JC Vs The Satanists

When is a stalker not a stalker? When he’s a queue. If John Connolly (right) looks out of the windows of his mansion any time soon, to see a man in a shabby raincoat standing at the gates, it’ll be yours truly, waiting not to flash him again (he laughed the last time, and had his coachman lash me with a quirt) but for a copy of THE GATES. Quoth JC:

After finishing THE LOVERS, I worked flat out on THE GATES. It was a labour of love. I so wanted to write it, and I didn’t care if it was going to be picked up or not. Oh, it would have hurt a bit if it had been rejected by my publishers, but I wouldn’t have regretted a moment of the time that I spent writing it. I was able to let my imagination run riot, while at the same time retaining a thread of pure science. At times, it felt like a bit of a balancing act, and I’ve asked the physics department of my old university to check the science to make sure I haven’t mangled some very complicated stuff too much, but I hope that the enthusiasm behind it is communicated to those who read it. We’ll see.
  So THE GATES is a book that combines quantum physics and, well, Satanism, I suppose …

  I. Am. So. There.
  Mind you, it puts paid to my own quantum physics-inspired novel THE GATES, in which computer whizz Bill Gates, ’70s crooner David Gates, and be-mulleted crafty schemer for Ipswich Town FC’s early ’80s UEFA Cup winners Eric Gates all fall into a black hole and come out mind-melded in a parallel universe – a universe where there are no gates, only revolving doors. Oh, the humanity …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Sean Chercover

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?
I honestly don’t wish I’d written other people’s books. Just doesn’t occur to me to think that way. But if I had to pick one, it might be A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Lawrence Block. Or any of the Factory series by Derek Raymond. Or PORT TROPIQUE by Barry Gifford. Or ...

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Popeye, the sailor man.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I spend far too much time reading cookbooks.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Probably when my two-year-old son held up a copy of TRIGGER CITY and said, “Trigga Ciddy! Da-Da book!”

The best Irish crime novel is …?
The Jack Taylor series, by Ken Bruen. PRIEST may be my favourite, but I look at that series as one long episodic novel. Another that I could wish I’d written, if I thought that way.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Well, I’m very excited that a couple of Ken’s books are being made into movies. I’m a big fan of Declan Hughes and I think his work would play well on the big screen. And John Connolly is awesome. THE BLACK ANGEL would make a great movie.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst? The critical voices in my head that jeer at me when the writing isn’t going well. Best? Everything else. I absolutely love this job.

The pitch for your next book is …?
... a secret, for now.

Who are you reading right now?
God. Well, not God, but those cats who wrote the Bible. And a bunch of books on Buddhism and Voodoo and quantum physics. All research for my current work-in-progress.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
That’s just cruel. I suspect that if stopped reading, my writing would start to suck after a while, so I’m tempted to choose reading. But if I’m tempted, then maybe it isn’t really God. Maybe it’s Satan. So maybe I should choose writing. Either way, I’m screwed.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Modesty forbids. But if you want to see what words other people use to describe my writing, scoot on over to www.chercover.com, where you can read plenty of review quotes, learn more about me and my books, and even enter a contest and maybe win stuff.

Sean Chercover’s latest novel is TRIGGER CITY

The Sunday Review

One of these kids has to be wrong, and for once I’m hoping it’s Myles McWeeney. Reviewing the new Declan Hughes novel, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, in the Irish Independent, McWeeney says: “This is the fourth Ed Loy mystery and Declan Hughes continues to up the Irish noir ante with this assured and gory examination of the relationship between IRA splinter groups and crime in Dublin.”
  Nice. But then Claire Kilroy, in the Irish Times, has this: “Hughes’s four previous Loy novels were characterised by a strain of high Gothic which centred around the Big House, the notion of fate, and of corrupted bloodlines … Loy is a winning combination of caustic cynicism and romantic idealism, an adept at Beckettian failing better … Hughes gives the reader an ending which confounds the expectations of the genre, and which is all the more satisfying for it.”
  So – is ALL THE DEAD VOICES the fourth or fifth Ed Loy novel? Does Claire Kilroy know something we don’t know? And if so, how come Squire Hughes is holding out on us? Was it something we said? Something we didn’t say? Questions, questions …
  Anyhoos, upward and onward to the new Derek Landy, THE FACELESS ONES, being the third in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, which Sarah Webb in the Irish Independent likes a lot. To wit: “It’s non-stop action from the first page on … Landy’s dialogue crackles with authenticity and wit … If you want to keep your youngster reading, look no further. It’s Landy to the rescue again.”
  Nice. Over at RTE, Tara Loughrey-Grant is loving Twenty Major’s second novel, ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: “As shockingly entertaining as his debut novel was, ABSINTHE is a better read. The plot is tighter, more mature with added suspense keeping the reader glued until the very last page. Twenty brings Barcelona to live, in full 3D colour, enabling the reader to become part of his hedonistic, dysfunctional team.”
  Lovely. Meanwhile, Henry Sutton at the Daily Mirror is bigging up Gene Kerrigan’s rather marvellous DARK TIMES IN THE CITY thusly: “The dark side of Dublin is the star in this brilliantly written slice of Irish noir, featuring a good man who gets himself on the wrong side of a very bad lot.”
  Gorgeous. Last word this week goes to the inimitable Glenn Harper over at International Noir, who’s been perusing the latest from The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman: “Bateman’s last novel, ORPHEUS RISING, was magic realism rather than crime fiction, and in the new one, he has come back to crime with a comic vengeance … Good news, since MYSTERY MAN is the funniest crime novel since Bateman’s own DIVORCING JACK and CYCLE OF VIOLENCE.”
  Lovely jubbly.

Being Benny Blanco

One of the nicest things about running this blog, and being a freelance journalist, is that you get to meet terrific writers on a semi-regular basis, and ask them stuff you’ve always wanted to know, being an inveterate nosey-parker. In the last week or so alone, I’ve hooked up with Alan Glynn and Gene Kerrigan, and I’ll be meeting with Declan Hughes in the coming week. Which is nice, because you never know the day nor the hour when some of their pixie dust might settle on your own shoulders and turn you into a terrific writer too.
  All three regular readers of CAP might be pleasantly surprised to learn that I met with John Banville (right) during the week, John Banville being perhaps better known to readers of this blog as Benjamin Black, or Benny Blanco (from the Bronx). They might also be surprised to learn that he was courteous and cautious to begin with (it was an interview scenario, loosely based around his ‘Being Benny Blanco’), and then became eloquent, funny and considered when talking about crime fiction in general, and Irish crime fiction in particular. There was, to be quite frank about it, a refreshing lack of bullshit about the proceedings (from his side of the table, at least).
  Incidentally, ‘Benjamin Black’ was at an early stage ‘Benjamin White’, named for a character from NIGHTSPAWN, Ben White. Man, they really should have gone with ‘Benny Blanco’, shouldn’t they?
  John Banville’s reputation as a difficult interviewee precedes him, but I have to say I found him thoroughly entertaining company. Perhaps he was demob-happy, having finished the latest John Banville novel last week, a novel he began in 2004. The good news for Benjamin Black fans is that he plans to complete two Black novels before the year is out.
  So – one John Banville novel takes the best part of five years, and two Benjamin Black novels takes eight months (give or take). Does that piss me off? Certainly (although mostly because it takes me eight months to write a first draft). Is it because I think he disrespects crime writing by writing the Black novels so quickly? Not after listening to him explain why he writes them so quickly, and why he can. It helps, of course, that I’ve been a fan of the Banville novels since God was a boy.
  Anyhoos, the point of the exercise was for a project I’ve mentioned previously, which is / will be a collection writings by Irish crime authors about crime writing. Originally conceived as a series of essays, it has since broadened out to include interviews and short stories, and will hopefully be something of a Rattlebag of crime writing. The working title is now ‘DOWN THOSE GREEN STREETS … Irish Crime Narratives in the 21st Century’, and the ‘narratives’ aspect will be broad enough to encompass film, theatre and journalism as well as novels. Contributors confirmed include, in no particular order: John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Alan Glynn, Gene Kerrigan, John Banville, Julie Parsons, Eoin McNamee, Brian McGilloway, Arlene Hunt, Colin Bateman, Gerard Brennan, Neville Thompson, Adrian McKinty, Ingrid Black, Paul Williams, Tana French, KT McCaffrey, Paul Charles, Professor Ian Ross, and Cora Harrison.
  A small but perfectly formed commissioning fund has been provided by the Irish Arts Council, and some of the pieces have already started to filter through, not least those from Adrian McKinty, Gerard Brennan, Neville Thompson and The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman. If the rest of the material is of the same standard, and I have no reason to doubt that it will be, it’ll be a terrific read. I’ll keep you posted.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’

A feckless young man growing up in war-torn Belfast, Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess, right) is recruited by the Special Branch as a ‘tout’, or informer. When Martin infiltrates the IRA, he finds himself in a position to save lives by telling his handler, ‘Fergus’ (Ben Kingsley), details of planned operations. Based on Martin McGartland’s true story, Kari Skogland’s movie is a terrific thriller. The history and politics are painted with broad strokes (the final credits, for example, blandly inform us that the British army has left Northern Ireland), but a knowledge of ‘the Troubles’ isn’t actually necessary to enjoy this – it works just as well as a gritty, violent tale of paranoia, double-cross and sell-out akin to ‘Goodfellas’, for example. The character of McGartland is a hard sell, given that he is perceived as a traitor to his own people, although here he’s pitched as a hero who saves the lives of the fifty men of the title, who would today be dead were it not for his activities. A strong script helps the movie’s cause, and Sturgess is compelling in the main role, believable as a hard-nosed undercover operative, and also as a loving family man. The context is excellently evoked too. Skogland gets under the skin of Belfast’s mean streets, capturing not only the period detail of the place and time, but also the sense of oppression and intimidation generated by British army soldiers and the RUC, which is mirrored by the summary justice of the IRA’s ‘community policing’, all of which feeds into Martin’s complex motivation for doing what he does. Kingsley gives Sturgess strong support, as does Natalie Press as his girlfriend, Lara, and Kevin Zegers as his ideologue friend and IRA operative, Sean. A challenging, thoughtful piece, it’s not for the faint-hearted. ****

  Elsewhere, Martin McGartland disowns the movie in the Sunday Times.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Gene Kerrigan

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?
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. And I know Cormac McCarthy has been called America’s greatest living writer, but I’d still have the impertinence to fix the ending.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
God.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Every now and then I buy the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine – in the hope it’ll be as good as it was when I was a teenager. It never is.

Most satisfying writing moment?
When the book is done and it’s time to cut, re-write and fix it up.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
HAVOC, IN ITS THIRD YEAR by Ronan Bennett. I know it’s set in seventeenth century England, and features an English coroner/detective – but Bennett is Irish and the accused is an Irish peasant, Katherine Shay, so it qualifies. It works as a crime mystery, it works as history and as a parable about the dangers of a New World Order. The tension is relentless and it’s superbly written.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
HAVOC, IN ITS THIRD YEAR – hasn’t anyone sent a copy to the Coen Brothers yet?

Worst/best thing about being a writer?
There is no worst. Best – the moment you go back to the top of the page and start reading, and you find something worked better than you thought it did.

The pitch for your next book is …?
As the Celtic Tiger begins to crumble, two men walk into a Dublin pub, carrying guns. An everyday tale of entrepreneurial gangsters and revenge.

Who are you reading right now?
I read the first two Omar Yussef novels by Matt Rees last year, and I’m into the third at the moment. On one level it’s the old amateur sleuth gig, but set in the modern day Middle East. A decent old Palestinian tries to uphold the eternal values amid the gunmen – whether Palestinian or Israeli – who cheapen life.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
I couldn’t live without reading. I couldn’t make a living without writing. I’d tell him to go find something constructive to do. And there’s no shortage of things need doing, God knows.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Tense, unpredictable, plausible. At least, that’s the general intention.

Gene Kerrigan’s DARK TIMES IN THE CITY is published by Harvill Secker

“One Merkin Or Two, Vicar?” Yep, It’s The Allan Guthrie Interview

Allan Guthrie (right) has already filled in a Q&A for CAP, but the bloke has a new book out and he’s my agent, and he says he’ll send Ray Banks around to eat my child if I don’t give him the three molecules of publicity oxegyn CAP provides. Ah, the glamour of it all ...

Q: The new novel is SLAMMER, squire. Tell us a little bit about it.
A: “The book’s about a very young prison officer, Nick Glass, who’s not terribly well equipped, psychologically, to handle the stresses of the job. It’s about his struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile environment.”

Q: What was it about a prison guard that drew you to him as a character?
A: “I was intrigued by the idea of exploring the psychology of someone who chooses to spend a significant chunk of their short time on this planet behind bars.”

Q: You’re obviously a terrific writer. How come you’re wasting your time on that crime fiction trash?
A: “Well, much as I’d love to write something earnest and meaningful that’s about as entertaining as counting grains of sand, I don’t seem to be quite agile enough to stick my head far enough up my own arse. So I’ll just stay with writing crime fiction trash for now. Hoping to come up with some SF or horror one of these days too.”

Q: Who were your big inspirations and / or heroes?
A: “Different at various points of my life -- Agatha Christie, for instance, when I was but a nipper. Currently I’d say I’m besotted by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote the screenplay for ‘Seven’ (among others), and the graphic novelist Garth Ennis.”

Q: If you could assume authorship for one writer’s back catalogue, who would it be?
A: “Tough one. Georges Simenon, I think. Either him or Germaine Greer.”

Q: You’ve won top awards, you’ve had wonderful reviews, and yet it’s only in a parallel universe that they’re calling John Grisham ‘the new Allan Guthrie’. Do you ever despair about the industry?
A: “Yes, indeed, but not because of my place in it. That’s one of them there variables that isn’t within a person’s control. What I despair about is the arse-backwards discounting that’s ripping the industry apart. Breaks my heart to see books that would sell in huge numbers without any price reduction invariably ending up being sold for a fraction of the RRP, thereby ensuring that no one (bookstores/publishers/agents/authors) makes any money. Whereas books that need the support that discounting might provide are usually on sale at full price. It’s a perverse situation. And then everybody complains about profit margins being tiny and the industry being in terminal decline. Um, hello?”

Q: Who’s the sexiest living crime writer?
A: “Easy one. Ray Banks. The man’s smile is legend. As are his testicles.”

Q: Any new novelists you’d like to let us know about?
A: “Besides my own clients (I’m a literary agent, which I’m going to guess you’ll mention in the next question), there are three second novels out soon which I think are outstanding: VERY MERCENARY by Rayo Casablanca, GUTTED by Tony Black and WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn.”

Q: Parallel to your writing career, you’re also an agent. Ever thought about bumping off a particularly good new writer and stealing his or her manuscript?
A: “Psychic, so I am. Yes, actually, that’s a good idea. So good that I’ve done it already. Five times, in fact.”

Q: Finally, are those eyelashes real? Or are there really kittens out there with bald faces?
A: “I breed them specially. The whisker-lashes don’t tend to last very long, so I need a constant supply of kitten-soft kitten. I have a production line going now, so I’m quite well stocked. Just say the word if you’d like a trial package sent your way. I also do a fine line in merkins.”

Allan Guthrie’s SLAMMER is published by Polygon