You Can Never Be Too Rich Or Too Glynn

You will, if you’re one of CAP’s three regular readers, have encountered the name of Alan Glynn before, as often as not in conjunction with the latest rave for his forthcoming novel, WINTERLAND – John Connolly, George Pelecanos, Val McDermid and Ken Bruen are among those who just about stop short of acclaiming it a cure for all mankind’s ills. I interviewed Alan for the Evening Herald last week, with the opening gambit running thusly:

Alan Glynn is a man of many talents. Not only has he written two superb novels, one of which has been optioned in Hollywood, he has also, in writing the prophetic novel WINTERLAND, pretty much single-handedly caused the crippling Irish recession.
  “Oooops,” he says, “sorry about that. But you’re right, the first draft of WINTERLAND was written during the boom, although I don’t think I was trying to predict anything or be Cassandra-ish. I did revise it in the light of what has happened more recently, but the central concern, or target, of the story is something that applies equally in times of boom or bust -- which is that all-too-familiar dynamic in Irish life where people tell lies, cover them up and create all sorts of collateral damage, sometimes spread out over decades, and never take responsibility.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

The TIES That Bind

Off with yours truly to the Fingal Readers’ Day in Blanchardstown in north Dublin yesterday, there to take lunch with the ever-lovely Niamh O’Connor, whose BLOOD TIES was published last week by Transworld Ireland. Quoth the blurb elves:

Husband against wife … Wife against husband … Discover what happens when the bonds of family break …
  Find out more about the gruesome case of the so-called ‘Scissor Sisters’, whose bloody slaughter of their mother’s lover ended with an unsolved mystery as to the final resting place of the victim’s head – see the only interview with killer Charlotte Mulhall since she entered prison.
  Read the most up-to-date account of the murder of mother-of-two Rachel O’Reilly, including her husband’s latest appeal.
  And get the full story behind the sensational case of Sharon Collins and the ‘Lying Eyes’ hitman-for-hire scandal.
  As a leading crime reporter for the Sunday World, Niamh O’Connor has interviewed killers, has sat in court as justice was done, and spoken to the condemned in prison to give us the inside stories on three of Ireland’s most notorious murder cases.

  Meanwhile, the point of the Blanchardstown excursion for yours truly was to interview Stuart Neville, whose terrific novel THE TWELVE is about to be published Stateside as the equally terrific THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST. Stuart being a self-confessed ‘affable chap’, it was all very pleasant indeed, with none of the pyrotechnics you can probably expect when Stuart hosts James Ellroy at Belfast’s Waterfront on November 7th, in a gig organised by No Alibis. To wit:

No Alibis Bookstore is very pleased to announce that we will be hosting an event with none other than the Demon Dog of American crime fiction, James Ellroy, in early November to celebrate the release of the final book in his Underworld USA trilogy, BLOOD’S A ROVER. This event will be held in the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, on Saturday 7th November at 8:00PM. Tickets are now on sale, and are priced £12.

  Twelve quid to see James Ellroy, when it was eighty-odd quid to see Beyoncé earlier this year? Now that’s a steal …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: It's Alive

Nice buzz. Jon gets in touch to say that CRIME ALWAYS PAYS has finally gone live on Kindle, which was very decent of him. The good news is that it’s available at a knock-down, recession-busting $1.25, which means that I only have to offer one-and-a-quarter bangs per buck before I’m ahead of the curve on value for money. Modest though I may be on occasion, I think I can cover that …
  At this point I’d like to take the opportunity to not-so-gently remind you of what this blog’s good friend Dana King had to say about CRIME ALWAYS PAYS over at the New Mystery Reader recently. To wit:

“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 … [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.”

  And fellow scribe Rafe McGregor was kind enough to pen this blush-making verdict:

“I’ve just finished the MS of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, Declan Burke’s sequel to the much-praised THE BIG O. Reading the new novel was as uplifting as it was soul-destroying ... Uplifting because CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is excellent, even better than THE BIG O. It has a great plot, cool characters, and there isn’t a single word wasted. This is really fine writing, masterful to the point where if I’d received the MS anonymously, I’d have assumed it came from one of the big bestsellers like Connelly, Crais, Rankin, or Child.”

  All of which, as you can probably imagine, is very gratifying indeed. By the way, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS comes with ‘simultaneous device usage – unlimited’, which may or may not mean that it’s also available in other formats … Anyone have any ideas? I’m a total newbie here …

Justice, Where Is Thy Sting? Oh, There It Is …

Lazy bugger that I am, I’m about four months late in telling you that the third in Cora Harrison’s ‘Burren Mysteries’ series is THE STING OF JUSTICE, which, as always, is set in mediaeval Ireland and features her Brehon judge Mara. Quoth the blurb elves:

The autumn has come to the Burren, it’s a time of harvest: of gathering for the winter to come. The end of summer for most and the end of life for others. When Mara attends the funeral of a local priest of the Burren, the last things she expects is another corpse to be found on the church steps - a man stung to death by bees. Sorley the silversmith was a greedy and distrusted man: there would be no shortage of people who wanted him dead but who really stood to profit from his murder? As Mara investigates, she must use all her cunning and prowess as a lady judge to bring the sting of justice to a killer with hatred in their hearts and murder on their mind.

  Meanwhile, and by contrast with your indolent host, Cora Harrison has been busy-busy-busy. Not only has she written another two novels in the Burren Mysteries series, she has also written the YA novel I WAS JANE AUSTEN’S BEST FRIEND and the first in a Victorian crime series for children called ‘The London Murder Mysteries’, both of which are due in March 2010 along with the fifth in the Burren Mysteries series. Crikey. James Patterson, eat your black heart out …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: Day Zero

It’s a Red Letter day, folks. This time last year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published THE BIG O in North America. A humble offering that started life as a co-published novel, with the small but perfectly formed Hag’s Head Press, THE BIG O sank like the proverbial granite submarine, although it did garner one or two decent blurbs and reviews in the process. To wit:

“Imagine Donald Westlake and his alter ego Richard Stark moving to Ireland and collaborating on a screwball noir, and you have some idea of Burke’s accomplishment.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Declan Burke’s THE BIG O is one of the sharpest, wittiest and most unusual Irish crime novels of recent years … Among all of the recent crop of Irish crime novelists, it seems to me that Declan Burke is ideally poised to make the transition to a larger international stage.” – John Connolly

“Burke has married hard-boiled crime with noir sensibility and seasoned it with humour and crackling dialogue … fans of comic noir will find plenty to enjoy here.” – Booklist

“Burke’s the latest – and one of the best – bad-boy Irish writers to hit our shores … the dialogue is nothing short of electric. This caper is so stylish, so hilarious, that it could have been written by the love-child of Elmore Leonard and Oscar Wilde.” – Killer Books

“THE BIG O is a big ol’ success, a tale fuelled by the mischievous spirits of Donald E. Westlake, Elmore Leonard and even Carl Hiassen … THE BIG O kept me reading at speed – and laughing the whole damn time.” – J. Kingston Pierce, January Magazine, ‘Best Books 2007 - Crime Fiction’

“Declan Burke’s crime writing is fast, furious and funny, but this is more than just genre fiction: Burke is a high satirist in the tradition of Waugh and Kingsley Amis . . . but he never forgets that his first duty is to give us a damn good read.”—Adrian McKinty

“Carries on the tradition of Irish noir with its Elmore Leonard-like style ... the dialogue is as slick as an ice run, the plot is nicely intricate, and the character drawing is spot on … a high-octane novel that fairly coruscates with tension.” – The Irish Times

“With a deft touch, Burke pulls together a cross-genre plot that’s part hard-boiled caper, part thriller, part classic noir, and flat out fun. From first page to last, THE BIG O grabs hold and won’t let go.” – Reed Farrel Coleman

“The writing is a joy, so seamless you nearly miss the sheer artistry of the style and the terrific wry humour.” – Ken Bruen

  CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is the sequel to THE BIG O, and it’s being published to Kindle at some point today, September 21st, or so I’m reliably informed. Technically speaking, then, today marks the publication of my third novel, after EIGHTBALL BOOGIE and THE BIG O, which is where the Red Letter bit comes in. Because it’s not every day you publish your third novel, even if it is to a fairly limited audience on Kindle …
  Anyway, you very probably don’t own a Kindle, but if you know someone who does, let them know – CRIME ALWAYS PAYS will be retailing for something less than two dollars, at which rates I can positively offer a cast-iron guarantee of a bang for their buck (or, with two ‘bangs’ on page 74 alone, a bang per buck, at least).
  For a brief taster, clickety-click here …
  By the way – if you don’t own a Kindle, and don’t know anyone who does, feel free to join in the general revelry anyway, by leaving a comment or tweeting it or sending good vibes through the ether. Or, y’know, don’t.
  Today, it’s all good.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown

I’ve damned Dan Brown fairly liberally in these pages in the past, not least by lumping him in with John Grisham and James Patterson as some kind of unholy trinity that gives crime writing a bad name. So I wasn’t expecting much when I was commissioned to review THE LOST SYMBOL, although I did crack the pages with as open a mind as I was able to muster. And whaddya know, it was fun. Hokey, schlocky fun, for sure, but fun. Is there room in the world for fun books? God, I hope so … Anyway, herewith be the review:

“If you’re out to describe the truth,” Albert Einstein declared, “leave elegance to the tailor.”
  Elegance may be at a premium in Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’ but there is – theoretically – no end to the truth to be uncovered by symbologist Robert Langdon when he gets sucked into an anti-Masonic conspiracy set in Washington, D.C.. Called to America’s capital by his good friend and mentor, the high-ranking Mason Peter Solomon, Langdon quickly finds himself in possession of a coded pyramid and pursued by the CIA. Decoded, the pyramid promises knowledge of the Ancient Mysteries the Masons have for centuries hoarded on behalf of all mankind; but Mal’akh, a sinister, tattooed eunuch, is determined that mankind will never experience true enlightenment.
  Unsurprisingly, ‘The Lost Symbol’ offers many of the features that made ‘The Da Vinci Code’ a phenomenal best-seller. The story takes place over a few hours; short chapters and teasing cliff-hangers create a propulsive momentum; the twists and turns are drip-fed in the form of information dumps by the polymath Langdon. Word games, secret societies and global conspiracies all figure, with Langdon, by turns hapless and brilliant, something of a flesh-and-blood philosopher’s stone who transforms the apparently blind alleys of Washington D.C. into the shimmering glories of Classical Rome.
  The prose is clunky, certainly, and Brown has an irritating penchant for italics, while the excessive use of exposition makes a mockery of the dictum, ‘Show, don’t tell’. The storytelling is preposterously melodramatic, and all but very few of the characters appear to have been borrowed from wherever it is they store the Bond villains who weren’t quite villainous, insane or megalomaniac enough to make a worthy adversary for 007. That said, there’s no denying that the story is as addictive the next cigarette. You know it’s not good for you, and you’ll probably feel bad afterwards, but hey, one more hit won’t kill you …
  If the backdrop to ‘The Da Vinci Code’ was largely based on ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’, the backbone of ‘The Lost Symbol’ is Fritjof Capra’s ‘The Tao of Physics’. Here Brown seeks to blend the mysticism of Far Eastern, Egyptian, Classical and early European societies with the latest advances in quantum physics and the ‘metaphysical philosophy’ of noetics. He invokes a number of eminent scientists – Newton, Spinoza, Bohr – in the process, although none are more name-checked (or misrepresented) than Einstein, who spent the latter part of his career in a fruitless attempt to justify his claim that God does not play dice.
  It’s an entertaining romp, if you’re prepared to ignore some of the more outrageous assertions about the links between, say, the Upanishads and string theory, but there is a crucial difference between ‘The Lost Symbol’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code’. In the latter, Brown was taking aim at one of the western world’s most sacred cows. Here he is bent on rehabilitating the reputation of one of its most tarnished icons, that of America itself. Whether that perverse spirit of anti-iconoclasm is sufficient to drive ‘The Lost Symbol’ to sales of eighty million copies remains to be seen. – Declan Burke

  This review first appeared in the Irish Times

Here Come The GIRLS

Crikey, there’s no stopping Squire Declan Hughes. ALL THE DEAD VOICES hasn’t so much as been nominated for a triumvirate of awards (lest we forget, THE DYING BREED, aka THE PRICE OF BLOOD, is up for a Shamus at B'con next month), and already his new novel is ready to go. The fifth in the Ed Loy series is called THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS, and finds Loy back where it all began – for Loy, certainly, but also for Loy’s spiritual ancestors, Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer – for what sounds like a wandering sisters job. To wit:

In LA there’s a killer on the loose. He kills young and rootless girls and he always kills in threes. Back in Dublin, Ed Loy, happy in a new relationship, is reunited with Jack Donovan, a film director friend from LA with a turbulent personal history. When the third young female extra fails to show for work on Jack’s movie, Loy begins to suspect Jack. And when the previous victims of the ‘Three-in-One Killer’ are discovered in LA at locations Jack used for his movies, Loy’s suspicion hardens.
  Loy flies to LA to liaise with the LAPD on their investigation. He must find something in his and Jack’s shared past that can point to the killer, and hope against hope that whatever he finds will point away from his old friend.
  And then, when he finally unearths the truth, it looks like it may be too late. Back in Dublin, the ‘Three-in-One Killer’ has broken his pattern, broken cover and struck at Ed Loy where he is most vulnerable. Time is not on Loy’s side as he mounts a desperate fight to outwit a ruthless psychopath and save the last of the lost girls …

  Don’t know about you, but my money’s on the boy Loy. He’s a hardy one, that Ed …