Down These Teen Streets

You’d have to feel sorry for the Belfast Tourist Board. Just when things are starting to look up for the city, along comes the likes of Colin Bateman, Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville with their gritty ‘n’ grimy crime novels to lower the tone all over again. Not helping matters in the slightest is one Gerard Brennan, who has made the leap from dedicated blogger to fully fledged author with his debut novel, WEE ROCKETS, which concerns itself with teenage tearaway Joe Philips and his criminal tendencies. Herewith be a sample:

Chapter 1

The streets of Beechmount stank of wet dog. The effect of drying rain in early summer. Light faded from the West Belfast housing area. Joe Philips yawned and slumped against the redbrick alley wall. Half past ten at night. He wanted to be in bed, cosy and watching a DVD until he drifted off to sleep. But he was the leader. The rest of the gang expected him to be there.
  At least it was holiday time. No school to mitch in the morning. He popped his head around the corner and glanced down the avenue.
  “I see one,” he said.
  They all looked up to him. Literally. In the last few weeks he’d taken what his ma called a growth spurt. He’d use his share of tonight’s money to buy longer trousers. Too much white sock showed between his Nike Air trainers and his Adidas tracksuit bottoms.
  “Anyone else about?” Wee Danny Gibson asked. He snubbed a half-smoked fag on the alley wall and tucked the butt behind his ear.
  “No, just the aul doll. Easy enough number.”
  Wee Danny nodded and the rest of the gang twitched, murmured and pulled hoods up over lowered baseball caps. Ten of them in all, not one above fourteen years old.
  “Right, let’s go,” Joe said.
  They spilled out of the alley and surrounded the blue-rinse bitch like a cursing tornado. She screamed, but they moved too fast for the curtain-twitchers to react. Broken nose bleeding, she dropped her handbag and tried to fend off kicks and punches. Wee Danny scooped it up and whistled. They split in ten different directions. The old granny shrieked at them. They were gone before any fucker so much as opened his door …

  For a longer excerpt, clickety-click here …
  Incidentally, Gerard Brennan’s novella THE POINT won the prestigious Spinetingler award for Best Novella of 2011. For more, clickety-click here …

Ground Control To Major Brennan: We Have Blast-Off

A belated Happy New Year from the Crime Always Pays elves to all Three Regular Readers, and apologies for the delay in getting our collective ass in gear for 2012. The issue, for the most part, is that the Grand Vizier has packed in the smokes again, and is finding it rather difficult to type, having gnawed his fingernails down to the elbow-stumps. Still, it can’t be Mills & Boon every day, right?
  Moving swiftly onwards, I can think of no better way to kick off 2012 than with a big fat juicy plug for Gerard Brennan, who follows up last year’s novella offering THE POINT with WEE ROCKETS. Quoth the blurb elves:

WEE ROCKETS is a gritty, urban morality tale; a wake-up call for society. It follows a gang of fourteen-year-old hoods as they rampage through West Belfast, fearless and forever upping the ante in their anti-social crimes. They mug pensioners to pay for the cider, cigarettes and sweets they hope will ease them through so many long, aimless days of summer. Their actions send shockwaves through an already damaged post-Troubles society that has yet to build a relationship with a new ‘Catholic-friendly’ police force. Stephen McVeigh, a local Gaelic football ‘star’ and concerned resident has had enough. He wants the kind of justice the Provos dealt in their heyday and he believes he’s the man to fill that void. With rat-like instincts, Joe Phillips has realised that his luck can’t hold out much longer. He wants to relinquish his post as the leader of the Wee Rockets. But as Stephen McVeigh closes in with his ham-fisted investigation, has Joe left it too late to change his ways? Without his loyal gang to back him up, Joe’s just a vulnerable fourteen-year-old kid from a broken home with nobody to turn to.

WEE ROCKETS does for Belfast what Irvine Welsh did for Edinburgh. It’s a frank look at the drink- and drug-addled youth ejected onto the streets of a socially deprived community as they smirk in the face of authority and play Russian Roulette with their adolescent lives.

Praise for WEE ROCKETS:

“The Wire? This is Barbed Wire. A cheeky slice of urban noir, a drink-soaked, drug-addled journey into the violent underbelly of one of Europe’s most notorious ghettos, WEE ROCKETS make The Outsiders look like the Teletubbies.” – Colin Bateman

“Gerard Brennan stands apart from the Irish crime fiction crowd with a novel rooted in the reality of today’s Belfast. The author’s prose speaks with a rare authenticity about the pain of growing up in a fractured society, shot through with a black humour that can only come from the streets. WEE ROCKETS is urban crime fiction for the 21st century, and Brennan is a unique voice among contemporary Irish writers.” – Stuart Neville

“In WEE ROCKETS Gerard Brennan has written a fast paced, exciting story of West Belfast gang culture; brimming with violence, authentic street dialogue and surprising black humour. This is a great debut novel. Brennan takes us into the heart of Belfast’s chav underclass, in a story that lies somewhere in the intersection between The Warriors, Colin Bateman and Guy Ritchie. This is the first in what undoubtedly will be a stellar literary career.” – Adrian McKinty

  So there you have it. WEE ROCKETS is published by Blasted Heath, the e-only publishing company out of Scotland; interestingly, to me at least, the image of WEE ROCKETS presented on the Blasted Heath website is that of a book, rather than a e-book cover. Are the Blasted Heath boys trying on some Jedi mind-trick, designed to convince readers they’re purchasing a dead-tree book rather than a digital version? Only time, that notorious tittle-tattler, will tell …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Gerard Brennan

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?
DIVORCING JACK by (Colin) Bateman. It was the first Northern Irish crime fiction novel I read and everything about it seemed real, familiar and exciting. I’ve reread it a few times and it’s aged well. It’s everything a Northern Irish crime novel should be and, as a writer who wants to produce convincing and commercial crime fiction with an NI slant, it’s the perfect yardstick. I’ll never be as funny as Bateman but I can aim to be as good.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Inspector Ben Devlin from Brian McGilloway’s series, but with my real-life wife, kids and dog. He’s just a good guy.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
My daughter’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID books. They’re amazing. Generally I don’t feel guilt for reading anything but in this case it stems from the fact that I refuse to read Mr Men books to her in favour of Jeff Kinney’s work. Selfish.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Those rare days when you read over the work you’ve produced and think, this is actually pretty good.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
This week? THE BURNNIG SOUL by John Connolly. There’s a tonne of great Irish crime out there and each time I read a new one it jostles to the top to become king of the castle. I’ve a feeling that Adrian McKinty’s COLD, COLD GROUND will snatch the crown next.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION. The Traveller is the perfect villain. A foul-mouthed terminator.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is the anxiety, heartache and self-torture that I’ve put myself through along the way. The best is taking all that negative crap and making positive use of it (i.e. putting it into the current work-in-progress). Cheap therapy.

The pitch for your next book is …?
‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ with Belfast accents. They use movies and TV shows to pitch books quite a lot these days. Have you noticed that?

Who are you reading right now?
Just finished HALF BLOOD BLUES by Esi Edugyan. Great book. I read the Booker shortlist for an event at Derry Central Library the night the winner was announced. It’s something I haven’t done before but it’s been a very interesting exercise. I’m mostly surprised by how much I enjoyed some of them. Next up are STOLEN SOULS by Stuart Neville and an ARC of COLD, COLD GROUND by Adrian McKinty. Score.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. Definitely read. I love writing but it’s hard work and a compulsion that carries a lot of guilt. ‘Why aren’t you writing? Why aren’t you writing. Hey, Gerard, Why aren’t you writing?’ If God takes that voice away with my ability/permission to write, then fine. I’ve a lot of reading to catch up on.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
“Dark but fun.”

Gerard Brennan’s THE POINT is now available on Kindle. You can catch Gerard Brennan at Belfast’s No Alibis this evening, 6pm, where he will be launching THE POINT alongside Arlene Hunt, who will be launching her latest novel, THE CHOSEN.

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 …