Bipolar Exploration

I thoroughly enjoyed Alex Barclay’s BLOOD LOSS when I read it a couple of months ago, and was more than happy to say so in an Irish Times review. I’m by no means the only reader to have been impressed with Barclay’s deft handling of her heroine’s bipolar condition.
  Katie Binns reviewed BLOOD LOSS for the Sunday Times’ Culture section last weekend (no link), and had this to say:

This is the third novel in the [Ren] Bryce series. Ren is an engaging character - bipolar, unmedicated and shrink-free - whose wry observations and comical musings are leavened by occasional bouts of self-doubt and relationship disasters […] Barclay’s brilliant and authoritative depiction of bipolar confronts stereotypes about the disease. She describes mania and depression like old friends […] A gripping plot, stylish dialogue, convincing characterisation and the subtlety of the relationships between the main characters combine to make BLOOD LOSS worthwhile reading. - Katie Binns

  All of which is very nice indeed, and suggests that Ren Bryce is going to be around for the long haul …

A Barclay You Can Bank On

Hail the mighty sub! I had a crime fiction column published in the Irish Times last Saturday which appeared under the very nifty headline, ‘A Barclay You Can Bank On’, largely because Alex Barclay’s BLOOD LOSS was among the titles reviewed. It went a lot like this:

Alex Barclay is […] deft in making the personal political in BLOOD LOSS (Harper, £6.99), her fifth novel in all and the third to feature the Denver-based FBI agent Ren Bryce, who works with Colorado’s Safe Streets programme.
  The disappearance of two young girls from their hotel room in the skiing town of Breckenridge looks to be a straightforward case of abduction, but Ren, who suffers from bipolar disorder and is struggling with one of her manic phases, quickly finds the case opening up to involve the abuse of antipsychotic drugs and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.
  By making Ren’s internal monologues an integral part of the character’s appeal, Barclay establishes her heroine as an empathic, self-questioning, no-nonsense woman who is deliciously self-lacerating when it comes to her faults, even if such hyperawareness tends to cause her to doubt her own judgment. Perversely, given the theme of the damage wrought on mental health by misdiagnosis and prescription for profit, this is arguably Barclay’s most balanced novel to date, as Ren’s personal and professional concerns dovetail for a persuasive finale.

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and if we skip back a couple of weeks, I had an interview with Alex Barclay published in the Evening Herald, during which Alex touched on the issue of ‘Big Pharma’. To wit:

BLOOD LOSS opens with the apparent abduction of two young girls, but it quickly broadens out to explore the malign influence of ‘Big Pharma’ and the corruption in the US pharmaceutical industry.
  “This was the most astounding research I’ve ever done,” says Alex. “I was tearing myself away from the research to write. I just found it heartbreaking. I mean, the fact that the top five prescribed drugs in the US are all anti-psychotics is extraordinary. At no point could they all be prescribed to psychotic people. It’s just ludicrous. And this diagnosis of children with bi-polar disorder is absolutely unfathomable.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Colorado Girl

I’m currently reading Alex Barclay’s BLOOD LOSS, so I won’t say too much about it right now, but here’s a nice piece on setting - and specifically that of Breckinridge, Colorado - Alex wrote for Killer Reads. It opens up a lot like this:

Colorado is where people go to disappear.
  “It was a throwaway remark from a detective friend, but as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to hide a killer there. I planned to give Colorado a special guest appearance in a New York-based novel. Instead, I created a whole new series, with a new heroine, FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce, working for a violent crime squad based in Denver. Colorado deserved a starring role. What I needed next was a small-town crime scene. And it was then that I discovered what came to be one of my favourite places in the world: Breckenridge, a small and beautiful resort town ninety miles west of Denver …”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Her Loss, Our Gain

It feels like it’s been aaaaaaaages since we’ve seen an Alex Barclay novel, but fear not: for lo! BLOOD LOSS is on the way, and scheduled to touch down on a bookshelf near you on October 25th. Quoth the blurb elves:

FBI agent Ren Bryce takes on her most heart-wrenching case yet when a father’s work places his young daughter in terrible danger…
  Every year Mark and Erica Whaley take a trip to Colorado to celebrate their wedding anniversary. This year they have more cause than ever to celebrate – they’ve finally been granted overnight access with Laurie, Mark’s 11-year-old daughter from his previous marriage.
  But their relaxing family break is shattered when they return from dinner in the hotel to find both Laurie and her 16-year-old babysitter, Shelby, missing.
  Special Agent Ren Bryce will need to be at the top of her game to unravel the bizarre circumstances around this particular kidnapping. For it soon emerges that Mark has an awful lot to hide.
  But Ren has her own battles to fight. Without a psychologist since hers was killed four months previously, she knows she’s headed for a manic episode, and she’s not sure she wants to stop it.
  The lives of two young girls are in Ren’s hands. But she might need to save herself before she can save them.

  It strikes me that a release date of October 25th is leaving it rather fine if BLOOD LOSS is to be considered for the Irish Book Awards, which return this year to the RDS on November 22nd, especially given that Alex Barclay is a previous winner of the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award (BLOOD RUNS COLD, 2009).
  Mind you, it’s going to be a tough year again for the Crime Fiction gong, with or without Alex Barclay, and even if two other recent winners, Alan Glynn and Gene Kerrigan, don’t publish this year.
  Naturally, Liberties Press will be tossing my own book-shaped hat, aka SLAUGHTER’S HOUND, into the ring for consideration, but I think I’d be rather more surprised this year than last if SH garnered a shortlist nomination.
  In terms of actual winners, though, it’s very hard to see past BROKEN HARBOUR by Tana French, the release of which in July will be less a publication and more an event. Critically acclaimed and best-selling, and already the recipient of numerous prizes, I’d be very surprised if Tana French doesn’t scoop the IBA Crime Fiction Award this year.
  If anyone is to upset the appletart, Brian McGilloway stands a very good chance with his very good THE NAMELESS DEAD, which is as strong a crime novel as I’ve read so far this year. Elsewhere, TORN by Casey Hill comes on like a crowd-pleasing serial killer / CSI story, before delivering a brutal sucker-punch; A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS by Conor Brady and GHOST TOWN by Michael Clifford represent are both very strong debuts (and may both be shortlisted in the Best Newcomer of the Year category instead); Conor Fitzgerald’s THE NAMESAKE is up to his usual excellent standard; and it’s highly unlikely that John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS won’t be up to his usual impressive snuff. And then there’s VENGEANCE by Benjamin Black, HEADSTONE by Ken Bruen, and TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT by Niamh O’Connor … and the blackest of dark horses, THE COLD COLD GROUND by Adrian McKinty.
  All told, it’ll make a hell of a line-up.