Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

Yep, it’s the ever-irrelevant interweb mash-up, back by popular-ish demand. First off, John Boyne is back in business this year, when he publishes MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, his take on that most benighted of sailing vessels, in May. Mind you, Simon Trewin, newly ensconced with United Agents, is referring to it as THE KING’S SHILLING. More confusion anon, no doubt … Meanwhile, it’s a belated congratulations to Tana French, given that her IN THE WOODS made the Top 10 Editors’ Picks of Mysteries and Thrillers for 2007 at Amazon US, the news – as indeed all the best news does – coming courtesy of Euro Crime. Not bad going for a debut novel, considering Tana is keeping company with the likes of Laura Lippman, Michael Chabon, Joe Hill, Charlie Huston and Chelsea Cain … Adopted Irishman and very much this season’s Black, PAYING FOR IT author Tony Black gets the nod from the Edinburgh Evening News as one of the city’s ‘rising stars’ for 2008. Actually, there’s tons of stuff going on with Tony Black right now, including a follow-up to the yet-to-be-published PAYING FOR IT (which received a rave from the venerable Sir Kenneth of Bruen) and a brand spanking new website, so we’ll do a proper post on him next week … The Irish Voice brings us the news that crime-writing priest Andrew M. Greeley publishes IRISH TIGER next month, vouchsafing the opinion that, “The unflappable Nuala is more than a match for evildoers everywhere, and her sleuthing skills make for a hugely entertaining new novel.” You had us at ‘Nuala’, people … Over at Edmund’s Saltmines, the news is that Benny Blanco’s THE SILVER SWAN will feature in the March issue of Vanity Fair, in the “Hot Type” column. Which is a pretty big deal, apparently … Finally, it’s time for some hot Irish-Canadian action, courtesy of John McFetridge, whose grainy black-and-white vid for EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE (to be released in July) does not, sadly, have Neil Young on the soundtrack. Boo. Ah well, it can’t be Mills & Boon every day, right? Cue the vid …

The Monday Review

It’s Monday, they’re reviews, to wit: “With an ensemble cast, multiple plot lines and absolutely lethal staccato prose, AMMUNITION is [Ken] Bruen at his mordant best … As you read you keep trying to convince yourself that things really aren’t that bad. But then you pick up the newspaper or watch the news and you begin to think, maybe this Celtic lunatic is onto something after all. Not to worry, however, on its most basic level AMMUNITION is another high-octane romp through the mean streets of Southeast London with one of the most entertaining tour guides working in the genre today,” raves Mean Streets … Meanwhile, over at I’ve Been Reading Lately, Levi Stahl likes the latest Bruen / Jason Starr collaboration: “SLIDE, though a lot of fun, reads like a slighter sibling [of BUST]: aside from Max Fisher … the other characters are less vibrant than those of the first novel, and their desires less intricately intertwined. The M.A.X., however, is so funny that he almost single-handedly redeems the book: his mixture of arrogance, incompetence, and brutality are hideously hilarious.” … Ed Cumming at the Camden New Journal is impressed by Paul Charles’ latest: “THE DUST OF DEATH is engaging and satisfying. When a man so obviously enjoys writing his novels, it is difficult not to find them the more enjoyable to read.” … Kim at Si, Se Puede! is bigging-up Derek Landy’s SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT, to wit: “I loved this tale. The original premise was refreshing … If you or a tween you know is looking for a fast-paced mystery/fantasy that’s sprinkled with humour, this is the book.” Thank you kindly, Kim … As for Landy’s nemesis, Eoin Colfer, Halo 92 likes ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE LOST COLONY: “Colfer really does seem to be enjoying his work. He’s getting every last ounce of use from the other four books: building on relationships, exploring situations, dealing with loss, and generally driving characters up the wall, using fantastic combinations of humour and fact, excitement and tension. Another winner from the boy genius.” The boy genius being Artemis rather than Eoin, we presume … The hup-yas are still pouring in for Ronan Bennett’s ZUGZWANG: “There are a few flaws in structure, and at times the author veers from the dramatic to the melodramatic. Still, ZUGZWANG is fresh and different enough to warrant your time,” says Michele Ross at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer. Over at the New York Times, Marilyn Stasio agrees: “In this desperately cunning match, it’s exciting to simply be a pawn,” reckons she. As does Patrick Anderson at the Washington Post: “All this is beautifully told by Bennett … This is a compelling portrait of a highly civilized society as it approached one of history’s great upheavals.” Onward to Declan Hughes’ latest: “Just finished Declan Hughes’ THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. His third thriller / mystery and he can do no wrong. It’s hard-boiled Irish, so can we be calling this the potato genre?” asks Revenge of the Castanets. Erm, no. Staying with THE COLOUR OF BLOOD, and Ibjana at the San Diego Country Library Reader is a fan: “I really like these books, I’m always amazed at how thrashed Ed gets and yet he won’t give up until he solves the cases … Always entertaining, I sometimes got lost in the sea of characters but I enjoyed it nonetheless.” … But what of Andrew M. Greeley’s THE BISHOP AT THE LAKE, I hear you cry? Book Mom, the stage is yours: “This is not my first (and won’t be my last, I hope) Greeley book. His characters are always bold, bright and full of life. The books seem to end too soon and the glimpses into the families’ lives are true, just and usually full of love. I have been a huge fan of this author’s works for years and have never been disappointed.” … The big-ups just won’t quit for Benny Blanco’s latest, to wit: “THE SILVER SWAN is a defter and more complex book than its predecessor, which occasionally found plot development smothered under the weight of Banville / Black’s always ravishing prose. The new novel boasts a neat whodunnit plot and a delightful command of suspense, but there’s also a kind of mordant, near-surreal playfulness about the characters’ appearance and actions this time, and the constricted dance that they undertake,” says Tim Martin at the Independent on Sunday, and Fachtna Kelly at the Sunday Business Post agrees: “While THE SILVER SWAN is not as overtly poetic as the novels Banville writes under his own name, it is no less beautiful for that. Banville uses language, both lyric and lachrymose, to paint emotionally haunting scenes … Adorned with Banville’s bone-dry wit and crepuscular humour, THE SILVER SWAN is a dauntless powerhouse of a novel by a master stylist at the top of his game. In Quirke, a man of ‘‘incurable curiosity’’, he has created a figure who could enliven the ranks of crime fiction for years to come.” From the sublime to the sublimer, and Jack Higgins’ THE KILLING GROUND: “And so an operation is mounted, Colts and Walthers bang away at targets endlessly available, body bags fill – can any other thrillmeister equal the Higgins corpse-per-page count? – and finally there’s the obligatory OK Corral variation, during which, for the sake of us all, Dillon & Co. must nail the Hammer. Higgins’ 37th: You get what you get,” asserts the pithily pedantic Mr and Mrs Kirkus, via Barnes & Noble … Finally, CAP’s current stalkee, Ruth Dudley Edwards, gets the hup-ya from Publishers’ Weekly, again via Barnes & Noble: “Dudley Edwards wittily satirizes political correctness in this fast-paced academic romp,” say they, and Bernard ‘Shining’ Knight is of no mind to disagree over at It’s A Crime!: “Though a rumbustious and often farcical tale, there is no doubt that Ruth Dudley Edwards is using the story to grind a damned great axe and I loved every paragraph, as it accorded with my own view of this awful Western World.” Cuddly Dudley Edwards wielding an axe? Yea, verily, the mind boggleth …

The Monday Review: Yet More Hup-Ya Frippery From The Interweb Margins

Good vibes for Eoin McNamee’s 12:23 this week, to wit: “Although McNamee’s in-between of fact and fiction is blurred – with some characters from real life, some fiction and others hard to tell – its blend is part of its skill, and the novel is more than just an entertainment using the princess’s death as a point of commercial departure. In keeping with McNamee’s previous explorations of the unaccountable worlds of secret intelligence, it offers a serious meditation on the nature of conspiracy,” says Chris Petit at The Guardian … They’re inclined to agree at Reading Matters: “Despite the roller-coaster of emotions that this book delivers, this is not an easy read. It’s written in the cold, emotionally distant manner of a spy thriller, employing language that is clipped, dry and very sparse … But McNamee has a way with words and is able, through just a handful of phrases, to evoke all manner of dark emotion.” Meanwhile, Tom Adair of The Scotsman comes over all historical: “The text of his story is flawlessly polished, you can’t see the join between documentary and invention, though some of the spooks are reminiscent of Graham Greene’s finest early creations.” Lovely stuff … “I am not the first to remark on the importance of plot in Glenn Meade’s books, and The Devil’s Disciple could not carry on at the speed and length it does if was not tightly plotted, and if every character did not have surprising secret or at least was capable of being suspected of having some surprising secret,” reckons LJ Hurst at Shotsmag … But stay! T’would appear Critical Mick has allowed a shaft of sunlight into his deep, dark dungeon of Critical Mickism, to wit: “[Andrew] Nugent’s narrative was told in a good-humoured, hopeful, and sincere voice that gradually charmed even my cranky heart. By its conclusion, The Four Courts Murder had won me over, snakes and bell-ropes and all. How could I, of all people, forget: the one rule is that there are no rules, it is whatever an author can make work.” From the monk to the priest: Publisher’s Weekly is impressed with Andrew M. Greeley’s latest Blackie Ryan outing, The Bishop at the Lake: “A few chapters … jar, but strong character development, snappy dialogue and a multilayered plot make this one of the better entries in the series,” quibble they via Amazon US … The Library Journal of Review likes Gerard Donovan’s Julius Winsome: “This novel of great emotional impact is enthusiastically recommended,” they say rather tersely via Powell’s Books, where you’ll also find Mr and Mrs Kirkus offering a glowing report thusly: “Donovan’s command of language is astonishingly precise, eerily reflecting Julius’s disarmingly mild-mannered pathology as it ascribes no more importance to the cold-blooded shooting of a hunter than to going into town for groceries. Finely tooled outsider fiction, as chilling as it is ultimately humane.” Which is nice … “The New Heroes must remain the superhero series of choice for the sophisticated young reader, bringing many disparate and literary elements to the much-maligned and often ill-served genre,” says Write Away of Michael Carroll’s latest, Absolute Power … Love Reading loved reading Declan Hughes’ The Wrong Kind of Blood, to wit: “A great new voice in the thriller genre, gripping and authentic, and even when you get close to figuring out ‘who’ you have to read to the end to understand ‘why’. Ed Loy is the central character and we can’t wait for the next in the series – make sure you don’t miss out.” Message received and understood, folks … “His most visceral, satisfying effort yet …[Adrian] McKinty writes masterful action scenes and he whips up a frenzy as the bullets begin to fly,” says Publishers Weekly of The Bloomsday Dead over here … Finally, some Ken Bruen / Ammunition hup-yas to start the week off in traditional pirate fashion: “This reviewer’s reaction to the novel is ambivalent. The writing is interesting, characterizations poignant. Yet the story is confusing, except for the main theme of the shooting and Brant’s reaction to it … the other players and their stories are less meaningful, and, more important, perplexing, at least to me,” reckons the comma-crazy Theodore, Feit, at, Films and Books … Happily, Book Reporter was a little less baffled: “Like McBain, [Bruen] can make you laugh at human foibles and absurdity one moment and then bring you right back into the random terror of modern life the next … Bruen is a master of noir, taking that very American genre and putting a unique Irish twist on it. Books like Ammunition are quick, fun reads, excursions to the dark side of the street. If you haven’t read them, then search out the entire series.” And, so, say, all, of, us – except, Theodore, Feit, obviously …