Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Sleeping Dogs Lie by Sylvester Young

“So this thing involved a lotta people who work for different government agencies? Man, Oliver Stone would have a field day.”
Sylvester Young, Sleeping Dogs Lie

Ne’er a truer word was ever spoken: Sleeping Dogs Lie will surely become a byword for paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Very much a novel of its time, the tale follows the fortunes of Robbie Walker as he departs New York in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, headed for Georgia with his fellow fugitive from justice and long-term friend, the ex-IRA man and cold-blooded killer Danny Maguire. Hiding out in the rural township of Petra, Robbie – English-born, to Jamaican parents – wonders why Danny has taken them to such a Godforsaken place, only to discover that Danny’s motives have been less than pure when a murderous plot concocted by rogue elements of the Colombian paramilitary group FARC collides with an investigation by a shadowy anti-terrorist American secret agency, ‘the Seventeenth’. Young’s first-person narrative is delivered in a beguiling patois that reeks of authenticity, the voice luring you down into the complex workings of a mind struggling to forge a path through the disintegrating remnants of what is quickly becoming a wasted life. Squeezed on one side by government-sponsored threats, on the other by loyalty to his old comrade, and coping with the casual violence of overt racism while trying to bail a new friend out of a murder frame-up, Walker is run ragged by the excess of adrenaline coursing through his system as he battles, above all else, the will-sapping paranoia that wafts up out of every line. A punchy, cynical and relentlessly political novel, Sleeping Dogs Lie is as courageous a statement of intent as it is a gripping thriller.- Declan Burke

This review is republished by the kind permission of Euro Crime. Sleeping Dogs Lie is published by Raldon Books.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 649: Sylvester Young

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?
Love, Lies and Bleeding. It brought back many memories of growing up in Wolves.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Four kids, a demanding wife, full-time job plus my own writing – for guilty pleasure I only have time for reading the best, the daily tabloids. A great source for plots.
Most satisfying writing moment?
After years of rejection, acceptance of my first book.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Ronan Bennett, The Second Prison.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Love, Lies and Bleeding. I wish I had the know-how to make it into a screenplay.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst: constant rejection of a script. Best: holding for the first time your book fresh off the press.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
To switch personality as well as style - switching names can help in that process.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Entertaining, thought provoking.

Sylvester Young’s Sleeping Dogs Lie is published in September by Raldon Books.

The Lies That Bind

A house of lies, yon Raldon Books. The Cork-based publishing house release Sylvester Young’s rather brilliant conspiracy thriller Sleeping Dogs Lie in September, but they’re not stopping there, no sirree Bob. They’ve also got the rather intriguingly titled Love, Lies and Bleeding by the even more intriguing J.S. Noon on the slate. A former cop with the Ontario Provincial Police, Justine Manley finds herself sucked into an international prostitution racket when the Canadian secret service, CSIS, force her to travel to London to liaise with MI5. Quoth Siobhan Blaney at Raldon:

“As for Love, Lies and Bleeding, it was Sylvester who put the book our way. During his research for a book in Ontario, he got talking to someone who works in the police / security fields, and who admitted to the odd scribble. Sylvester had a look at it, gave some advice and asked us to look at it and we were impressed. The one drawback is that the author’s background precludes public appearances and the like – which makes things difficult for us in these days of media-accessible novelists-cum-celebrities! Although, had circumstances for the author been different, I’m sure that a much bigger publisher would have taken it on. What impressed us about Love, Lies and Bleeding is that it brings to the reader a series of questions about love, friendship and inter-cultural relationships without ever impinging on what is a fast-paced, whodunnit, thought-provoking and sometimes funny crime story.”

Consider us intriguingly intrigued, folks. If you're interested in reading an excerpt, you can slide on over here for Chapter One ...

Sleeping Dogs Lie: A Little Bit Of Bark, A Little Bit Of Bite

Here’s one Sleeping Dog that won’t lie doggo. Ontario-based Sylvester Young, born in England of Jamaican parents, wrote What Goes Around after one of his regular trips to Ireland.

“There weren’t many black people in Ireland back then,” says Sylvester, “and someone asked me if I was related to a black man who had been a member of the IRA in County Tipperary. I’m not sure if the story was true but it gave me an idea for a novel.”

So far, so good. Except the sequel, Sleeping Dogs Lie, in which fugitive from justice Robbie Walker and his ex-IRA friend Danny make their way to the States and get embroiled in a FBI plot, pushed all the wrong buttons in all the wrong places. Unable to get published in America, Young sent his m/s to Ireland. Cue chaos. According to the Sleeping Dogs Lie press release, the m/s was confiscated and his editor was arrested and questioned for three days.

“I was troubled by the news,” says Young, “but I can understand in the climate created since 9/11 how the references to the IRA, the FARC and a bomb plot on American soil within the manuscript would have aroused the police’s interest.”

Very magnanimous, sir. Two years after being confiscated, Sleeping Dogs Lie is finally published in September by those stoic souls at Raldon. If freebie reads are your thing, jump over here for the first chapter.