Review: GUN STREET GIRL by Adrian McKinty

The latest Irish Times crime fiction column includes a review of Adrian McKinty’s current offering, GUN STREET GIRL (Serpent’s Tail). It runs a lot like this:

The fourth in Adrian McKinty’s award-winning series of police procedurals featuring Sean Duffy, a Catholic detective serving in the RUC during the 1980s, Gun Street Girl (Serpent’s Tail, €19.40), opens in 1985, as the news of the impending Anglo-Irish Agreement sends Northern Ireland into a turmoil of strikes, riots and violence. “How can you investigate a murder in a time of incipient civil war?” Duffy wonders as he attends the scene of what appears to be a professional double-killing of ‘civilians’. That conundrum is quickly left behind as Duffy finds himself investigating the possibility that the murders are connected to the theft of Javelin missile systems from the Shorts manufacturing plant, which may well implicate rogue members of an American secret service. The claustrophobic tension of the previous novels is replaced here by a surprisingly jocular tone, as Duffy resorts to absurdist humour in order to preserve his sanity in an increasingly bleak Northern Ireland. “Out here,” Duffy tells us, “on the edge of the dying British Empire, farce is the only mode of narrative discourse that makes any sense at all.” Gun Street Girl may well be a comically implausible tale, but its roots in historical fact renders it a superb satire of its time and place. ~ Declan Burke

  For the rest of the column, which includes reviews of the latest books from Colette McBeth, Antonio Hodgson and Dana King, clickety-click here …

A Singular Joint Endeavour

Dana King is both a friend of this blog and a good friend of your humble correspondent, so I’m delighted to announce that he has just published GRIND JOINT (Stark House). I’m hopelessly compromised in terms of letting you know what I think of the book, of course, but suffice to say that Charlie Stella has penned the Introduction, during the course of which Charlie compares – very favourably – GRIND JOINT to the work of Elmore Leonard. Quoth the blurb elves:

A new casino is opening in the rural town of Penns River, Pennsylvania but just where the money is coming from no one really knows. Is it Daniel Hecker, bringing hope to a mill town after years of plant closings? Or is the town’s salvation really an opening for Mike ‘The Hook’ Mannarino’s Pittsburgh mob to move part of their action down state? Or could it be someone even worse? When the body of a drug dealer is dumped on the casino steps shortly before its grand opening, Detectives Ben Doc Dougherty and Willie Grabek have to survive their department’s own inner turmoil and figure out not only who is behind the murder, but what it means to whoever is behind the operation itself. Between the cops, the mob, and the ex-spook in charge of casino security Daniel Rollison, a man with more secrets than anyone will ever know, Grind Joint is a mesmerizing mix of betrayal, police action, small town politics, sudden violence and the lives of the people of a town just trying to look after itself.

  To order your copy, clickety-click here …

On Putting The ‘Laughter’ Into ‘Slaughter’

‘Writing 3.0’ is the rather bold title of the 2012 Fingal Annual Writing Festival, which runs from November 2nd - 10th and describes itself thusly:

Writing 3.0 initially evolved from the well established ‘Finscéal: A Writer’s Trail of Fingal’ an initiative for writers and readers throughout Fingal since 2005. The shift to Writing 3.0 in 2010 conceptualised the writing process in the twenty-first century; how it evolves from the blank page across a range of technologies associated with creativity that potentially reaches vast audiences. Writing 3.0 2012 continues its focus on the writing process today, with Fingal Libraries Department and Fingal Arts Office collaborating once again to extend the emphasis on writing towards performance and uplifting experiences. This year we have programmed workshops and performances on rap, coding for computer games and animation, improvisation, songwriting, screenwriting and performance poetry, as well as the traditional focus on writing and reading poetry and fiction.

  It’s a heady brew, and I’m very much looking forward to taking part when I take to the stage at 8pm next Thursday evening, November 8th, for a reading from SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and an interview in the company of Edel Coffey, when we’ll do our level best to put the ‘laughter’ into ‘slaughter’. If you’re likely to be in the vicinity of Blanchardstown Library next Thursday, I’d love to see you there. All the information and booking details can be found here …
  In other news, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND received a rather interesting review from Dana King. To wit:

“The writing … is dead-on and perfect for the situation. Burke is able to capture the occasional absurdity of Rigby’s early situation and inexorably ratchet up the tension to the darkness that captures the end of the book […] Rigby’s actions become progressively more violent until gruesome is not too strong a word. It’s a risk worth taking for those who like their crime fiction to look at the effects of a story’s events on both the doer and those who have been done.”

  Dana reckons that SH is a ‘seamless blend’ of Ray Chandler and Ray Banks, although he does concede that such a blend won’t be to the taste of every reader. For the full review, clickety-click here …
  Finally, the lovely people at TV3’s Ireland AM programme - who sponsor the Crime Fiction gong at the Irish Book Awards - were kind enough to invite me along to their couch for interview yesterday morning. As always, the experience was a hugely enjoyable one, although Mark Cagney’s insistence that Harry Rigby is a colder-than-usual killer had me feeling that I was sitting on a different kind of couch entirely by the time it was all over. Watch out for all the other nominees on the Ireland AM Best Crime Fiction Novel list, who will be taking their place on the couch in the next couple of weeks. And if you think you can stand it, here’s the link to yesterday’s interview …

How Cool It Was, How Cool …

You’ll forgive me, I hope, for rattling on about ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL yet again, but there has been a flurry of activity - by my standards, at least - surrounding the book since it launched last Wednesday, when Arlene Hunt, Declan Hughes and Alan Glynn (right, righter and rightest) were among those to make it along to the Gutter Bookshop (and yes, that is the Dark Lord, aka John Connolly, skulking menacingly in the background).
  First up, there were two very interesting reviews indeed on Saturday, from the Irish Times and the Irish Independent. If I’m perfectly honest, I’m still a little bit stunned by the reaction; you do hope for decent reviews (well, any reviews at all, really) when your book appears, but those two were far beyond anything I’d let myself hope for. Sample quote: “ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL isn’t quite like anything you’ve ever read, in any genre.” For the full skinny, clickety-click here …
  Also on Saturday, the Evening Herald was good enough to publish an interview with yours truly, which was terrific in itself, but had the added bonus of being published under the header ‘Paint It Black’, which just so happens to be my favourite Stones track. Coincidence? I think so. For the interview, clickety-click here …
  Another interview, this one of the radio variety, comes courtesy of the good folk at RTE’s Arena programme, which was actually broadcast on the night of the book’s launch. Sean Rocks asks the questions, and the considerably-less-than-dulcet tones of yours truly can be heard doing their best not to make a complete hames of answering. One click takes you there …
  Meanwhile, the team at writing.ie hosts yet another interview with me, and thanks kindly to them. That interview, by the way, comes with a bonus of offering the opportunity to win a free copy of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. For the interview, click here; if you want to bypass my blatherings and go straight for the freebie, clickety-click here …
  Lastly, but by no means leastly, the venerable Dana King conducts an interview with a difference over at One Bite At A Time, which opens up with allegations of a SWAT team arriving to break up the AZC launch on Wednesday night, and goes downhill rapidly from there. If you’re interested, you know what to do …

100,000 Not Out

Given that Crime Always Pays came into being to celebrate (mostly) Irish fiction as a platform to promote our humble offering THE BIG O, it’s appropriate that the stats passed the 100,000 mark for page impressions while I was away in the States on a Toronto-Baltimore road-trip designed to mark the publication of said tome in the U.S. Now, 100,000 page impressions in 18 months isn’t exactly the kind of stat to set the interweb aflame, but by the same token – as Twenty Major once pointed out – a blog dedicated to Irish crime fiction is a niche-niche-niche sell, particularly when you’re not actually selling anything.
  Anyhoos, I’m quietly pleased at having reached that mark, not least because many of CAP’s regular visitors have become good mates. I’d been warned by some Bouchercon veterans that the first experience can be overwhelming, given the scale of the operation and the numbers of people there, but when John McFetridge and I finally pulled into Baltimore, the experience was more akin to a reunion.
  Peter Rozovsky I’d met before, during his sojourn to Ireland, and it would have been nice to hook up with him again even if he hadn’t sweated blood organising the Philly leg of John and Dec’s Most Excellent Adventure. Peter? Now that you’re au fait with ‘shite’ and ‘gobshite’, I really must introduce you to ‘shitehawking’ the next time.
  I’d met Donna Moore before too, at Bristol Fest, and it was smashing to meet up with her again, partly because I’d read her terrific GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET in the interim, but mainly because I want her to play Diane Lane when they come to make the movie of my life. There’s nothing like a hug from a flame-haired beauty to make you feel like you belong in Baltimore. Apart from the daily hugs (“Oi, I haven’t had my hug today!”), the best part of seeing the poker maven again was the news that her follow-up novel is currently with her agent, and that she’s mailing me a copy as soon as I sign up for Bristol Fest 2009. Yon Donna Moore, she drives a hard bargain …
  It was nice to meet Jen Jordan, too, my first experience of whom was having my shoulder nuzzled by some random hottie in the convention’s main thoroughfare. But lo! It wasn’t a random hottie, it was Jen Jordan. Nice …
  Sarah Weinman was something of a disappointment, given that I was expecting her to be a matronly ball-breaker of indeterminate age. Dang my britches if she’s not cute as a junebug, and prone to enveloping a man in a hug even before he’s been properly introduced. Nice …
  Back to Bouchercon, which I’ve actually been reluctant to write about this week, on the basis that the experience was something of a bubble I’ve been afraid to puncture. Friendly people willing and eager to talk books all day and all night – sounds like hell, I know, but you get used to anything after a while. Readers, reviewers, bloggers, writers, editors, publicists, publishers and – crucially – booksellers, all mingling freely. Anyone who hasn’t yet grasped how the chaos of minute particles colliding at random at the quantum level can translate into a solid object or force at the macro level should get along to the next Bouchercon in Indianapolis.
  I suppose it helped that I had a foot in a few camps. I was there as a reader, of course, but also as a writer and a blogger / reviewer; and technically speaking, given that THE BIG O was originally a co-publication with Hag’s Head Press, I also had a foot in the publishing / publicity / distribution / selling side of things. So there were a lot of people I was hoping to see.
  Jeff Pierce was one, and it was nice to hang out with him on a couple of occasions. Glenn Harper was another, although we didn’t actually get to sit down and talk books – next time, Glenn, hopefully. I also got to meet Angie Johnson-Schmidt, who was kind enough to help me try to find tobacco in late-night Baltimore, as was Dana King, albeit in vain. It was cool to meet Brian Lindemuth and Sandra Ruttan too – Sandra’s another blogger with a foot in more than one camp. And then there was the effervescent and damn near omniscient Ali Karim, and Clair Lamb, and Janet Rudolph … The inimitable Joe Long came down from New York, to greet me with the words, “So where’s the other prick, Hughes?” And it was terrific to hook up with Jon Jordan and be able to say thanks in person for all the support he’s given me ever since way back when, aka the publication of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. Jon? You’re a gent, squire.
  Greg Gillespie of Philly’s Port Richmond Books came down to Baltimore on the Saturday, and nice it was to make his acquaintance again, given that he’d brought the troops out in force to Wednesday night’s Noir at the Bar at Fergie’s. Greg was supposed to sleep on the floor of our hotel room that night, but with an 8.30am panel on Sunday morning looming, I cracked around 2am and went to bed, and haven’t seen him since. Can anyone confirm that Greg is okay?
  Incidentally, McFetridge was great company on the road-trip, apart from his insistence in talking up the Toronto Blue Leafs, which plays some weird hybrid of hockey, football and baseball. Well, that and the fact that the Y he booked us into in New York had the noisiest bunk-beds ever made, and that one of the three communal showers was festooned with crime scene-style tape. Other than that, though, he was no more boring than you’d imagine a Canadian writer to be. We may even road-trip again, one day.
  As for the rest, well, this post is already too long – suffice to say that Bouchercon 2008 was a tremendous experience. Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik deserve all the credit going, and more.
  It did occur to me at one point that the attendees as a group were heavily skewed towards an older demographic, although that’s easily enough explained when you consider the cost of travelling to a four-day convention that’s a sheer indulgence. And you could also say that crime fiction is a conservative genre, concerned for the most part with upholding the status quo, and that older generations are more likely to be of a conservative bent.
  But here’s the thing – I’ve never had anyone say to me, “Yeah, I got into crime fiction in my fifties.” I was a teenager when the crime bug bit, and I thought I was pretty radical back then, as most teenagers tend to do. Maybe it’s because it’s the most popular kind of writing, and therefore the most accessible, and because the world of gats, molls and grift has a certain surface cool that appeals to the impressionable mind. But once it gets you hooked, it doesn’t let go. It’s odd, especially when you consider that you don’t listen to the same kind of music twenty, thirty or forty years on from your teens, or watch the same kind of movies, or like the same artists, etc. But when I read Ray Chandler today, I enjoy him even more than I did twenty years ago.
  The Big Question: any theories as to why crime fiction takes such a compelling grip as to last you an entire lifetime? Over to you, people ...