A Hape of Reviews; and The Flat Lake Festival

A Scottish acquaintance gets in touch to ask if I’ve heard of a new Irish writer called Bill Ryan, who got a huge advance for his debut novel, sight unseen and based only on a synopsis. The answer is no, I haven’t, but if anyone else has, please feel free to share, because I’d love to call around to Bill’s house and congratulate him over the back of the head on securing a huge advance on the basis of a synopsis …
  In other news, Karen Meek at the very fine Euro Crime interweb malarkey has for some reason suddenly posted a whole hape (as we’d say in Ireland) of Irish crime fiction reviews, including new reviews of novels by Brian McGilloway (right), Tana French and Paul Charles. On the same page there are also reviews of Declan Hughes, Adrian McKinty and Gene Kerrigan. Why the sudden outbreak of Irish crime fic reviews? I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s all good …
  Stuart Neville has an interesting development over at his virtual hidey-hole, where he has posted up ‘deleted scenes’ from THE TWELVE. Which is a brave move, because in my experience, stuff gets ‘deleted’ from the final draft of a novel because it’s not good enough and / or unnecessary. For me, posting up ‘deleted scenes’ would give me the shudder factor equivalent to tossing my dirty laundry into a convent. But then, I’m not Stuart Neville, and I didn’t write THE TWELVE …
  Finally, there’s the Flat Lake Festival. Yep, you read it right – the Flat Lake Festival, which is a little bit country, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, a little bit spoof of literary festivals, and quite a bit bonkers. It’s the third year for the Flat Lake Festival, I think, which happens in Monaghan sometime around mid-August. They’re having a crime fiction element this year, so I’ll be toddling along, and at the invitation of Pat McCabe, no less. There’s no list as yet as to who’s attending this year, mainly because the launch party isn’t happening until this coming Friday night, July 3rd, at Odessa in Dublin, 7pm. More details as they arrive, but if you can’t wait, there’s always the somewhat surreal ‘Radio Butty’ blog to get getting on with ...