Top O’ The World, Ma!

Aka, ‘Top O’ the World, Omagh’. Via the ever diligent Peter Rozovsky comes the news that feisty whippersnapper Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards scooped the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger at Harrogate for her monumental work AFTERMATH: THE OMAGH BOMBING AND THE FAMILIES’ PURSUIT OF JUSTICE, and hearty congrats to her. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer lady. Word has it that Stuart Neville was on hand to manfully handle the obligatory jeroboam of champagne, and that a good night was had by all.
  Incidentally, I finished Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION during the week, and the good news is that it’s a better novel that his award-winning debut, THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST), which I remember Ruth Dudley Edwards praising to the skies for its compassion early last summer. Ah, serendipity.
  Meanwhile, and in a not particularly impressive showing for Irish writers, William Ryan was shortlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for his debut THE HOLY THIEF. I liked that one a lot, too.
  Elsewhere in Irish crime fiction this week, Maxine Clarke reviewed Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND for Euro Crime, with the gist running thusly:

“WINTERLAND is a brilliant book … There are just so many things to like about this book, which is exciting, gripping and perfectly structured as well as having great emotional depth and insight. If you only read one book for the rest of the year, make it this one.” - Maxine Clarke, Eurocrime

  Nice. And Bernice Harrison was impressed with Arlene Hunt’s BLOOD MONEY over at the Irish Times. To wit:

“Hunt is a skilled crime writer, able to build and sustain suspense – but never at the expense of credibility – and her dialogue zings with authenticity. The clever plot is carried by a cast of deftly drawn characters, who are all as recognisable as the Dublin locations Hunt puts them in. And there’s humour here, too, mostly in Quigley’s realisation that he’s in danger of becoming a sad, lonely loser and, if he’s not careful, a cliche of a private investigator. He’s a character worth watching out for in future.” - Bernice Harrison, Irish Times

  Speaking of Arlene Hunt, she was on the Ireland AM couch over at TV3 last week, alongside Declan Hughes, chatting about Ireland AM’s Book of the Month, Bateman’s THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL. This week it was the turn of The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman himself, who reckons that his speciality subject, were he ever to go on Mastermind, would be Liverpool Football Club rather than crime fiction. Yep, I always knew the man had impeccable taste.
  Oddly enough, co-presenter Mark Cagney suggested that while “you could throw a rock out that door and hit a female Irish crime writer,” there seemed to be a lack of male Irish crime writers once you get past Bateman, John Connolly and Benjamin Black.
  Erm, well, there’s the guy you had on last week, Mark, called Declan Hughes. And Brian McGilloway, who’s been on the show at least twice, and possibly three times. And then there’s Ken Bruen, Adrian McKinty, Paul Charles, KT McCaffrey, Alan Glynn, William Ryan, Gene Kerrigan, Eoin McNamee, Stuart Neville, Kevin McCarthy, Garbhan Downey, Rob Kitchin, Gerry O’Carroll, Robert Fannin … and they’re just the writers who’ve published a novel in the last year or so. Mark? Sack your researcher, post-haste.
  For the vid of Bateman in all his glory, clickety-click here …