The Monday Review

Salacious title, groovy gal, to wit: “Baroness Jack is a delightful character and with Robert at her side they make a perfect duo in this entertaining and witty book,” says Mystery Book Reviews of Ruth Dudley Edwards’ MURDERING AMERICANS. Over at Euro Crime, Mike Ripley agrees: “Good comedy thrillers with outrageous comic detectives are few and far between … It is therefore a pure pleasure to welcome back the eccentric Baroness “Jack” Troutbeck, that most unsubtle of sleuths.” Elsewhere, Jen Robinson isn’t impressed the audio book of Benjamin Black’s CHRISTINE FALLS: “Well-written, very detailed characterization, but a bit slow-paced for listening on audio. I think I would have preferred it in print.” Over at Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker gives SLIDE an A-, to wit: “A loose follow-up to Ken Bruen and Jason Starr’s superb 2006 Bust (with a couple of the same characters), SLIDE is all genially ferocious menace.” A hop, skip and a quantum leap away from SLIDE is Cora Harrison’s MY LADY JUDGE, which Harriet Klausner likes quite a lot over at Genre Go Round: “Cora Harrison writes an enjoyable historical whodunit starring a wonderful protagonist who understands no one is above Brehon law.” And what of Derek Landy’s SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT, eh? “This is a true good vs evil type of book with a large dollop of wit and humour … It is a well crafted tale which reminds me of Ghost Rider meets Harry Dresden,” reckons Kamannix at Books4Ever … They’re still coming in for Tana French’s IN THE WOODS: “This book is more interesting than your average police procedural, and far more realistic (if unsatisfying) in the ending,” vouches the 50 Book Challenge … Recent Shamus winner Declan Hughes has Ibjana purring at the San Diego County Library over THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, to wit: “This was a really good book … I was shocked at the ending, I never once predicted the villain, or a few other twists to the story. I’ll be waiting patiently for his next book.” One of Crime Always Pays novels of the year, JULIUS WINSOME, has them creaming out yonder at the Western People thusly: “His writing has been compared to Beckett and Kafka, uniting satire and tragedy, pain and hilarity. JULIUS WINSOME is a provocative and deeply poignant novel by a writer with an undoubted talent for creativity and black humour. Perhaps it is the originality of JULIUS WINSOME that is most impressive. This is a narrative like no other - a strange, deeply disturbing tale that is utterly compelling from start to finish.” Yup, we couldn’t agree more … John Burke at the Sunday Business Post isn’t crazy about Frances Cahill’s biographical MARTIN CAHILL, MY FATHER: “It is likely this book will sell well, but many will find it difficult to accommodate the comparable lack of balance by the author in her depiction of her father, a career criminal, and the Gardai and justice system that justifiably sought to end his reign of violent crime.” Another true crime showing, THE MIAMI SHOWBAND MASSACRE by Steven Travers and Neil Featherstonehaugh, fares rather better with Tom Widger at the Sunday Tribune: “This is a chilling read, culminating in a chilling encounter with a UVF man who regrets that he and his fellow butchers “didn’t do more”.” Meanwhile, Mary Rose Callaghan’s BILLY, COME HOME went down a treat with Mr and Mrs Publishers Weekly, to wit: “Without becoming mawkish or preachy, Callaghan delivers an effective indictment of society’s failure to care for a vulnerable minority.” The late, lamented Siobhan Dowd’s THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY is still wowing ’em over at the Irish Times: “Everything about this book – the perky tone, the subtlety of characterisation and the cleverness of the plotting – is absolutely right,” reckons Robert Dunbar, and we’re not about to argue … A rare review for Andrew Pepper’s THE REVENGE OF CAPTAIN PAINE, courtesy of Tangled Web, suggests there should be more: “There is much to recommend THE REVENGE OF CAPTAIN PAINE, although many readers will find Pyke too unsympathetic a character to follow to the end. This is history with no holds barred, a step into the violent and visceral world that civilisation has tried so hard to leave behind … for those who aren’t squeamish, this is not to be missed,” says Rafe McGregor … Finally, Ronan Bennett’s ZUGWANG has been rocking them in the aisles all over. “The racier elements are less subtle than the author’s early masterpiece, The Catastrophist, but somehow that seems appropriate to the noir-ish atmosphere of the proceedings,” says Val Nolan at the Sunday Business Post, while the Sunday Tribune is equally effusive: “This thriller by Ronan Bennett was first published in serial form, and the brilliant set-up is deceptively deadpan … one needs to know nothing of “mysterious rook moves” or the Maroczy Bind to enjoy this atmospheric, ingenious and perfectly paced novel.” Lastly but by no means leastly, Anne Fogarty’s Irish Times two cents runneth thusly: “In Zugswang, Bennett with characteristic finesse supplies us at once with an engrossing thriller and a historical romance that suggestively examines the workings of power and the utopian desire for justice and equality.” And if it’s good enough for the Old Lady – the Irish Times, that is, not Anne – then it’s good enough for us …

Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: Being A Dolly Mixture Pick-‘n’-Mix Of Interweb Baloohaha

We’re not sure if crime writers are even allowed to send in their grubby manuscripts, but RTÉ Radio 1 is calling for entries for the 2007 RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition in memory of Francis MacManus. Closing date is Oct 29, so get scribbling … Any excuse to mention Vincent Banville is a good excuse, but hell – exactly how garish is this cover (right) for Sad Song? It burns, it BURNS! … Seth Harwood, author of Jack Wakes Up and This Is Life, is running an interesting experiment in interweb flummery – the novels are podcast-only, and available free over here. Is Harwood an evil genius destined to take over the publishing world? Only time, that notorious doity rat, will tell … The Indo’s Ciara Dwyer has an interview with Mary Rose Callaghan, author of Billy Come Home, somewhere in this direction … It’s not particularly Irish or crime fiction, but the Crime Always Pays elves are trampolining on their tiny little elf-beds at the news that Johnny Depp has picked up the option to Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary … Cora Harrison’s historical mystery set in the Burren, My Lady Judge, is a September Book Sense pick at the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market blog … Nick Stone, who published King of Swords last week, guest-blogged at Sarah Weinman’s Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind yesterday … Finally, here’s a vid of a very short-‘n’-sweet Q&A with Ken Bruen at Bouchercon, in which Ken picks Mitchum over Bogie on the basis that Mitch once declared he had two ways of acting – with the horse, or without the horse. And that’s it for another week, folks. Thanks for dropping by, have a fabulous weekend and see y’all next week, y’hear?

The Monday Review: Being A Series Of Hup-Ya Snippets Culled From The Interweb Yokeybus

Detectives Beyond Borders seems rather taken with Declan Hughes’ The Wrong Kind of Blood – it’s four posts and counting by now, the gist of which runneth thusly: “One can read the technique as the product of Hughes’ efforts to liven up what in less skilled hands might seem shop-worn … Loy begins to look like an honourable addition to the roster of troubled fictional private investigators,” and “Hughes has a knack like none other I’ve ever seen of blowing away the heaviness with a laugh-out-loud funny line.” Which is nice … “I Predict A Riot careers along at a break-neck pace, keeping us rooting for the dysfunctional cast of characters, and enjoying the cameo roles that hurtle by. The book’s too long by at least 150 pages, but (sorry, sorry), it’s a riot!” reckons Sharon Wheeler of Reviewing the Evidence after perusing The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman’s latest … What of Michael Collins’ The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton? “For the well-read there is a lot of literary and philosophical discussion (Nietzsche figures prominently); for the cynics lots of world-weariness; and for the crime lovers a cracking mystery with a completely unexpected denouement,” says Lizzy over at Lizzy’s Literary Life … “Frankly, it would be hard to over-praise [Gene] Kerrigan’s second crime outing. It’s stylish enough to merit comparison with Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, yet somehow recognisably us. If you’re looking for a terrific holiday read, look no further,” says the Irish Times’ Arminta Wallace of The Midnight Choir … Tom Widger at the Sunday Trib agrees: “Seldom have there been so many good Irish crime writers. Top of the stack, among a handful of others, is Kerrigan.” ... “Awash with hard men and lonely women, 12:23 is impeccably researched and tautly written,” reckons The Independent’s Rebecca Armstrong, while Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet is equally taken with Eoin McNamee’s fictionalised take on Princess Di’s death: “I reckon I could have read the entire book in under two hours, since it’s a rather slim volume in terms of page count; but bloody hell, 12:23 is a big book when it comes to ideas, literary style, and the atmosphere it can conjure in one’s head.” … Fra Jones at Verbal magazine likes Mary Rose Callaghan’s latest: “Billy, Come Home is an often upsetting story, but one not without tenderness and humour. And its heavy subject matter is handled with a sense of surety and the deftness of touch for which Callaghan is renowned.” … What’s a Monday Review without a John Connolly big-up? Bereft, that’s what … “Set in the state of Maine, with impressively accurate atmosphere and topography, [The Unquiet] is not for the faint-hearted. It grips like a hospital blood-pressure pad and might even offer bad dreams,” says Sean McMahon at Verbal … “Little Constructions is about everything that’s nasty in life, but it’s mostly about violence. So it has guns. And retribution. Madness. Paedophilia. Rape. Bruising infidelity. Desperately unhappy marriages. Damaged women and oblivious men. And somehow it all manages to be convincingly comic,” gushes the Sunday Business Post’s Catherine O’Mahony on Anna Burns’ Little Constructions … Finally, and under the rather impressive heading of ‘Best Summer Reads: Crime’ in The Times, comes Marcel Berlins' hup-ya for Brian McGilloway: “The most impressive recent debut was Brian McGilloway’s Borderlands, a tight, exquisitely written, atmospheric account of claustrophobic life around the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic … Inspector Benedict Devlin, of the Garda, a man not without his own secrets, is a compelling investigator.” We couldn’t agree more: Devlin puts us in mind of the late, lamented Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen, which isn’t a comparison to be bandied about lightly.