CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: The Early Word

Dana King, long a friend of this blog, has been kind enough to review your humble host’s forthcoming Kindle-published novel CRIME ALWAYS PAYS over at the New Mystery Reader, with the gist running thusly:

“Few books in recent memory have been as much fun to read as Declan Burke’s THE BIG O. The sequel, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, is a worthy successor … The end result is a little like what might be expected if Elmore Leonard wrote from an outline by Carl Hiaasen … Devotees of strictly laid-out police procedurals or cosies may find CRIME ALWAYS PAYS a bit pell-mell for their taste; Burke’s not writing for them, anyway. [It’s] about the flow, the feel, the dialog, the interactions among characters, not knowing who’s working with—or against—who, the feeling that anything might happen at any moment. It’s as close to watching an action movie as a reading experience can be.”

  Which is very nice indeed. Thank you kindly, that man …

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 …

The Embiggened O: Two Kings, A Wizard And A Spotlight Review

Some weeks are better than others when you’re a 39-year-old new kid on the block trying to promote your humble tome, and this is definitely one of the better weeks. For lo! It would appear that the generous folk at New Mystery Reader are rather keen on THE BIG O – they’ve chosen it as their ‘September spotlight review’ and yours truly as their ‘September featured author’. Which is very, very nice indeed. The gist of the review runneth thusly:

Irish author Declan Burke is regularly compared to Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, even though THE BIG O is only his second novel. Anyone that new receiving that kind of praise has earned a skeptical eye, just as Leonard and Westlake have earned their legends. Burke and his cast of losers are up to it …
  Burke’s voice and writing style are indebted to Elmore Leonard, as are the characters, but Leonard never plotted so intricately. That’s where the Westlake influence comes out, as complicated and interconnected plot lines are kept moving with humour and improbability that never quite becomes implausible …
  I came to THE BIG O with high expectations and had them exceeded …THE BIG O is big fun. It’s just as well Harcourt couldn’t get it out in time for beach season; too many people would be staring, wondering what the hell you were laughing at. – Dana King

  In the interest of transparency and accountability, it should be pointed out that Dana King and Karen King, THE BIG O’s heroine, are not related.
  As for the interview, well, that’s just me waffling on about THE BIG O and generally mumbling about how rubbish I am at the actual scribbling part of writing. Which is all too painfully true. Days like these are fantastic, no doubt, but the downside is the creeping certainty that each one brings a little closer the day when some yapping Toto will tug back the curtain to my brain and reveal a little man furiously yanking on various levers in a desperate attempt to convince me that I am, in fact, capable of writing.
  Because here’s the cold truth: flattered as I am to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, no one is more acutely aware than I of how far I fall short of their standard. If – and it’s a huge ‘if’ – I ever get to the point where I have 10 novels under my belt that are even half as good as Leonard’s or Westlake’s, then I’ll be a very happy man indeed. But that day, in the unlikely event of its ever dawning, is a long, long way off.
  I’m under no illusions. I know that the fact that THE BIG O even came to the attention of the good folk at New Mystery Reader, for example, has much more to do with my blogging through Crime Always Pays than the quality of the book itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing THE BIG O – I’m very proud of it, and I’m overjoyed that people seem to like it. But I know its failings and limitations too. I know my own. If you’re sitting there thinking, ‘Hey, I read that book, and it’s nowhere as good as people are saying’, then believe me, I have many, many days when I sit here and think the exact same thing.
  I’m not being modest. I don’t do modest. I’m just being honest.
  In the meantime, God bless that little wizard. Long may he furiously yank …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE REAPERS by John Connolly

All series authors struggle to keep the franchise fresh, with varying results. Some age their characters in real time, some slow the aging process. Some stop it. Books are written out of sequence, telling of events that took place before already released novels. The past year has seen two top-list authors shift focus to their series’ regular sidekick. Last year brought Robert Crais’ award-winning THE WATCHMAN, a Joe Pike story with Elvis Cole in support. This summer unveils John Connolly’s THE REAPERS, featuring Charlie Parker’s friends and abettors Louis and Angel as protagonists; it should be no less successful.
  The story begins by looking back to Louis’ father, burned alive by racists in a redneck town. Nightmares bring the Burning Man to Louis with unnerving frequency, even now that he has retired from THE REAPERS, an elite team of professional killers. A former colleague turned nemesis has returned for vengeance on those he feels wronged him, and Louis and his partner Angel must take action to save themselves and those close to them, no matter how extreme the action may be.
  Louis and Angel will seem more sympathetic to those who have read other Connolly books, where their efforts to do good with their lethal skills show their desire to turn away from Louis’ previous career. Parker’s eyes and troubled sensitivities see how similar their demons are to his and leavens his judgment. Here the darkness inside their personal motivations is more fully explored—especially Louis’—with less benign results.
Connolly keeps THE REAPERS from becoming a nihilistic festival of destruction by counterbalancing them against another bit player from previous episodes, Willie Brew. Sixty, a Vietnam veteran, Willie runs a small auto shop with his friend Arno that operates partly as a front for Louis’ money. Willie has no involvement in Louis’ other interests, their relationship is as deep as Willie’s acknowledgement that Louis bailed him out when he was in danger of losing the shop in a divorce. Willie knows Louis is bad news, just not how bad. He respects Louis for helping him and asking little in return, but knows nothing is free.
  Willie does what he thinks is right, even when he doesn’t want to. He becomes involved in Louis’ plight because he feels an obligation to someone who has been good to him, despite the conflicts what he might have to do to fulfil his self-imposed obligation. Louis kills because it’s what he does; his developing conscience must accommodate killing a relatively innocent man because of a potential future threat, or as collateral damage, because he is too close to an immediate threat, an egg in Louis’s omelette of survival. Willie’s conscience has no such peace. He must choose between possibly killing men who mean him no harm, or abandoning a man who would kill for him. He is swept with increasing rapidity into the maelstrom of Louis’ danger in an effort to return a favour. No good deed goes unpunished in Connolly’s world.
  The second half of THE REAPERS is an extended gunfight on multiple fronts. The ending unfolds through the eyes of several participants, none of whom knows all of what is going on, giving the reader glimpses into the minds and hearts of all. Some bad guys have been swept up almost as innocently as Willie; some of the good guys are there only to kick ass. Connolly’s palette consists of shades of gray that exist only in the mind; some darker, some lighter, with no bright line of separation.
  He pulls it off with elegiac and poetic prose worthy of James Lee Burke. THE REAPERS never disintegrates into operatic carnage. The pace of the writing remains introspective throughout, denying the conventional wisdom of shorter, choppier, sentences to convey action and imply tension. Connolly has all the tension he needs in the dark world his language creates. Humour is plentiful; the usual banter between Louis and Angel lightens the mood when needed while showing the bond between them, two early-middle-aged gay men nagging each other like an old married couple, but with the coarse humour men reserve for their friends. Not the easiest thing to pull off, it’s highly effective when handled by someone with Connolly’s talent.
  Beneath the carnage, THE REAPERS is about commitment and obligation. Angel knows Louis’ plan is based on incomplete information. He goes along because he goes where Louis goes, unconditionally, no matter how much he bitches about it, and he knows their original team is there for the money; only he will look out for Louis. Willie Brew will risk his life for a man he barely knows and fears more than he respects because Louis has been good to him, and he knows Louis would do the same for him, even if their motivations would be completely different. Parker arrives late and makes up for lost time by diving in without any plan at all, because Louis and Angel have been there for him without asking why, or how their contribution fits.
  These qualities are juxtaposed against the selfishness of their antagonists, and contrasted to the good-soldier innocence of some of their opponents, to create a book that is much greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts create a substantial sum. THE REAPERS allows Connolly to look at his characters from outside of their own perspectives and see them as other see them. The supernatural elements that work so well in his other books (especially THE BLACK ANGEL) aren’t needed here; frank examination of good and bad, how they overlap, and how each can be used in the service of the other fills the spaces between the lines. THE REAPERS can be read as one hell of a thriller, but those who read it for that purpose alone are cheating themselves. – Dana King

This review was first published at the New Mystery Reader

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE KILLING KIND by John Connolly

John Connolly’s THE KILLING KIND is the work of a master in his prime. Connolly weaves a complex story without making it so complicated the reader can’t appreciate the characters and quality of writing. For that, Connolly deserves our thanks. The characters and writing are what’s worth reading here.
  Not that the plot’s bad; far from it. A young woman commits suicide while researching her Masters thesis on the mysterious disappearance of a small band of religious zealots that disappeared without a trace in the Sixties. A rich man with a guilty conscience hires detective Charlie Parker to make sure suicide isn’t just an uncomplicated way for the police to close the case. Parker’s investigation inexorably takes him from a two-bit grifter turned faith healer to the sinister machinations of a church for whom all imperfect life, being damned, is without value.
  Parker once again has his inner demons pitted against formidable forces that seem almost otherworldly in their menace. The treat is watching him fight both without bathos. He faces up to his dark side as well as he can, imperfectly, letting us identify with him while rejoicing because nothing like this ever happens to us. Parker takes his situation and relationships seriously, making it doubly important to the reader that things work out for him.
  Parker’s not in it alone. Louis, his alter ego, could easily be a not-so-pale imitation of Spenser’s Hawk. Connolly won’t have it. Louis, Hawk-like in his controlled menace, serves a distinct purpose as Parker’s sidekick, understanding and helping to define his friend’s needs and internal struggles. The depth of their friendship is more evolved than Spenser’s with Hawk, who understand each other well enough to relate in the traditional manner of quiet bonding. Each knows the other is there for him; their mutual feelings are conveyed in the subtext of their banter. Parker and Louis are more open. They pick open each other’s psychic scabs to discuss things about which Spenser and Hawk will only smile knowingly. (Note to the reader: This is written by a Spenser devotee, and is no faint praise.)
  Louis’ partner Angel is a perfect foil, lacking their level of menace and injecting a lighter side without becoming comic relief. Rachel is a woman meant for a man like Parker, strong enough to both stand up to him and to let him do what he has to.
  It’s a good thing. Rare is a cast of villains found to match those in THE KILLING KIND. From Mr. Pudd’s spiders and his mute female companion through the spectral Golem, the undercurrent of evil is always touched by the malevolent offstage presence of a master unseen until the end.
  Connolly’s writing is reminiscent in some ways of early Robert B. Parker in more than the relationship between Charlie Parker and Louis. The descriptions, the pace and flow of the language, and the easy and genuinely amusing banter between friends are all Parker trademarks, here made distinctly Connolly’s own. The humour is particularly effective. Characters are only intentionally funny when they’re relaxing. The humour that erupts in dangerous situations is the unintentional levity of men under stress, or building their courage by whistling through the graveyard.
  Connolly excels at letting the reader in on things at his own pace and in his own way. He uses excerpts from Grace Peltier’s unfinished thesis to foreshadow events, letting you peek far enough ahead to guess at a few things without giving them away. Exercise some discipline. THE KILLING KIND will make you want to turn every page, but not too quickly. Skipping over anything here means you’ll miss something more than plot: good writing. And that’s worth lingering over. – Dana King

This review was first published at New Mystery Reader.

DEAD Man Tells New Tales

That blummin’ Declan Hughes (right), eh? Can’t sit still. No sooner is the ink dry on the latest in the Ed Loy series, THE DYING BREED, than the Irish Ross Macdonald is wibbling on about the fourth instalment, CITY OF THE DEAD, to Dana King over at New Mystery Reader, with the gist running thusly:

“CITY OF THE DEAD sees Loy take the case of a woman whose father was murdered fifteen years ago; her mother’s lover was convicted of the crime, but the conviction was found to be unsafe, and he was released. The dead man was a tax inspector, and at the time of his death, was preparing tax evasion investigations into three men: a major gangland figure, an IRA terrorist and a prominent businessman. The Guards refuse to re-open the case, insisting, despite the verdict of the appeal court, that the right man was found guilty. Now the IRA are on ceasefire, and the businessman is a friend to politicians, and the gangland figure has paid his debts and gone legit, Loy finds the investigation extremely complicated, and begins to suspect it is in no-one’s interest except the dead man’s family to uncover the truth.”

Aye, but will there be blood? Trundle on over to New Mystery Reader for the inside skinny as to why ‘Declan Hughes, John Connolly, Adrian McKinty, Declan Burke (koff), Ken Bruen and others’ are heralding ‘a golden age’ in Irish crime fiction …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE DEAD YARD by Adrian McKinty

Winston Churchill once joked that the United States and the United Kingdom were two great nations separated by a common language. Adrian McKinty is Irish, so I hope he’s not offended by the comparison, but wading through some of the trans-Atlantic terminology is all that keeps his new book, THE DEAD YARD, from reading as effortlessly as watching a movie.
  Be grateful that THE DEAD YARD isn’t a movie, at least not yet. It has all the makings of a good one, but would still be best enjoyed as a novel. McKinty’s seemingly effortless prose moves your eye through the story with the ease and fluidity of a Rolls. Protagonist Michael Forsythe takes a hellacious beating through much of this book, and can’t catch a break, yet manages to observe most of what goes on with enough detachment to keep things from being ponderous without going for the big laugh.
  Forsythe has a tough life. Taking out an entire Irish mob got him a seat in the federal Witness Protection Program. He’s still concerned enough about the open contract on his head to choose to vacation in the Canary Islands, where he’s minding his own business when he gets caught up in a soccer riot and arrested by Spanish police. British MI6 can spring him, but they have a small favour to ask: infiltrate a splinter cell of the IRA in the States before it can ruin the truce arranged by Tony Blair’s new government in the late Nineties.
  Forsythe is a likeable anti-hero, in his own repulsive way, always looking for an angle, even if he will eventually do the right thing. The characters around him are a well-rounded and absorbing lot, even the psychos. Gerry McCaghan came to America and re-invented himself as a renaissance man who now owns a construction company and spouts Latin at every opportunity (appropriateness is optional) to impress his new, much younger wife. He doesn’t need to; she loves him to death, ignoring his tolerance for violence with her own 21st century version of radical chic. Touched McGuigan is so crazy people can call him ‘Touched’ to his face and he doesn’t mind. Gerry’s daughter Kit wants to follow in the old man’s footsteps but sometimes lacks the fortitude. Then again, sometimes she doesn’t. She’s only nineteen, and McKinty keeps her as confusing and confounding to Forsythe and the reader as her circumstances must seem to herself.
  McKinty dresses his tale in enough historical perspective to keep things grounded. His MI6 and FBI agents are twisted enough to be believable without becoming caricatures, dedicated without being corny. He knows his players’ strengths and uses them in proper proportions to balance the story, keeping the reader in the air as much as Forsythe is about how straight his handlers are being with him and how dangerous Gerry’s crew might be until the story starts hurtling downward into its violent ending.
  The ending is, in its way, the weakest part of THE DEAD YARD. It’s well written and exciting, but asks a bit much of Forsythe. His suffering reaches Gibsonian Passion of the Christ levels, yet he still has enough in the tank to just about saw off a baddies’ head with a piece of broken Coke bottle. A hard man who is no stranger to violence through most of the book, by the end he is the Terminator with a prosthetic foot, hopping around to wreak his vengeance on those who deserve it, which by that time is pretty much everyone in the area.
  Be not deterred; by then McKinty has earned his indulgence. THE DEAD YARD is a ripping good yarn, told with an aplomb that often disguises the quality of the writing. McKinty is a talent, and savvy enough to plant the seeds of at least one more sequel between the lines of the current instalment. (THE DEAD YARD is the second Michael Forsythe book, McKinty’s third.) McKinty makes three kick-ass Irish mystery writers I’ve discovered for myself in less than a year (John Connolly and Declan Hughes are the others). Me auld grandda Dougherty would be proud. – Dana King

This review first appeared at the New Mystery Reader