Coming

At the risk of sounding excessively parochial, Wednesday was a good day for the world of Irish crime writing letters, when the LA Times announced its Book Prize Mystery-Thriller finalists. For yea, verily, two of said finalists are Irish, Tana French and Stuart Neville. The full line-up runneth thusly:

Mystery-Thriller

Tom Franklin, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER (William Morrow)
Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE (Viking)
Laura Lippman, I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE (William Morrow)
Stuart Neville, COLLUSION (SoHo Press)
Kelli Stanley, CITY OF DRAGONS (Minotaur Books /A Thomas Dunne Book)

  It’s also worth noting in passing that COLLUSION is Stuart Neville’s second novel, and that this represents his second nomination for the LA Times’ Mystery-Thriller shortlist. In fact, THE TWELVE - aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST - strolled away with the gong last year.
  So it’s a hearty congrats to Tana and Stuart, and long may they remain standard-bearers for the Irish crime novel.
  That said, I’m a bit torn about pretty much every title on the shortlist. For example, I’m also delighted to see an old mucker of mine, Kelli Stanley, nestling comfortably in such a rarefied atmosphere; and my very few dealings with Laura Lippman, herself a formidable novelist, have been characterised by intelligence and graciousness (hers, not mine). Meanwhile, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER is the best novel I’ve read so far this year.
  The bottom line, I suppose, and putting away that pesky parochialism for a moment, is that it’s a very fine shortlist indeed; every title on it could hold its head high in any company. No matter who walks away with the prize, the real winner is the mystery / crime reader. Happy days, people.

Left Coast Crime III – Three, After All, Is The Charm

The rather charming Kelli Stanley (right) is attending Denver’s Left Coast Crime, and has rather charmingly volunteered to blog the experience for us (the first and second instalments can be found here). To wit:

LCC Day Three: Lefties, Rockies, Arties and Dilys!

Saturday was a long day at LCC, culminating with a Hawaiian Costume Contest and Awards Banquet. Not to keep anyone in suspense, the Lefty, Rocky, Arty and Dilys went to:

Dilys: William Kent Krueger, THUNDER BAY (Independent Mystery Booksellers Association award for the book they most enjoyed selling in 2007)

Arty: Rhys Bowen, HER ROYAL SPYNESS (Best cover art for a mystery published in 2007)

Lefty: Elaine Viets, MURDER WITH RESERVATIONS (Most humorous mystery published in 2007)

Rocky: Margaret Coel, THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR (Best mystery set in the Left Coast Crime geographical region in 2007)

  What a day! I can’t believe LCC is almost over. On a personal note, a group of friends and I got a chance to get to the legendary Rockmount store in Denver ... run by the oldest CEO in the country (100-year-old Jack Weil – the inventor of the snap button Western shirt popularized by 1940s and 50s TV cowboys) … and the store is not your typical Western gear experience. Even this noir writer felt perfectly at home pawing through bandanas.
  Speaking of noir, it was an utter delight and an honour to participate on the afternoon ‘Shades of Black: Noir at 50 Paces’. Jason Starr (right), Cornelia Read, Con Lehane and moderator Ken Kuhlken are all extraordinary writers and people ... a terrific experience.
  Right now, it’s daylight savings time in the U.S., and past time for me to get a little sleep. Thanks for tuning in to the LCC report and a huge thanks to Declan for allowing me to post the news from Denver! LCC has well-earned its reputation as one of the best conferences in the country ... and I can’t wait for next year and Hawaii. See you there! – Kelli Stanley

Crime Always Pays would like to thank Kelli Stanley for her huge contribution over the weekend, and take this opportunity to direct you towards her fine debut novel, NOX DORMIENDA.

Left Coast Crime II – This Time It’s Personal

The rather fabulous Kelli Stanley (right) is attending Denver’s Left Coast Crime, and has rather fabulously volunteered to blog the experience for us (the first instalment can be found here). To wit:

LCC Day Two: Hotels, Historicals and Harmonicas

OK, so first you’ve got to understand that the LCC conference hotel itself is a rather left-handed form of architecture. It’s actually two hotels, one with a bar (most important feature), a restaurant, a gift shop and eight floors, and another hotel, with thirty odd floors, a sports bar, and a gift shop and three confusing floors of conference rooms. The challenge is how to get from one hotel to the other without getting lost too many times.
  You might think crossing the street would do it, but it’s cold outside. Really cold, especially early in the morning. So if you’re staying at the smaller hotel, like I am, and want to get to your panel, here’s what you do:
  You take a covered walking bridge on the second floor to the conference centre. Then you take an escalator or elevator up one more floor, veer left as though you’ve just had your fourth martini, make a sharp right into the Sisters in Crime hospitality suite for directions or water, walk backwards 50 paces to another escalator, go down one flight, and make a sharp left. You’ll be in a long hall, and you’re supposed to be in one of the rooms to either your right or left. They’re named after Colorado things (Columbine, Vale), and to make matters more(!) confusing, the floor you are now on--which is who knows how many stories below ground--is called the “Terrace” level.
  The Majestic level is one floor below this, and if you just spin around three times, click your heels together and throw salt over your left shoulder, and you might find the book room downstairs, along with more panel rooms. The good thing is that when you inevitably get lost, you can almost always find your way back to one of the bars. Or a gift shop, if you’re so inclined.
  So after experiencing the maze of the conference rooms, I’m even more impressed at the terrific job that Sisters in Crime and the team of volunteers have done here in Denver. Today I got up at the crack of dawn to attend the New Author’s Breakfast, where novelists like the fabulous Bill Cameron (Lost Dog), Toni McGee Causey (Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day), J.T. Ellison (All the Pretty Girls), Laura Benedict (Isabella Moon), CJ Lyons (Lifelines) and Ken Isaacson (Silent Counsel) had a chance to talk about their books.
  A bit later, I had a chance to talk about history and the Roman side of Roman Noir in NOX DORMIENDA at an MWA panel with Aileen Baron, Beverle Graves Myers, Frederick Ramsay and the amazing and wonderful Rhys Bowen (Her Royal Spyness, right)). Colorado school children in attendance made the panel extra fun ... the kids asked the best questions! They also queued up at the signing, where I was very happily seated in between the dashing Eric Stone (Grave Imports) and the charming Tasha Alexander (And Only to Deceive).
  In the afternoon, finally had a chance to play the (pawn shop) harmonica. At the end of our Endless Conversation, I warbled a few bars of Oh, Susanna. Never one to turn down a reprise, I played it again for Rhys at the MWA Cocktail Party and chatted with more friends, including Alexandra Sokoloff (The Harrowing), Cornelia Read (The Crazy School), Sophie Littlefield, Terri Thayer (Wild Goose Chase) and Susan Arnout Smith (The Timer Game). Also in attendance was the delightful Margie Lawson, writing teacher and editor extraordinaire. If you’re looking to take an online class and really make a difference in your productivity and awareness when it comes to your own work, Margie is the go-to gal. After the party, I headed out for a massive and delicious dinner with nine friends at Maggiano’s restaurant.
  And still, I had to resist the urge to go into the bar when I came back, full and exhausted ... so strong is the socializing instinct and urge at Left Coast Crime. Hey, after I write this, maybe I’ll go try to get lost again ...
  Day Three tomorrow ... the Lefty Banquet, Hawaiian Costume contest and the NOIR Panel! Jason Starr, Con LeHane, Ken Kuhlken, Cornelia Read and yours truly will be diving dark deep ... I’ll be talking about the noir side of Roman Noir.
LCC Denver in February ain’t hibernation, baby! – Kelli Stanley

Crime Is But A Left Coast Form Of Human Endeavour*

The rather fabulous Kelli Stanley (right) is attending Denver’s Left Coast Crime, and has rather fabulously volunteered to blog the experience for us – despite the potentially debilitating effects of high elevation, oxygen depletion and whiskey sours. To wit:

Left Coast Crime – Day One
If crime is a left-handed human endeavour, then for the next few days, Denver is the place to be.
  This is my first Left Coast Crime, and from what I’ve seen, it well-deserves its reputation as one of the best conferences for the mystery spectrum. The energy is tremendous ... writers, readers, librarians, booksellers, panels with wacky names and panels that make you think ... panels on sex and violence and panels on why cozies aren’t always about cats ...
  I flew in on Wednesday to a cold and snow-flurried Denver, adjusting myself to the altitude by dining on beer cheese and buffalo sausage at the Appaloosa Grill. I adjusted myself further by helping to close the hotel bar that night with a group of friends in true crime writer fashion. One whiskey sour will go a looong way at Denver’s mile high elevation.
  There are a lot of new writers at LCC this year, and CJ Lyons, the ITW Debut Author Liaison, launched her novel LIFELINES just three days ago to great reviews. CJ’s terrific Thriller panel was my first to attend, then Rita Lakin’s (her senior citizen Gladdy Gold mysteries are both fun and poignant) and a psychological panel with Laura Benedict (left) talking about her tremendous paranormal thriller, ISABELLA MOON. Then it was time for dinner, visiting Tattered Cover book store and CJ’s signing, followed up by a publisher’s meeting.
  How I started the day, though, was a little unusual. They’re trying something new at LCC this year, similar to Bouchercon 2007’s “Author Showcases”. It’s called the “Endless Conversation”, where writers are thrown together in conversation and can soft-shoe, recite poetry or just pretend to be a mystery version of “The View” for half an hour or so.
  My gig is today (Friday afternoon), and I figured I’d play my harmonica. It’s easier to tote than a piano, though you can’t really play One for My Baby on a Hohner. Problem was, I hadn’t packed it.
  So yesterday, on the first morning of LCC before registration, before the panels, I hotfooted it to a Wedgle’s Pawn Shop and Music on Broadway and 12th street. Yeah, I said pawn shop. They’ve been “serving Denver’s musicians since 1937”, according to their card, and I knew a combo pawn shop / music store was the place for me ... I’m a noir writer! They have every kind of instrument you could think of (and some really cool swords), and I found a blues harp I liked in about five minutes.
  Today I play the harmonica, talk about NOX DORMIENDA, Roman Noir and historical mysteries on an MWA panel, go to an MWA cocktail party and generally have a hell of a good time.
  Where else but Left Coast Crime can you find a harmonica at a pawn shop ... and where else would you need to? – Kelli Stanley

* With apologies to W.R. Burnett.

The Bitch Is Back

Yet again, the elves being sluggish coming out of their self-inflicted coma after a week-long bash on the Elf-Wonking Juice, we’re a little tardy in pointing you towards the latest leg of the Crime Carnival. So it’s heartfelt apologies to BookBitch (right), who is currently hosting the jamboree. Quoth Ms Bitch:

“This carnival features the reading freak better known as the BookBitch. In years past, I could safely say I read a book a day. While on vacation, I’d been known to double that. But this past year, with graduate school, working on a research intensive book, my job, my family, well, I don’t think I read more than 300 books. Told you I was a freak … I am extremely opinionated (probably no one ever noticed that about me...) and when I find a book I love, I want everyone else to read it, and hopefully love it too – and then tell their friends about it. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to some new writers. They all have their first thriller just out or coming out in 2008.”

The full list of break-out writers is CJ Lyons, Susan Arnout Smith, Laura Benedict, Andy Harp and Kelli Stanley, who is currently redefining the concept of ‘Roman noir’ with NOX DORMIENDA, and who got the rubber-hose treatment at Crime Always Pays a couple of months ago. Meanwhile, those of you who reckon free books are the finest thing since, well, free books, should jump over here, where BookBitch is only giving ’em away …

Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: Being A Cornucopia Of ‘Weekend Ho!’ Interweb Baloohaha

Greetings and salutations to muso-head, glamarama media babe and all-round good elf Sinead Gleeson (right), back on the interweb from blogging’s equivalent of maternity leave at the award-winning The Sigla Blog … huzzah! And felicitations too to Rhian over at It’s A Crime! (Or A Mystery!), back in the blogging saddle (the 'bladdle'?) after way too long away. Nice to have you back, ma’am. Please don’t go away again … Would you get away with murder? Try the quiz over at Quiz Galaxy, which the pesky elves discovered when they were slacking off and perusing The Rap Sheet instead of slaving in the dungeon … Kelli Stanley, who recently stood up to the best that the Crime Always Pays’ interrogation elves could throw at her, has Convivium, a short story in her unique Roman Noir style, available over at the very fine Hard Luck Stories … The Childrens' Books Ireland website had a major overhaul last week; drop by and say hello ... Staying with kids’ books, why not drop by The Third Pig Detective Agency, where Harry Pigg – y’know, the little piggie who was smart enough to build his house out of bricks – is snuffling for truffles on the mean streets of fairytale-land. The elves are bigging him up Irish-style, in the vain hope he’ll one day get around to investigating their abduction and incarceration in the Crime Always Pays palace. Aye, and pigs will … oh. Erm, forget that - here's a sample chapter from Bob Burke (aka Mr Pigg) instead ... Finally, to mark the occasion of the UK release of 3:10 to Yuma, we just felt like an Elmore Leonard fix – check out the first part of World Class Detroiters, wherein Dutch gets interviewed, does a reading, and humbly avoids acknowledging he’s the Greatest Living Writer on the Planet. “When Leonard releases a new book, it’s like Christmas morning.” Amen, brother …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 379: Kelli Stanley

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Farewell, My Lovely. It’s the first Chandler I ever read, and still my favourite. His lyricism was in fantastic form. That scene with Marlowe picking up a bug in the police department office and taking it outside the building was revelatory to me – tough and hard-boiled does not necessarily mean insensitive to even the smallest suffering. Hammett, the outspoken political liberal, enjoyed hunting; Chandler, who sometimes is unjustly and mistakenly labelled a conservative, rescued cats. One reason why Marlowe resonates with me on such a profound level.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I do a lot of vintage comic book reading. I’ve got a conference presentation coming up about comics and classics. Of course, I'd read ’em anyway, but the conference is an excellent excuse.
Most satisfying writing moment?
I love this question ... it puts the pleasure emphasis on writing, not publishing, which is a sort of communal, social-acceptance kind of satisfaction, but not as pure as the kind you get when you write a passage and you’re breathing hard and on the edge of your seat and your palms are sweaty and you can barely get through the line in legible English because your thoughts are moving too quickly for you to get them down on paper and, damn it, your character is aching and so are you, and you don’t even realize you’re crying until you fall back in your stained and creaky chair, and realize you’re alone. Really alone. Because you just finished the damn book. The first draft is always the most satisfying to me, because you get swept away. Editing and revising means stepping back, and you lose some of that bonding, that euphoria.
The best Irish crime novel is ...?
I’d nominate Ken Bruen’s The Killing of the Tinkers. Devastating, lyrical, and a seductive and spiritual odyssey.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Any one of Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. For something a bit lighter, Cecil Day Lewis’ Nigel Strangeways’ mysteries – they’d make a good series for television, instead of this constant revision of Agatha Christie.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best things: That incredible sense of creation-elation. Someone reading your work and liking it. Places you can go and people you can meet. Worst thing: Rejection, rejection, rejection. I think we tend to take it personally. And solitude isn’t all that healthy. It’s good to get out of yourself and into a pub occasionally.
The pitch for your next novel is ...?
The sequel to Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping) is finished, but waiting for a final round of revision. The title is Maledictus (Cursed). My books are very character-driven. Mystery plots are nearly always contrived to some degree, so I concentrate on making more than murder happen – and making the reader care about who it might happen to. I also look at my books as more noir than historical mystery, though the history aspects are all as accurate as a lot of research and an M.A. in classics can make them. Maledictus is a noir about a professional curse-writer in Aquae Sulis (Bath) whose curses have an uncanny habit of coming true. Arcturus will get involved in ways he can't fathom or predict. Nightmare Alley and Red Harvest were two big influences on this novel. I’m also working on another short-story prequel to Nox, and researching another series set in 1939 San Francisco.
Who are you reading right now?
There are several books next to my bed at the moment: a Cornell Woolrich anthology (Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories), Raymond Chandler: A Literary Reference, and Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life by Jane Gardner. There’s also a Life magazine from 1938 and a volume of Sallust (a Roman historian I’m writing a paper on). Yeah, I know I’m weird.
The three best words to describe your own writing are ...?
Poetic. Visceral. Redemptive.

Kelli Stanley’s Nox Dormienda will be published in July 2008.