BOOKS TO DIE FOR: The Awards

I’m delighted to announce that BOOKS TO DIE FOR (ed. John Connolly and Declan Burke, with Assistant Editor Clair Lamb) has won both the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award for Best Crime Non-Fiction at Bouchercon 2013. I’m particularly pleased for the 120 contributors, all of whom fully engaged with the spirit of the book, the essence of which is a celebration of all the great crime and mystery novels and writers. In its conception and its execution, BTDF was very much a labour of love (all authors are, first and foremost, readers), and it’s very nice indeed to see that spirit reflected in the Macavity and Anthony awards (and also the Agatha award, which BTDF won earlier this year).
  All told, it’s been a very good weekend, and not only for BOOKS TO DIE FOR’s editors and contributors, but also for the good people at Hodder & Stoughton (UK) and Atria (US) who put their collective shoulders to the wheel on behalf of the book. It’s always been my experience that the international crime fiction community is comprised of an incredibly warm, generous and welcoming bunch of people, and Bouchercon 2013 pretty much confirms that fact.

RIP Elmore Leonard

I was away last week when the news of Elmore Leonard’s death broke. Desperately sad news it was, too. I’ve been fan of Elmore Leonard’s for about two decades now (he’s the only writer who gets an entire shelf to himself in my room), and it felt like I’d lost a favourite uncle, the guy you don’t see that often but who turns up maybe once a year with all these terrific stories about the people he’s met and the places he’s seen. It’s still a little hard to believe that he’s gone, to be honest. I was supposed to interview him last year, before the Cleveland Bouchercon, but personal circumstance got in the way and I didn’t get to make the trip. Some things just aren’t mean to happen, I suppose.
  Anyway, I’d just like to add my voice to all those acclaiming Elmore Leonard as one of the greats. The first book of his I read was FREAKY DEAKY, and I’ve read pretty much all of his crime novels since. I’m partial to GET SHORTY, OUT OF SIGHT, THE BIG BOUNCE, THE SWITCH and 52 PICK-UP, although for some reason PRONTO is the one I love the best.
  What I love about Elmore Leonard’s books is that they sound so natural, the way language and character and story all come together in such a seamless way. If it takes a hell of a lot of hard work to make something look effortless, Elmore Leonard was the hardest working writer in the game.
  My favourite example is the opening to STICK, which goes like this:

Stick said he wasn’t going if they had to pick up anything. Rainy said no, there wasn’t any product in the deal; all they had to do was drop a bag. Stick said, “And the guy’s giving you five grand?”

  That’s beautiful.

On The Irish Crime Novel And Tat

I was supposed to take part, via Skype link-up, in the Bouchercon panel on Irish crime writing yesterday, a panel hosted by Erin Mitchell and featuring John Connolly, Stuart Neville, Eoin Colfer and Erin Hart. Sadly, the technology let us down, and I was reduced to earwigging on the event, which sounded like it was terrific fun, with much in the way of self-effacing humour and self-mockery. Erm, chaps? It behoves you to act with appropriate seriousness, and whinge a lot about how you’re a second-class literary citizen, etc. Otherwise, crime writing will never get the credit it deserves from the likes of John Boland.
  Anyhoo, I had an interview with said John Connolly published yesterday in the Irish Examiner to mark the publication of his latest Charlie Parker novel, THE BURNING SOUL, which opened up a lot like this:

“You know the Irish crime novel has arrived,” says John Connolly, “because we’ve started producing tat. In the beginning it was a blank canvas, and there wasn’t a lot of money to be made, and there was a lot of experimentation, people whizzing off in interesting directions into virgin territory. Now we have the foot-soldiers coming through, producing stuff we’ve read in other forms before. Especially with the serial killer novel, which in the wrong hands can quickly spiral out of control and become a bit nasty, bodies piling up all over the pages.”
  The Irish crime novel was still something of a novelty in 1999 when Connolly, then an Irish Times journalist, published his debut, ‘Every Dead Thing’. Set in Maine in the US, and featuring the private eye Charlie Parker, its experimental aspect was the blending of conventional crime fiction tropes with elements of the gothic novel, and particularly those of the supernatural.
  “Crime fiction is still very uncomfortable with any kind of experimentation,” he says, “anything that deviates from a functional, rationalist take on the world. But I think it’s legitimate to introduce other elements, and elements that are directly opposed to that rationalist mindset ...”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Staying with said John Connolly, the Dark Lord will be leading the charge to New York next week, when he heads up a posse of Irish crime scribes being hosted by Ireland House at NYU for the purpose of celebrating the rise and rise of Irish crime fiction. Attendees will include John Connolly, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay, Declan Hughes, Colin Bateman and Professor Ian Ross on the Irish side, and Peter Quinn and Pete Hamill holding up the Irish-American end. The event takes place from 9.30am to 7pm on Saturday, September 24th at Ireland House; if you’re in the vicinity, clickety-click here for all the details …

Burke And McFetridge, Going Dutch

In case you missed the linky-poo on Monday, John McFetridge (right) is writing a meta-fiction-y short story in which he and I go on a crime spree during our pre-Bouchercon road-trip. To wit:

When I wrote my novel, EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE, I used Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, and I’m pretty sure that Declan Burke used them when he wrote his novel, THE BIG O, so it was natural when we teamed up to pull armed robberies on our way to Bouchercon in Baltimore, we’d use Elmore’s Ten Rules for Success and Happiness from his novel SWAG.
  In both cases we had to make minor changes to the rules. For one thing, grocery stores and bars never have much cash on hand anymore and one exclamation point for every hundred thousand words? Come on, these are crime novels, people getting robbed and beaten up yell ...

  It’s all true, by the way. Except for the bit where I call Elmore Leonard ‘Dutch’. For the rest, clickety-click here …

UPDATE: Now this is what I call the Big Time …

I’m Leaving On A Jet Plane ...

“All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go
I’m standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breaking, it’s early morn
The taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die …

Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go …”

 There’s only one downside to this John and Dec’s Most Excellent Adventure road-trip malarkey, and it’s the ‘already I’m so lonesome I could die’ bit – I’ll badly miss the Princess Lilyput while I’m away jollying it up pretending to be a writer, there’s no two ways about it. But I guess it just has to be done, and hopefully she’ll still be saying “Da-da-da” and looking for lots of hugs when I stagger back into Dublin in the wake of the Bouchercon festivities …
  Anyhoos, I’ll be up-up-and-away to Toronto tomorrow lunchtime, and even though John and I intend to blog the road-trip, I’ve no idea how practical that idea is, or how regular the posts will be. We’ll see how it goes … Bear with me; regular service will be resumed all too soon.
  All that’s left to say is thanks a million to everyone who’s contributed to putting me in the position whereby I can fly off on a road-trip through New England promoting our humble tome THE BIG O. It’s a cliché, I know, but it’s true that the people you meet on the journey are far more important than the destination itself. And if the quality of folk I’ve met over the last 18 months are anything to go by, I’m honestly hoping I never actually make it to that destination. Peace, people.

Bruen Up Several Storms

We may as well just rename this blog the Sir Kenneth of Bruen Hup-Ya, and for the same reason Crime Spree magazine have a category for The Ken Bruen Of The Year in their annual awards – the guy’s a literary virus, and in a very good way. The latest news, which comes courtesy of Sandra Ruttan, is that Ken’s Priest (the one millionth in the Jack Taylor series) has been nominated for Best British (!) Novel in the Barry Awards, named for Barry Gardner, the results to be announced at the 11th Annual Barry Awards presentation at Bouchercon, which takes place this year at Anchorage, Alaska (September 27 – 30). Bear in mind, people, that Bruen is already scheduled as the guest of honour at next year’s NoirCon … and as if that wasn’t enough, he and Jason Starr have also been nominated for another Barry, this time in the Best Original Paperback category, for Bust. Sir Ken? How sweet is all of that, exactly?

“I’ll be lighting lots of candles to St Jude. The publishers are so stunned they’re springing for the fares. Now that really is sweet …”

We couldn’t agree more. Watch out for those polar bears up in Alaska, man - they may look cute, but they don't have a wood to shit in. And you know how crazy that makes a bear ...