I Bring Grave News

I had a crime fiction column published in the Irish Times last weekend, featuring new titles from Alan Glynn, Aly Monroe, Anne Holt and Carl Hiaasen. The review of Alan Glynn’s GRAVELAND (Faber and Faber) runs like this:

Alan Glynn’s fourth novel, Graveland, opens with the apparently random murder of a Central Park jogger. When a second man is shot dead in the street, and an attempted murder is botched in a similar attack, a pattern emerges: the targets are Wall Street high-flyers, representatives of the self-styled ‘Masters of the Universe’ who have ruined lives and destroyed the US economy.
  Thus the scene is set for a frantic manhunt for vigilante killers – or would be, if Graveland was a conventional thriller. The third of a loose trilogy that began with Winterland (2009) and continued with Bloodland (2011), the novel incorporates the search for the vigilantes and the investigation of their motives, and certainly proceeds at a rattling pace. Glynn, however, crafts a complex tale in which a host of disparate characters – among them a pair of radicalised brothers, a bereft father, a crusading journalist and a Wall Street kingpin – are skilfully interwoven, creating a story that is both a contemporary take on the timeless clash between the powerless and the powerful few and a commentary on the perception, interpretation and manipulation of the narratives that shape our lives.
  On the one hand an invigorating slice of conspiracy noir, Graveland is simultaneously a heartbreaking account of the human cost of corporate greed.

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Dead Men Tell Good Tales: GRAVELAND by Alan Glynn

Those who have been following Alan Glynn’s career will appreciate the symmetry that sees his latest offering, GRAVELAND (Picador USA), set in New York – which is where it all started for Alan Glynn, with the superb THE DARK FIELDS. The concluding chapter of a loose trilogy incorporating WINTERLAND and BLOODLAND (which won the crime fiction gong at the Irish Book Awards in 2011), GRAVELAND is released on May 23rd, and shapes up a lot like this:

A Wall Street investment banker is shot dead while jogging in Central Park. Later that night, one of the savviest hedge-fund managers in the city is gunned down outside a fancy Upper West Side restaurant. Are these killings part of a coordinated terrorist attack, or just coincidence? Investigative journalist Ellen Dorsey has a hunch that it’s neither. Days later, when an attempt is made on the life of another CEO, the story blows wide open ...
  Racing to stay ahead of the curve, Ellen encounters Frank Bishop, a recession-hit architect, whose daughter has gone missing. The search for Lizzie and her boyfriend takes Frank and Ellen from a quiet campus to the blazing spotlight of a national media storm - and into the devastating crucible of a personal and a public tragedy.
  Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows once again is James Vaughn, legendary CEO of private equity firm the Oberon Capital Group. Despite his failing health, Vaughan is refusing to give up control easily, and we soon see just how far-reaching and pervasive his influence really is.
  Set deep in the place where corrupt global business and radical politics clash, Alan Glynn’s GRAVELAND is an explosive and hugely topical thriller.

  For a review of BLOODLAND, clickety-click here.
  For a review of THE DARK FIELDS, clickety-click here.

I Bring Grave News

It isn’t due until next April, unfortunately, but if the third in Alan Glynn’s ‘loose-trilogy of conspiracy thrillers’, GRAVELAND (Faber & Faber), is on a par with WINTERLAND and BLOODLAND, we’re all in for a treat. Quoth the blurb elves:

In the final part of Alan Glynn’s spectacular loose-trilogy of conspiracy thrillers, someone is assassinating the most powerful players in the global financial markets.
  A Wall Street investment banker is shot dead while jogging in Central Park. Later that night, one of the savviest hedge-fund managers in the city is gunned down outside a fancy Upper West Side restaurant. Are these killings part of a coordinated terrorist attack, or just coincidence? Investigative journalist Ellen Dorsey has a hunch that it’s neither. Days later, when an attempt is made on the life of another CEO, the story blows wide open ...
  Racing to stay ahead of the curve, Ellen encounters Frank Bishop, a recession-hit architect, whose daughter has gone missing. The search for Lizzie and her boyfriend takes Frank and Ellen from a quiet campus to the blazing spotlight of a national media storm - and into the devastating crucible of a personal and a public tragedy.
  Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows once again is James Vaughn, legendary CEO of private equity firm the Oberon Capital Group. Despite his failing health, Vaughan is refusing to give up control easily, and we soon see just how far-reaching and pervasive his influence really is.
  Set deep in the place where corrupt global business and radical politics clash, Alan Glynn’s GRAVELAND is an explosive and hugely topical thriller.

  If you haven’t read either of the previous two novels, by the way, I can heartily recommend both - BLOODLAND, of course, won the Ireland AM Crime Novel of the Year at last year’s Irish Book Awards, and deservedly so.
  Incidentally, the cover of GRAVELAND - the image above suggests that it’ll be the US cover - carried a very nice encomium from a certain George Pelecanos, who declares the novel to be, ‘A terrific read … completely involving.’ So there you have it - if it’s good enough for George Pelecanos, etc.