Blood Type A+

Just in case you can’t read the fine print in the invite above, Arlene Hunt launches BLOOD MONEY, the latest in the QuicK Investigations series starring private eyes Sarah Kenny and John Quigley, this coming Wednesday 10th March, at The Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar in Dublin, festivities to kick off circa 6.30pm, with all welcome. Quoth the blurb elves:

Death and violence are all Pavel Sunic has ever known. Only one person matters to him, his sister Ana. When she pays the ultimate price to secure his release from a Bosnian prison, he vows to avenge her death. The bloody path he creates leads to Dublin.
  Quick Investigations is suffering. With his partner Sarah Kenny still missing, John Quigley struggles to keep the business afloat. When Rose Butler approaches him to investigate the death of her daughter Alison, John takes the case even though the evidence points to suicide.
  Yet why did the promising doctor and mother of two choose to die alone in a shabby hotel room? What was her relationship with Ivan Colbert, a disgraced surgeon? And just how dangerous is the dead woman's husband?
  Torn between his case and his personal life, John is stretched beyond capacity. And the arrival of Pavel Sunic threatens to bring the whole pack of cards crashing down.
  Blood Money: first do no harm, second, run for cover.

  If you can’t make it, take a tip from John Connolly and just buy the book anyway. “Arlene Hunt may just be the best female crime writer to have emerged from these islands in recent years,” says the Dark Lord, and when he says ‘these islands’, he’s not talking about Ireland, Rathlin and sundry Arans. BLOOD MONEY, people – you know it makes sense …

World Book Day, 2020

The more eagle-eyed among CAP’s three regular readers will have noticed that I’ve recently changed the format of this blog ever-so-slightly. It’s not a particularly radical move; it simply involved moving the book covers (pictured left) up the blog from where they were previously buried away. The object of the exercise is to give people the opportunity, if they’re so inclined, and haven’t done so already, to buy one of my books – if you click on any of the pics, you’ll find yourself in the wunnerful world of Amazon.com, where copies of all three books can be found for no more than a dollar or so.
  Obviously, if you’re buying a copy of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, say, for a dollar, my return on your investment is going to be minimal, to say the least. But making money isn’t the point. The idea is simply to get the stories to the maximum number of people possible, because – and this is something that has been exercising me lately – the whole point of writing a story is that it’s read. Certainly, there follows from that issues of ego, self-esteem, remuneration both financial and emotional, etc., but fundamentally, any and every story is written first and foremost to be read, regardless of how it is published or in what format it comes.
  Being ludicrously disorganised, I can’t claim that I reformatted the blog in anticipation of World Book Day; but while I was doing so, it occurred to me the extent to which, in the seven short years since I published EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, the publishing world has changed dramatically. EIGHTBALL was published in an entirely conventional manner, being pitched by an agent to a publisher, who paid an advance for the privilege of publishing it, and lo!, out it came on a shelf, as if by magic. THE BIG O, by way of contrast, was co-published with Hag’s Head a few years later, the co-publishing aspect involving me paying half the costs of getting the book to the shelf, and claiming half the profits (which, I should say, provided a return of roughly 500% on my initial investment). The third book, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, was last year self-published as an e-book, an option virtually unimaginable to all but the most romantic idealists when EIGHTBALL BOOGIE first came out.
  So here’s the Big Q on this World Book Day, 2010: given the way the industry has changed so quickly in such a short space of time, how are things likely to look in 2020? What will have changed? What will remain in place? What in the current model of publishing is indispensable? What is utterly useless? Will books even resemble the books on your shelf right now?
  The floor is open, people …

  In other news, Variety is reporting that Robert De Niro has signed on to star opposite Bradley Cooper in the movie of Alan Glynn’s THE DARK FIELDS. Alan? I’ll be around later on for my tincture of Pimms …

The Peel Deal

Those of you with a penchant for historical crime fiction might want to keep an eye on Kevin McCarthy, whose debut novel PEELER hits the shelves in May. Quoth the blurb elves:

West Cork, November 1920. The Irish War of Independence rages. The body of a young woman is found brutally murdered on a windswept hillside. A scrap board sign covering her mutilated body reads ‘TRATOR’. Traitor. Acting Sergeant Sean O’Keefe of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a wounded veteran of the Great War, is assigned to investigate the crime, aided by sinister detectives sent from Dublin Castle to ensure he finds the killer, just so long as the killer he finds best serves the purposes of the Crown in Ireland. The IRA has instigated its own investigation into the young woman’s death, assigning young Volunteer Liam Farrell - failed gunman and former law student - to the task of finding a killer it cannot allow to be one of its own. Unknown to each other, an RIC constable and an IRA Volunteer relentlessly pursue the truth behind the savage killing, their investigations taking them from the bullet-pocked lanes and thriving brothels of war-torn Cork city to the rugged, deadly hills of West Cork.

  Mmm, sounds tasty. For a sneak peak at Chapter One, clickety-click here …