Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy

I had a crime fiction round-up published in the Sunday Independent last weekend, which included the latest titles from Ruth Dudley Edwards and Michael Connelly. But first, Stuart Neville’s RATLINES. To wit:

It’s reasonable to assume that most people are in favour of fairness, justice and the rule of law, which is one reason why crime / mystery writing is the most popular of literary genres. It’s also why the genre is considered essentially conservative in nature. Most crime novels tend to conclude with the reaffirmation of the status quo, a conclusion that chimes with our understanding of history’s narrative, in which – simplistically put – the forces of good triumph over those of evil.
  Stuart Neville’s debut novel, The Twelve (2009), dug beneath the headlines of the Peace Process to explore the complexities involved in maintaining the essential fictions of Northern Ireland’s post-‘Troubles’ era. His subsequent offerings, Collusion (2011) and Stolen Souls (2012), make up a loose trilogy of Belfast-set novels, but his latest, Ratlines, is set in the South, in 1963. With John F. Kennedy’s visit imminent, a number of former Nazis domiciled in Ireland have been murdered. The Minister for Justice, Charles Haughey, commissions Lieutenant Albert Ryan of the Irish military’s G2 section to investigate, but Haughey, friend and protector of the notorious Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny, may have one or two skeletons dancing in his own closet.
  Haughey and Skorzeny play major roles in Ratlines, with other historical figures also appearing as minor characters, but Neville isn’t simply invoking their names for the sake of colourful verisimilitude. The novel is framed as a conventional paranoid thriller, employing the swift pace and switchback reversals of fortune the genre demands, but there is a significant breadth and depth to the historical context that gives the story real heft. How moral was the Irish position of neutrality during ‘the Emergency’, aka World War II? How was that morality compromised by subsequent Irish governments’ laissez-faire attitude to former Nazis settling in the Ireland in the decades following the war? What kind of status quo was Ireland happy to maintain in the 1950s and 1960s? Are we entitled to ignore the skeletons that dance in the nation’s closet and still consider ourselves one of the good guys?
  Neville isn’t necessarily in the business of rewriting Irish history, but in the character of the callow Albert Ryan, himself an ex-British soldier, he does offer us an alternative way of looking at our recent past. The result is a powerful thriller which provides the requisite thrills and spills, but also a thought-provoking exploration of our understanding of who we really are.

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Henry: Portrait Of A Possible Killer

MY CRIMINAL WORLD (Harvill Secker), the latest novel from Henry Sutton, dropped through the post-box yesterday and bounced right to the top of Mt TBR. Why so? Well, for starters, I do like a bit of meta-fictional post-modern jiggery-pokery. Quoth the blurb elves:

In awe of his wife, hounded by his agent and ignored by his editor, mild mannered crime novelist David Slavitt finds his life is spiralling out of control. He needs to do something - but just how far is he prepared to go?
  MY CRIMINAL WORLD introduces us to struggling crime writer, David Slavitt. Living in constant fear that his editor might drop him in favour of the next new talent, David juggles house work and child care alongside plot twists and character development.
  But as his wife grows increasingly distant and his agent insists that his new book needs more violence - a lot more violence - David is getting worried. He needs to do something if he is to save his career, and his marriage. But just how far is this most mild mannered of crime writers prepared to go? And who is the person really pulling the strings in this story? In this clever literary crime novel, there is more than one mystery to be solved.

  As you may or may not know, Henry Sutton is the – possibly mild mannered – author of six crime novels to date, including GET ME OUT OF HERE. A journalist and critic specialising in crime fiction, he is currently the Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia – again, specialising in the Crime Thriller Novel.
  Intriguingly, in his list of thanks at the end of the novel, amidst the usual nods to agents and publishers and whatnot, Henry thanks “David R. Slavitt, the original ‘Henry Sutton’”.
  MY CRIMINAL WORLD by Henry Sutton will be published in April.

Down Those Siren Streets A Man Must Go

I had an interview with Adrian McKinty published in the Irish Examiner last week to mark the publication of his latest tome, I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET. It kicked off a lot like this:

“The hunger strikes were so unbelievably intense,” says author Adrian McKinty. “I remember the week of Bobby Sands’ death and funeral almost minute-by-minute. The city was electric. In one way it was an amazingly fantastic experience, because everybody felt so alive, so immersed in that immediacy – and then, as soon as it was over, I just forgot it. Didn’t process it, didn’t deal with it. And it was years later, when I was telling my wife about it, she said, ‘Y’know, that’s really, really bizarre. None of that is normal.’”
  We’re talking about his new series of novels, which are set in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s and feature Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman in the RUC. The first in the series, THE COLD COLD GROUND, was published last year. Set against the backdrop of the hunger strikes in 1981, it was the first time McKinty the writer had engaged with the traumatic sights and sounds that were an integral part of his formative years.
  “The things that happen to you as a child are probably the most important things that are going to happen to you in your life, from a developmental point of view,” he says. “And how else can I possibly talk about my childhood without talking about this craziness that was just terrible?”
  Born in Belfast and raised in Carrickfergus, Adrian McKinty was a part of the ‘brain drain’ that left Northern Ireland during the 1990s, first to attend university at Oxford, then to work in the US in bars and on building sites. His first novel, ORANGE RHYMES WITH EVERYTHING, was published in 1998 and told the story of ‘a man breaking out of a New York mental hospital and proceeding on a violent, bloody path back to Ireland’. That could well be the narrative arc of McKinty’s own publishing career.
  The critically acclaimed author was for many years reluctant to write about Northern Ireland (“I wrote about New York, and Denver, Mexico, Cuba – I mean, I wrote about anywhere else but Northern Ireland.”) but eventually the character of Sean Duffy proved irresistible.
  Perversely, McKinty, raised a Protestant in the staunchly loyal town of Carrickfergus, chose to make Sean Duffy a Catholic in the RUC.
  “It’s just so much more interesting to have an outsider in terms of all those different perspectives,” he shrugs. “In terms of class and religion, geography, background – Duffy can look at all these things with a jaundiced eye. Especially if I put him in a Protestant town. There was going to be all these lines of conflict, which is great for a writer. All these fracture lines coming together in this one character. I really had a lot of fun with that in the first book.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

An Exceedingly Bleak Ride

For some reason I was under the impression that SLAUGHTER’S HOUND was released in North America last November, but apparently not. For lo! Publishers Weekly reckons it’s not available until March, and I’m not about to argue with the mighty PW. That august journal reviewed SLAUGHTER’S HOUND a couple of weeks ago, with the gist looking a lot like this:

Fans of Ken Bruen in particular, and noir fans in general, should get on board for this exceedingly bleak ride through Sligo from Irish author Burke (ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL). Taxi driver and occasional drug-transporter Harry Rigby, who did time for killing his brother in cold blood, has the misfortune to witness his friend and former cellmate, Finn Hamilton, dive off a nine-story building and pierce the roof of Harry’s cab with explosive results. Finn’s fatal plunge leaves Harry on the hook to powerful gangster Ross McConnell for missing weed. On the plus side, Finn’s mother, Saoirse Hamilton, is willing to pay Harry big bucks to find Finn’s suicide note (if there is one). Harry’s strained personal relationships deteriorate as he gets sucked further into the tangled affairs of the Hamiltons. Relentlessly brutal actions, rampant corruption, and scamming are all described in prose both scabrous and poetic. Agent: Allan Guthrie, Jenny Brown Associates (U.K.). (Mar.)

  So there you have it. SLAUGHTER’S HOUND: Bruenesque, scabrous and poetic, and an exceedingly bleak ride. Leaving aside the fact that a ‘ride’ means two totally different things in the US and Sligo, I’ve been called a lot worse in my time …

Hera City: A Herstory

THE POLKA DOT GIRL (Roundfire Books) is Darragh McManus’s second novel, following last year’s EVEN FLOW. In tone it has its roots buried deep in the classic hardboiled tale, as the blurb elves’ wibbling suggests:

Madeleine Greenhill was rich, beautiful, reckless … now she’s dead, dumped in the water. Her mother Misericordiae is the most feared woman in Hera City, which puts added pressure on investigating detective Eugenie Auf der Maur. Gutsy, smart and likeable, ‘Genie’ thought she knew the strange, all-female world of Hera inside-out. She was wrong, and gets drawn into a labyrinth of sex and money, power and religion, double-cross and corruption. Nothing is at seems and nobody can be trusted as she becomes obsessed with finding the girl’s killer. Hard-edged and soft-hearted, THE POLKA DOT GIRL combines a serpentine plot, bristling dialogue and shadowy, sensuous atmosphere to create a classic noir-style mystery: Sam Spade in lipstick and a dress. In Hera City, the female of the species really can be deadly.

  What makes THE POLKA DOT GIRL unique, as far as I’m aware, is its setting, Hera City. Quoth the press release:

“I thought it would be interesting to take the macho environment of a noir detective story (a la Chandler, Hammett and co.), instantly recognisable to all of us, and make all the players women. So you have the iconic, almost stereotypical, noir characters –world-weary detective, cynical coroner, self-destructive victim, assured femme fatale, psychotic killers, etc – and they’re women, every one. They act and talk like these characters always do – tenderly, violently, bitterly – but they’re women. There is an intriguing tension between the darkness and edge of noir, and the fact that the protagonists are female.
  “The story takes place in Hera City, a hermetically sealed fictional universe. There is no historical background, no quasi-scientific explanation for how a society of women can evolve, have children etc. The place just is. Men aren’t mentioned or ignored or conspicuous by their absence: there are no men, there never were, the issue is irrelevant. Similarly, while characters in a relationship are by necessity with another woman, there’s no homosexuality per se, because there’s no heterosexuality, because there are no men. Hera is a Gotham City-type place, murky and glamorous and evocative, outside of time and geography.
  “Stylistically THE POLKA DOT GIRL is more lyrical and reflective than hard-boiled. It’s partly an homage to classic mystery fiction, but with its own aesthetic and distinctive voice. It is its own book and its own world.” – Darragh McManus

  So there you have it – yet another maverick Irish crime fiction voice playing with the genre’s conventions and bending the parameters. Is it experiment for its own sake, or does McManus’s unusual take on the crime / mystery novel have something important to say about the genre? Only time, that notoriously loose-lipped canary, will tell …

A Tale Of Two Peters

It was the best of times, it was the most opportune of times, etc. The newest Irish crime writer, Peter Wilben, debuted this week with the release of RED CONTRACT, an e-published tome about which the blurb elves have wibbled thusly:

Joe Grace, a successful Dublin financier with a dark past, is attempting to lead a normal life with his beautiful German girlfriend Hanny. Meanwhile in New York, in a world Joe left behind, the stock price of a pharmaceutical giant is soaring. The reason: a rumoured cure for a deadly disease. When Joe gets a call from one of his most valued investors, asking him to track down a missing scientist who has made the groundbreaking discovery, his attempt at a normal life quickly unravels. Bound by the terms and conditions of a contract with his investor, Joe reluctantly agrees to help find the man. But on a bloody quest that takes him from Ireland to New York, Mexico and Moscow, Joe soon discovers old personal scores are at stake …

  So far, so interesting. But stay! There’s more. Quoth Peter Wilben’s interweb lair:

Peter Wilben is the pen name of acclaimed Irish author Peter Cunningham. Writing as Peter Wilben, Peter’s thrillers include the highly successful Joe Grace series, now exclusively re edited and re-released online.
  The books are set in the world of high finance, and as a former trader, who worked on Wall Street in its heyday, it is Peter’s insider knowledge that makes him the master of the financial thriller.
  In 1982, while on holidays in Antigua, Peter’s briefcase was stolen. He spent the next 14 days locked in his room, writing the first 25,000 words of NOBLE LORD. It’s a thriller about a man who goes on holidays, has his briefcase stolen and stumbles on a plot by terrorists to assassinate the Queen at the Epsom Derby. A few months later, Peter was offered a publishing contract. He has been a full-time writer ever since.
  On witnessing the dramatic changes occurring in the publishing industry over the past number of years, Peter saw an opportunity to find new readers online for his books. The independent re-release of the Joe Grace novels as an ebook-only series represents the empowerment of authors in the digital age.

  An intriguing gambit, to say the least of it, and I wish Peter the very best of luck in his endeavours. For sample chapters from RED CONTRACT, clickety-click here …

The PEN Is Also Mightier Than The Sword

I’m sure that most years are of the interesting variety when you’re both John Banville and Benjamin Black, but 2013 is shaping up to be even more interesting than usual. For one, Banville will – under the Benny Blanco nom de plume – be publishing a Philip Marlowe novel later this year, while also publishing a dedicated Benjamin Black novel, HOLY ORDERS (Henry Holt), in August.
  Meanwhile, Banville will also be awarded the 2013 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature. To wit:

Irish PEN is delighted to honour author John Banville with the 2013 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature. In keeping with the tradition started in 1935, (when the WB Yeats Dinner took place), the annual Irish PEN Award is presented in the company of other leading writers. Members of Irish PEN, as well as previous winners, nominate and vote for the candidate. Since 1999, the award recipients have included John B Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern, Neil Jordan, Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnston, Maeve Binchy, Thomas Kilroy, Roddy Doyle, Brendan Kennelly and Joseph O’Connor.

  The event takes place at 7pm on Friday, February 22nd at the Royal St George Yacht Club, Dún Laoghaire. For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here …