All the details for the various events and venues - in Manchester, Leeds, York, Scarborough and Liverpool - come below, and if you’re likely to be near one of the venues and feel like dropping by to say hi, we’d love to see you.
I’ll apologise in advance, by the way, for the irregular transmissions from this blog over the next while (and for the last while too, for that matter). It’s a very busy time, with BOOKS TO DIE FOR and SLAUGHTER’S HOUND to promote, and various festivals and events taking place, and a day job to be kept on the rails, etc. I’m beginning to realise that I’ll have to scale way back on the blogging for the foreseeable future, especially once the dust settles on these two books and I start to think seriously about my next opus.
It’s also true that the old magic has gone out of the blogging a little bit. Time was when the bloggers’ quid pro quo wasn’t intrinsic in a you-scratch-my-back way, it was simply a fact that bloggers tended to be enthusiastic about other people’s books. Nowadays, with new authors being instructed from on high to promote themselves on social media, it’s all become a bit of a shrill screeching (or shill screeching?) on the interwebs, with a whole new generation of writers interested only in talking about their own books. Which, to be perfectly frank, is completely off-putting. And when debutant authors - writers, of course, being those who are supposed to value words and their meaning more than anyone else - are guilty of trumpeting their own work as, say, ‘Ireland’s best-loved detective / favourite serial killer-catcher / critically acclaimed femme fatale’, etc. even before their books are published, then it all starts to wear thin very quickly.
That said, I’m still fascinated by the quality of emerging Irish crime fiction, so I’ll be keeping tabs on that. Not to the same extent as previously, perhaps, but I can’t imagine that I’ll be packing it in entirely. It’s fair to say, though, that from here on in Crime Always Pays will probably be focusing on a narrower range of books rather than trying to cover everything published, regardless of quality.
Anyway, upward and onward to Manchester this evening, where I’ll be in Waterstones in Deansgate in the company of John Connolly and the very lovely Barbara Nadel. Oh, and I’m told the Book Witch might zoom in on her broom, which would be very nice indeed …
Wednesday, September 12 at 7:00 p.m.
Manchester, England
John Connolly & Declan Burke discuss BOOKS TO DIE FOR and sign their books at Waterstones
91 Deansgate
Manchester
0161 837 3000
Tickets £3, available from the shop or book via Twitter @waterstonesmcr
Thursday, September 13 at 1:00 p.m.
Leeds, England
John Connolly & Declan Burke sign their books at Waterstones
93-97 Albion Street
Leeds
0843 290 8443
Thursday, September 13 at 7:00 p.m.
Scarborough, England
John Connolly & Declan Burke discuss BOOKS TO DIE FOR and sign their books
Scarborough Library Concert Hall
Scarborough
Tickets £3 including refreshments, available from the library
Friday, September 14 at 1:00 p.m.
York, England
John Connolly & Declan Burke sign their books at Waterstones
28-29 High Ousegate
York
01904 628740
Friday, September 14 at 7:00 p.m.
Liverpool, England
John Connolly & Declan Burke in conversation with Adam Creed at Waterstones
14-16 Bold Street
Liverpool
0843 290 8455
5 comments:
Are you trying to kill me? I have to be in Scotland for Bloody Scotland the day after Manchester!!! But I can just about manage to come and heckle you. Can you smuggle me in for free?
Pretty please?
It'll be great to see you, Ms Witch. And of course I'll smuggle you in. I may need to charge you £3 for administration and smuggling fees, though ...
Cheers, Dec
I'm wishing a grand tour, and just to tell you that I finished Slaughter's Hound last night, and very few authors I've read touch me the way you did in this book. Again, I was compelled to keep reading, anxious, and heartbroken. I keep hoping there will be another to make things right. I do this knowing full well, that sometimes that doesn't happen. It is a sad story of the despair that underlies so many human beings these days. but there are lights shining here, and there; it can get better.
Hi Lil - Thanks so much for your very kind words. You have no idea how much a heartfelt reaction like this can mean. I'm humbled.
Cheers, Dec
I'm not sure if anyone is interested--in that I really do have but those two or three regular readers you keep mentioning--however, I have reviewed BOOKS TO DIE FOR and will post another review at Amazon (USA) in the next few days.
http://trackofthecat.blogspot.com/2012/09/fridays-forgotten-books-books-to-die.html
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