The Thick Plottens: Yep, ’Tis Another Midweek Interweb Mash-Up

Why are we telling you about the Hard Case Crime ‘vintage pulp’ stand (co-publisher Charles Ardai on the left, right) at last weekend’s Book Expo America tradeshow in New York? Because (a) we love that Hard Case Crime is republishing the likes of Gil Brewer and David Goodis AND publishing the Ken Bruen / Jason Starr collaborations (Slide is due in October), and (b) they dropped us a line and asked for a plug. Yep, it’s that easy … Maverick House release another non-fiction cracker, Kill The Tiger, which gives the inside scoop on a failed British-Australian mission to bomb Singapore Harbour with midget-subs during WWII: “This is the truth about Operation Rimau. It is written in anger, and justifiably so,” says the Daily Telegraph … Nick Laird, he of Utterly Monkey fame (or infamy, depending on your take on crime fiction) releases Glover’s Mistake in March 2008 … Spooky goings-on with John Boyne’s The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas: not only did he complete the book in a three-day burst that finished on April 30, 2004 – John’s birthday and the anniversary of Hitler’s death – but the movie of the book started shooting on April 30 this year. “The day just has these bizarre coincidences,” Boyne tells The Age … Ed Moloney’s A Secret History of the IRA (left) goes into a second edition in July: “Remarkably comprehensive yet coolly incisive ... an extraordinarily courageous and ultimately optimistic book that brilliantly elucidates past horrors,” says the Boston Globe, while the Washington Post made it ‘A Rave’: “Moloney brings a sharply intelligent reporter’s eye to a tangled history often baffling to outsiders.” … Philip Bray won the Tubridy Show / Gill and Macmillan True Story Competition ‘for his story about the horrendous, violent and sometimes humorous world of life in the prison service’ reports the Irish Indo (scroll down). Philip joined the service in 1977, working in Limerick Prison. The story stood out “as being insightful, honest and intriguing,” says Sarah Libby of Gill and Macmillan … Staying with prisons: Michael Higgins’ The Great Escape is published in the Sunday Tribune as part of the Trib’s New Irish Writing, and will now be eligible for the Hennessy Literary Awards, to be announced in April 2008. Anyone wishing to submit a story (2,500 words or less) should hit up Ciaran Carty, New Irish Writing, Sunday Tribune, 15 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2 … The Dublin Writers’ Festival opens on at The Project in Temple Bar on June 13, with Gerard Donovan (right) and Rose Tremain first up at 6pm. Book ahead, because Donovan’s Julius Winsome is getting the kind of reviews that should propel him into the stratosphere … Finally, FOCAP (Friend of Crime Always Pays, natch) Siobhan Dowd launches her kiddie-crime tale The London Eye Mystery tomorrow at, yep, the London Eye, and she’ll be in the Trafalgar Square Waterstone’s later in the evening for a signing if you happen to be in the vicinity. Warning: bring your own bubbly. You go, gal …