Cry Havoc, Etc.

I crave an indulgence, good people, for today I will be mostly plugging my forthcoming tome, aka SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, which is a sequel to my first novel, EIGHT BALL BOOGIE. It will be published by Liberties Press, the very fine publishing house responsible for ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, and the Liberties blurb elves have been wittering thusly:

‘I glanced up but he’d already jumped, a dark blur plummeting, wings folded against the drag like some starving hawk out of the noon sun, some angel betrayed. He punched through the cab’s roof so hard he sent metal shearing into the petrol tank. All it took was one spark. Boom …’

Harry Rigby is right there, an eye-witness when Finn Hamilton walks out into the big nothing nine stories up, but no one wants to believe Finn is just the latest statistic in Ireland’s silent epidemic. Not Finn’s mother, Saoirse Hamilton, whose property empire is crumbling around her; and not Finn’s pregnant fiancé, Maria, or his sister Grainne; and especially not Detective Tohill, the cop who believes Rigby is a stone-cold killer, a slaughter’s hound with a taste for blood …

Welcome to Harry Rigby’s Sligo, where death comes dropping slow.

Studded with shards of black humour and mordant wit, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is a gripping noir from one of the most innovative voices in Irish crime fiction.

  So there you have it. Meanwhile, two of the planet’s finest crime writers have been kind enough to offer an actual blurb, with the gist running a lot like this:

“Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.” - Lee Child

“SLAUGHTER’S HOUND has everything you want from noir but what makes it special is the writing: taut, honed and vivid … a sheer pleasure.” - Tana French

  With which, as you may imagine, I am very well pleased …

  In tandem with the SLAUGHTER’S HOUND publication, Liberties Press will also be republishing EIGHT BALL BOOGIE. When first published, way back in 2003, said tome was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in the crime fiction category, and managed to pick up some nice reviews for itself in the process. That was about as far as it went for EIGHT BALL, so it’d be nice to think that it might reach a slightly bigger audience this time around.
  Before I forget, I really should mention that the covers were designed for Liberties Press by Fidelma Slattery, and a very fine job it is too.
  So there you have it. I’ll be telling you more - much more, I’m afraid - in the weeks running up to the launch of SLAUGHTER’S HOUND next month, so don’t say you haven’t been warned …