Review: NORTHERN HEIST by Richard O’Rawe

Previously the author of three non-fiction titles, including Blanketmen, former Provisional IRA press officer Richard O’Rawe makes his crime fiction debut with Northern Heist (Merrion Press), in which James ‘Ructions’ O’Hare sets out to pull off ‘the biggest heist in Irish history’ by knocking over Belfast’s National Bank of Ireland. Set in 2004 – the year of the Northern Bank robbery – the novel offers a driving plot teeming with colourful characters, as Ructions, as per the sub-genre’s conventions, schemes to pull off the fabled one last job. It’s a tense tale – the IRA and the newly formed PSNI are both keeping tabs on our anti-hero – but where Northern Heist really scores is in the human detail, and particularly in terms of the interaction between the professional criminals and the bank staff kidnapped to facilitate the robbery. The stakes might easily have been raised had O’Rawe delivered more of the wider political context – the likely impact of the robbery on the Good Friday Agreement, for example, receives only a brief mention – but otherwise Northern Heist is a pulsating tale of vaulting ambition and establishes Richard O’Rawe as a crime novelist to reckon with.
  For more on Richard O’Rawe, clickety-click here …

Gig: The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers in Belfast

The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers – Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Stuart Neville, Luca Veste, Chris Brookmyre and Doug Johnstone – bring their unique blend of crime writing and rock ‘n’ roll to Belfast, when they play the Oh Yeah Centre on November 2nd at 7.30pm. Quoth the A&R elves:

It started, like all good rock ‘n’ roll stories, at The House of Blues in New Orleans. It was Bouchercon 2016 and Stuart Neville, Mark Billingham and Doug Johnstone had downed a few beers. An open mic night was too tempting so, recruiting local writer Bill Loehfelm on drums, they bum rushed the show and played a few shambolic tunes. The seed of an idea was planted.
  Fast forward a year and Stuart, Mark and Doug have teamed up with crime-writing pals Val McDermid, Luca Veste and Chris Brookmyre to form the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a full-on rawk experience, murdering songs for fun in front of anyone who will listen …

  For all the details on the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, clickety-click here.
  To book tickets for the Belfast gig, clickety-click here.

Launch: Jo Spain’s THE CONFESSION at No Alibis

Event: NOIRELAND Crime Fiction Festival, October 27th to 29th

The inaugural NOIRELAND International Crime Fiction Festival will take place in Belfast from October 27th to 29th, featuring – and here, as always, we defer to the blurb elves – “the best in local talent, guest appearances by international crime-writing stars, and in-depth conversations with some of the greatest screenwriters to put crime dramas on the screen.
  “NOIRELAND is the brainchild of David Torrans who established the No Alibis Book Store twenty years ago and has been at the forefront promoting Irish crime fiction and bringing the greatest international crime writers to Belfast.”
  The three-day event will feature Irish writers Stuart Neville, Liz Nugent, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Jo Spain, Claire McGowan, Anthony Quinn, Andrea Carter, Steve Cavanagh and Eoin McNamee, while Sophie Hannah, Arne Dahl, Robert Crais, Martin Edwards, Ruth Ware, Louise Welsh, Graeme McCrae Burnet, Abir Mukherjee, Ali Land and Steve Mosby are some of the international authors taking part.
  For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here …

Publication: RAVENHILL by John Steele

Described by Colin Bateman as ‘A cracking, fast-paced thriller,’ John Steele publishes the first in a Belfast-set series, RAVENHILL (Silvertail Books). Quoth the blurb elves:

Belfast, 1993: Jackie Shaw is a young tearaway running with paramilitaries in Belfast. He treads a fine line keeping psychotic hard-man Rab Simpson in check while sleeping with gang leader Billy Tyrie’s beautiful wife on the side.
  When a bomb claims nine lives, he is given the role of getaway driver in a planned reprisal killing, a key role in a major operation. But Jackie may not be who he seems ...
  Twenty years later, Jackie returns to the city for his father’s funeral after disappearing in mysterious circumstances. He wants to mourn then leave, but when figures from his past emerge, he is left with no choice but to revisit his violent former life.

  RAVENHILL will be published on August 31st.

Feature: SILVER’S CITY by Maurice Leitch

James Doyle of Turnpike Books had a terrific article in the Irish Times last week, explaining why he has republished Maurice Leitch’s SILVER’S CITY, aka ‘the novel that pioneered Northern noir.’ To wit:

Once it seemed that Northern Ireland only produced poets, now it seems to have as many crime novelists as Scandinavia. Brian McGilloway has explained the emergence of these writers: “In the absence of a Truth Commission in Northern Ireland, fiction is the closest we will come to an understanding of the past.”
  Silver’s City began that process. Maurice Leitch created a recognisable Belfast where the motives of his characters are ambiguous and arbitrary. He brought an authenticity to the conflict in Northern Ireland that undermined the lazy clichés that had been applied until then. Leitch’s Belfast is seedy and exhausted, the world of a Graham Greene novel rather than anything that we find in Jack Higgins. The paramilitaries of Silver’s City meet around kitchen tables, they reflect the domesticity and “neighbourly murder” (in Seamus Heaney’s phrase) of Northern Ireland’s violence, the casualness of a war where your enemy lives a few streets away and the only planning needed to kill someone was to knock on their door.

  For the rest of the piece, clickety-click here …

Publication: LITTLE BIRD by Sharon Dempsey

Published last week, Sharon Dempsey’s debut thriller, LITTLE BIRD (Bloodhound), is a serial killer novel set in Northern Ireland. Quoth the blurb elves:

Forensic psychologist, Declan Wells, is dealing with the aftermath of a car bomb during the Troubles in Belfast, which has left him in a wheelchair. But that is only the start of his problems.
  Welsh detective Anna Cole is running away from a dead-end relationship and the guilt of her mother’s death. She hopes secondment to the Police Service of Northern Ireland will provide a distraction.
  There is a killer on the streets targeting young women and leaving behind macabre mementoes to taunt the police.
  Can Declan and Anna work together to catch the deranged killer before he strikes again?
  And is it ever possible to leave the past behind you?

  Dominique Jeannerod interviews Sharon over at the International Crime Fiction Research Group. For more, clickety-click here …

Event: Noireland International Crime Fiction Festival

Hear ye, hear ye, and throw another trumpet parp on the fire there, please, maestro. I am reliably informed (by a combination of guesswork and speculation, natch) that details for the inaugural Noireland International Crime Fiction Festival will be available in the shortest order possible, and perhaps even as early as next week. What we do know – having diligently researched the topic as befits a professional journalist (koff) – is that said festival will take place at the Europa Hotel from October 27th to 29th, and that said festival is (quote) ‘A brand new crime festival with a distinctly Irish accent.’ After donning the old deerstalker and snorting a couple of lines, we further deduce from the fact that the festival is being held in Belfast that the imperishable No Alibis bookstore, and its equally unsinkable proprietor David Torrans, will likely be involved to a greater or lesser degree (which is not to rule out the possibility of David and No Alibis not being involved at all), and that the line-up will include crime fiction writers both domestic and international. Here endeth the speculation and guesswork previously advertised.
  To sign up for Noireland updates, clickety-click here …

Publication: SILVER’S CITY by Maurice Leitch

Turnpike Books republish Maurice Leitch’s SILVER’S CITY, which won the Whitbread Prize on its original publication in 1981, describing it as ‘one of the most seminal fictional portraits of the Troubles’ and the novel which ‘introduced a new authenticity to the literature of Northern Ireland’. Quoth the blurb elves:

Belfast is Silver’s city. The city always made you pay for your dreams. Silver Steele, the folk-hero who fired the first shot of the Troubles, escapes from a prison cell into a city where he is remembered only in graffiti and finds a world where he is a symbol of a cause he no longer belongs to. Silver discovers that he has swapped a cell for the illusion of freedom: he is now the prisoner of Galloway, one of a new generation of gunmen. Against the background of a city at war, Silver and Galloway engage in a private duel to the death.

  For more on Maurice Leitch, clickety-click here …

Review: THE WING-ORDERLY’S TALES by Carlo Gébler

Carlo Gébler’s The Wing-Orderly’s Tales (New Island), set in the fictional Loanend Prison in Belfast, is comprised of a series of anecdotes about Harold ‘Chalky’ Chalkman’s fellow prisoners, with Chalky’s position as orderly and go-between making him a confidante of both prisoners and prison guards. The narrative form is unusual, lying somewhere between a short story collection and a novel (the stories are closely linked but self-contained), as Gébler details the sad, quirky, blackly funny and tragic events that befall a host of characters, all of them known by their prison nicknames (‘Eskimo’, ‘Smurf’, ‘Sweet Gene’, ‘Magic’). In the past Carlo Gébler was a creative writing tutor at the Maze and writer-in-residence in Maghaberry, and he invests these stories with a gripping verisimilitude, not least when outlining the perverse unofficial rules that apply in prison – one character, for example, is brutally punished for hating the paramilitaries who killed his mother. It’s a slim but powerful book that subtly explores the early causes and life-long consequences of criminality, its underlying theme summed up in the advice the recidivist Chalky is offered – “It may be a jail, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like it’s one.” – but ultimately rejects. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Irish Times as part of April’s crime fiction column. Other titles reviewed are: MAESTRA by LS Hilton, THE TRAP by Melanie Raabe, BLOOD WILL OUT by Walter Kirn and SIX FOUR by Hideo Yokoyama.

Publication: SIREN by Annemarie Neary

Annemarie Neary is best known as an award-winning short story writer, but her second novel, SIREN (Hutchinson), is a psychological thriller. To wit:

HE STOLE HER LIFE. AND NOW SHE WANTS IT BACK.
  Róisín Burns has spent the past twenty years becoming someone else; her life in New York is built on lies.
  A figure from her Belfast childhood flashes up on the news: Brian Lonergan has also reinvented himself. He is now a rising politician in a sharp suit. But scandal is brewing in Ireland and Róisín knows the truth.
  Armed with the evidence that could ruin Lonergan, she travels back across the Atlantic to the remote Lamb Island to hunt him down.
  But Lonergan is one step ahead; when Róisín arrives on the island, someone else is waiting for her …

SIREN was published on March 24th. For more, clickety-click here …

Review: GULL by Glenn Patterson

Gull (Head of Zeus), Glenn Patterson’s tenth novel, opens in late 1982 with a short chapter recounting the bitter end of John DeLorean’s attempt to establish a car manufacturing empire in Belfast. Edmund Randall, DeLorean’s head of logistics in Belfast, makes a doomed dash to New York with bearer bonds that will allow the Dunmurry manufacturing plant to stay in business, only to discover that DeLorean has left New York for Los Angeles, thus allowing the time limit for the financial rescue package to lapse. Meanwhile, back in Belfast, Liz – a DeLorean factory worker, as we later discover – listens to the news on the radio, then packs her suitcase to leave Belfast for good.
  This brief, pithy chapter introduces the main characters and themes of Gull. The absent, charismatic but ultimately undependable DeLorean, whose dream of creating an affordable, ‘ethical’ sports car resulted the stainless-steel, iconic gull-winged DMC-12; Randall, the faithful servant who was never fully convinced by DeLorean, but who remained dazzled by his promise of better times to the very end; and Liz, the working-class Belfast woman who sacrificed her personal life on the altar of DeLorean’s delusions.
  John DeLorean is the marquee name here, of course, although we are never privy to his thoughts throughout Gull. The story is told for the most part from Randall’s perspective, who is a cub reporter when he first meets DeLorean in 1972, covering the launch of the ’73 Chevrolet Vega, the latest addition to John DeLorean’s glittering CV. DeLorean had long established himself as a star of the American motor manufacturing business, and particularly with the behemoth General Motors; when Randall queried DeLorean’s claims on behalf of the new Chevy Vega, earning himself a rebuke (and a demotion) from his newspaper colleagues, he earns DeLorean’s respect. A few years later, when Randall is working on the real estate beat for his newspaper, he gets a call from DeLorean, who wants Randall to head up the logistics division of his new company: the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC).
  It’s a plum job, but Randall earns his money the hard way. Initially, the plan is to establish the DMC manufacturing plant in Puerto Rico; at the very last minute, however, while Randall is in a meeting with the Governor of Puerto Rico waiting to sign the contracts, DeLorean rings Randall from Belfast to tell him that the plant will be in Ireland.
  By now the tone has been set: DeLorean is a magnetic, successful visionary and businessman, but one given to mercurial changes of mind and mood, and a man whose associates aren’t always entirely savoury. Randall, however, is a believer in DeLorean’s vision; over the coming years, he will repeatedly ignore DeLorean’s failings in order to focus on the big picture. Patterson intends Randall as an Everyman standing in for the public at large, wanting to be convinced that DeLorean has all the answers and mesmerised by his charisma. “DeLorean stepped up to the microphone,” he tells us of one speech, “to the right of the grandstand, as though – Randall had observed it before – he moved through a different medium, or was being shot on a different speed, to everyone around him. […] And as for his jaw, it was his conductor’s baton, his wand, wherever it pointed there was a reaction, a jumping to attention, a rush of colour to the cheeks, an instant abashed smile.”
  The DeLorean portrayed here is a fascinating Pied Piper, but it’s not just the likes of Randall and Liz that he charms. DeLorean arrived in Belfast telling the Labour-led British government that his manufacturing plant wouldn’t simply create jobs in an economically devastated Northern Ireland, it would also save lives. And it’s the impact of the new factory on Belfast that interests Patterson even more than the protean figure of John DeLorean, and particularly his impact on the hopes and aspirations of a generation beaten down by the Troubles. Liz, who applies for a job at the DeLorean factory against the express wishes of her husband, is a woman who has little reason for optimism. “She had long ago given up on politicians in this part of the world – take your pick from old men, angry men, or angry old men – and the ones from across the water always seemed, and not just by virtue of the water, remote.”
  That might sound like a depressingly familiar scenario, but it’s a tribute to Glenn Patterson’s gift for storytelling that even though we’re familiar with much of the broad historical details of DeLorean’s rise and fall, Gull quickly becomes a compelling tale of hubris, a kind of Troubles-set version of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Patterson exquisitely evokes both the bleakness and the black humour of Belfast during the worst of the Troubles (“Welcome to Belfast, East Berlin without the laughs.”), but also, as has been the case in his most recent works, the novel The Rest Just Follows (2015) and the screenplay for the movie Good Vibrations (2013), Patterson digs beneath the banner headlines to explore the extent to which Catholic and Protestant communities were capable of bonding together for their common good when opportunities arose.
  Here the working-class people of Belfast have been abandoned by politicians of all hues, left to sink or swim (sink, mostly) into the mire of a war-torn province. IRA prisoners in the H-Block are already engaged in the ‘dirty protest’ as DeLorean breaks ground on his new factory; the hunger strikes will begin shortly after the DMC-12 goes into production. It’s against a background of nihilistic despair that Liz and her co-workers allow themselves to hope that DeLorean is genuine and true, even as the reader, courtesy of the snippets of information Randall manages to glean from his boss, begins to realise that DeLorean might well be the charlatan and fraudster Liz fears him to be.
  Ultimately, the narrative tension that sustains the story is bound up in its title. It refers, of course, to the classic ‘gull-winged’ shape of the DMC-12 when its doors were open, an iconic design which entered Hollywood lore when it featured in 1985’s Back to the Future (too late, alas, for the world-wide promotion to do DeLorean and his thousands of employees any good). A ‘gull’, however, also describes a person who is easy to fool or persuade. And it is perhaps too easy, Gull appears to be saying, to retrospectively pass judgement on John DeLorean for being a conman on a grand scale, and for the people of Belfast for being gullible enough to swallow his spiel. The novel suggests that the truth of the time and place was that Belfast needed John DeLorean, faults and all, just as badly as John DeLorean needed Belfast, warts and all.
  Glenn Patterson has spent much of his career writing about his native city, but Gull is much more than a story about a failed sports car; at its heart it argues for a bittersweet triumph of ravenous hope over grim truth and crushing reality. In that sense, and despite its historical and ostensibly parochial setting, Glenn Patterson has written his most universal story to date. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Irish Examiner.

Republished: ODD MAN OUT by F.L. Green

Originally published in 1945, F.L. Green’s superb Belfast-set thriller ODD MAN OUT will soon be republished by Valancourt Books, with an introduction from Adrian McKinty. To wit:

An Irish Republican Army plot goes horribly wrong when its leader, Johnny Murtah, kills an innocent man and is himself gravely wounded. As the police close in on Johnny, his compatriots must make a daring bid to rescue him. But they are not the only ones in pursuit: an impoverished artist, a saintly priest, a sleazy informer, and a beautiful young woman all have their own reasons to be desperate to find him. Meanwhile Johnny wanders the streets injured and alone, trapped in a delirious nightmare, surrounded on all sides by betrayal and faced with the realization that he may die that night with the stain of murder on his soul. The action unfolds over eight hours of a cold Belfast night, with the suspense building towards an explosive conclusion.
  Both a critical success and a bestseller, F. L. Green’s masterful thriller Odd Man Out (1945) is best known today as the basis for the classic 1947 film adaptation directed by Carol Reed and starring James Mason. This edition, the first in over 30 years, features a new introduction by Adrian McKinty.

  As it happens, Adrian McKinty’s contribution to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS (2011), which focused on Northern Ireland’s early contribution to Irish crime writing, was titled ‘Odd Men Out’, in which he touches briefly on ODD MAN OUT, describing it as a Dante-esque descent into a surrealist hell. Poor old Belfast, eh? Always the bitter word, etc. ...

Publication: DOWN ON CYPRUS AVENUE by Paul Charles

Paul Charles is one of the unsung heroes of Irish crime fiction. His latest offering, DOWN ON CYPRUS AVENUE (DuFour Editions), is a police procedural set in Belfast:

Brendy McCusker had it made when he took early retirement from the Ulster police force with a handsome pay-out. That is until his wife ran off to America with their nest egg, forcing him back to work in Belfast.
  On his first major case, McCusker partners with DI Lily O’Carroll to locate the two missing sons of a wealthy businessman. But before the brothers can be found, McCusker is reassigned to the brutal murder of an American banker staying on Cyprus Avenue. As the detectives delve into their subjects’ pasts, McCusker finds himself juggling his move to Belfast, O’Carroll’s frequent blind dates, his status as a hired-back rent-a-cop, and trying not to be distracted by Belfast’s beautiful women, especially one mysterious woman in particular.
  McCusker and O’Carroll eventually find a person of interest with an air-tight alibi, but only one of the detectives believes it is genuine…

  Sounds good, and the early word is very positive indeed:

“Twist-filled tale of betrayal and revenge.”—Publishers Weekly “Continuously absorbing, with a nice rapport between the hero and heroine.”—Kirkus Reviews

  For more on Paul Charles, clickety-click here …
  Review: THE LONESOME HEART IS ANGRY by Paul Charles

Publication: UNDERCOVER by Gerard Brennan

The prolific Gerard Brennan’s latest novel, UNDERCOVER (CreateSpace), is subtitled ‘A Cormac Kelly Thriller’, which suggests the Belfast-set tale is the first in a proposed series. To wit:

When undercover detective Cormac Kelly infiltrates a ruthless gang bent on kidnapping and extortion, he is forced to break cover and shoot his way out of a hostage situation gone bad. Tearing through the dangerous streets of Belfast with a twelve-year-old boy and his seriously injured father in tow, Kelly desperately tries to evade the gang and reconnect the family with the boy’s mother, football agent Lydia Gallagher. But she is in London, unaware of their freedom and being forced by the gang to betray her top client. As Kelly breaks every rule in the book and crosses the line from legit police officer to rogue cop on the run, the role of dapper but deadly ex-spook Stephen Black means the difference between life and death …

  For more, clickety-click here …

News: Adrian McKinty Wins Australian ‘Ned Kelly’ Award

Hearty congratulations to Adrian McKinty (right), who yesterday won the Australian ‘Ned Kelly’ award for Best Australian Crime Fiction for IN THE MORNING I’LL BE GONE (Serpent’s Tail). The prize was awarded at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Quoth the judges:

“In his use of humour with the grim realities of Belfast in 1984, coupled with a wonderfully constructed locked room mystery, McKinty has produced something really quite extraordinary. There’s a fine line between social commentary and compelling mystery and not many writers, crime or literary, can do both.”

  For more, clickety-click on Adrian’s blog.
  For an interview published on the release of IN THE MORNING I’LL BE GONE, clickety-click here …

Publication: DISAPPEARED by Anthony Quinn

Described as ‘One of the best books of the year’ by Strand Magazine when it was published in the US last year, Anthony Quinn’s DISAPPEARED (Head of Zeus) is now available on this side of the pond. To wit:

DISAPPEARED introduces Celcius Daly, a Belfast Police Inspector laden with flawed judgment and misplaced loyalties.
  A retired Special Branch Detective succumbing to early-stage dementia disappears from his remote home in rural Northern Ireland. An ex-intelligence officer is tortured to death. But why was his obituary printed in the local paper before his death? A son seeks his father's long-lost body and vengeance against those who murdered him. A stone-cold killer stalks the outskirts of Belfast. But at whose behest is he hunting his targets? And why?
  All are connected by a single strand spun out of the past... but as Inspector Celcius Daly knows, the past is never dead... it's not even past.

  For more information on Tyrone author Anthony Quinn, clickety-click here …

A Guilty Pleasure

Sean McGrady’s THE BASTARD PLEASURE (Dzanc Books) didn’t come across my radar when it was published last year, and I doubt very much if it was written as a crime novel, but it does sound like yet another fascinating addition to the body of fiction emerging from Northern Ireland. To wit:

THE BASTARD PLEASURE is a dark novel. It concerns itself with the mystery of identity and individuation, its destruction and the brutal way in which it is reclaimed in an emerging act of intuitive will and self-affirmation, that is both obligated and free, in the circumstances, to be either good or evil – more plainly, it is about terrorism, in its concrete and seemingly incomprehensible forms, that eminently reveals existential ‘border situations’ in ambiguity and contradiction.

  And here’s a little more:

“McGrady’s pitch-black coming-of-age story picks up where his debut, THE BACKSLIDER, left off: Belfast, during the early 1970s; a time of fear and violence, but also, it would seem from this meticulously chronicled account, of precarious hope and occasional hilarity. For his narrator, seventeen year-old Seamus McGladdery, it is a time of self-discovery. What kind of man is he going to be, and on which side that of the ‘fly Provo boys’ who rule the streets, or that of his Protestant forebears-will he take a stand? ‘Black Belfast’ has seldom been more sharply realized, in taut, visceral prose whose Beckettian cadences are relieved by flashes of humour. Unflinching in its depiction of a deeply troubled era in Ireland’s history, THE BASTARD PLEASURE is no easy read, but it is a rewarding one, full of thought-provoking insights and incidental pleasures.” -- Christina Koning

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Between A Rock Guitarist And A Hard Place

There’s a very nice series running over at NPR Books called ‘Crime and the City’, about ‘fictional detectives and the places they live’. The latest destination is Belfast, with NPR being given a tour by ‘the former rock guitarist’ Stuart Neville (right, pictured in No Alibis bookstore). To wit:

While Belfast is no longer the burned-out city that it once was, The Troubles still overshadow the city’s story. “We have this kind of strange, contradictory feeling about The Troubles,” Neville says. “We’re ashamed of it, kind of proud of it at the same time.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  While you’re at it, here’s the John Banville / Benjamin Black tour of Dublin, from 2011 …

Burke’s A Rover

Off with me yesterday to Belfast to interview James Ellroy, who’s on the circuit promoting BLOOD’S A ROVER, and a marvellous day it was too. Mr James Ellroy was charm personified, an elegant, erudite and self-effacing interviewee who also understands the worth of a mutually beneficial stand-out quote or ten. I liked him a lot, which was nice, because it’s not always a good thing to meet your heroes, and I think Ellroy is one of the best writers on the planet. Hence the irrepressibly smug demeanour of yours truly above, although Mr James Ellroy doesn’t seem to be enjoying the occasion anywhere as much, despite his protests of ‘Man, I’m digging it,’ to the contrary. Oh, and I probably shouldn’t have worn my favourite shirt, the one with the hole in the elbow …
  Anyway, I bumped into Gerard Brennan of CSNI going into the Waterfront gig where Ellroy was appearing, and he seems a pretty nice bloke too. He’s less evil-looking in person than he is in his blog pic, which was a relief. He had some bad news during the week, by the way, so pop over to CSNI and cheer him up.
  Afterwards I met Andrew Pepper. I’d met Andrew earlier in the year, at the Bristol CrimeFest, and a nicer guy to while away a couple of coffees you won’t meet in a country mile. He has a new novel coming out next February, the fourth in the Pyke series, called THE DETECTIVE BRANCH. I’ll keep you posted …
  In between, Stuart Neville interviewed James Ellroy, and did a very fine job (kudos to Dave Torrans of No Alibis, who not only arranged the gig, but provided yours truly with a couple of free tickets). Ellroy did a reading dedicated to (I paraphrase) ‘all you perverts, peepers, panty-sniffers and pimps’ in the audience. I’m pretty sure he uses the same dedication every time he does a reading, and that his performance is similar wherever he goes, because there’s an compelling sense of theatre to what Ellroy does in a live context. He does perform, and he just about stops short of howling at the moon in the process. It’s all very polished and effective and damn near electrifying. Having said all that, it’s worth bearing in mind that the most important part of the performance are the words themselves. What Saturday night taught me is (1) it’s no harm for a writer to get in touch with ancient tradition of bardic poetry when performing a reading; and (2) it’s no harm for a writer to make sure his words are worth hearing out loud if he’s going to stand up on a stage and start reciting them.
  Off with us then (I was with an old college mate, Big Joe Lindsay, who works for BBC NI, and whom every second person in Belfast seems to know) for a Pimms or two, fetching up in the wee hours in a beautifully ramshackle club run by David Holmes, whom one or two of you might remember as the man on soundtrack duties for Steven Soderbergh’s movie Out of Sight. Given that that soundtrack is one of my all-time faves, it was nice that Big Joe (naturally) knew David Holmes, and made the intros. Big Joe plays some tunes on BBC NI himself, by the way, which is well worth checking out ...
  The evening ended shortly after I started waving my mobile phone around and showing pictures of the Princess Lilyput, which is always a sign that I’ve had one Pimms too many.
  Sunday morning I got up and read my review of James Ellroy’s BLOOD’S A ROVER, which I loved (the novel, not the review). I wrote the review two days after finishing the novel, though, and at this stage (three weeks on) I think it’s an even better novel than I gave it credit for – more subtle than I appreciated at the time, I think, and a more elegant, enduring work than either of the ‘Underworld USA’ books that preceded it. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s my two cents …
  Finally, here’s David Holmes’ ‘Rip Rip’ from the Out of Sight soundtrack. “Tighten up yo panties, boy …” Roll it there, Collette …