A Criminal Shame: Ken Bruen (right) on why Quinn should be 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle for this decade'."Life sucks, yadda-yadda, so what else is new? But sometimes it sucks on a level that you want to scream, “Ah for fucksakes!” Being a crime writer always means registering low on the literary barometer but being an Irish crime writer? Just shoot yourself – unless you're plugged into the usual mafia circle of same tired old names. Seamus Smyth wrote a blistering debut titled Quinn back in 1999 and what should have been a major lift-off to a glittering career came to zilch. If he were writing in the UK or USA, he'd be mega. Quinn is a kick-in-the-face wondrous blitz of a novel. No tip-toeing Mr Nice Guy here: this is a first-person narrative of a psycho who operates in the Dublin underworld, the kind of novel Paul Williams would, ahem, kill to have written. The hero, Gerd Quinn, is straight from the tradition of Goodis through Thompson to the wry, sly humour of a Willeford.
The writing is a dream, a style all Smyth’s own. He uses his anti-hero to pay homage to the noir genre and yet subvert it in a way only a true dark Irish craftsman could. It's the kind of novel you read and think, ‘Just bloody mighty’, and immediately watch out for his next. But this is not just a great crime novel, it's one hell of a novel, full stop. Quinn should be The Friends of Eddie Coyle for this decade, it's that good and fresh and innovative. Let's remedy one case of criminal neglect and get Seamus Smyth up where he belongs, right at the top of the genre, and allow a rare and unique talent to do what he was born to do - write the provocative novels this country deserves. Gerd Quinn states, ‘There's no malice in what I do …’, which makes it one of the most ironic opening lines of any novel in light of what’s coming down the Smyth pike. Quinn is not only vital, it's damn essential."Ken Bruen’s Cross is out now
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