A Dash Of Bitters

Darren Shan is a runaway bestseller when writing for young adults (25 million copies sold, and counting), and while he has written adult crime novels under that name in the past, THE EVIL AND THE PURE (Home of the Damned) is published under the name Darren Dash. To wit:

Big Sandy is an enforcer.
  Clint Smith is a dealer.
  Kevin Tyne is a pimp.
  Gawl McCaskey is a thug.
  Four men of violence, whose lives are about to intersect. It is London, the tail-end of the year 2000. A crime lord is trying to go legit. A chemical genius is working on his illegal masterpiece. A football club is up for sale. Savagely bred hounds are baying for blood. A depraved priest is preying on his flock. An abused young woman is praying for salvation.
  On the harsh, unforgiving streets of the city, not everyone is going to make it to the new year.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Fright And The City

The Bookseller last week hosted a rather nice interview with twinkly-eyed rogue Darren Shan (right), aka DB Shan, in which he talked with Alison Flood about demons, gore, morality and crime fiction in advance of the publication of PROCESSION OF THE DEAD, the first of the ‘City’ trilogy. To wit:

The Road to Darkness

In an urban fantasy novel by one Darren O’Shaughnessy, Orion’s Simon Spanton—the book’s first editor—appears as a corpse and has his extracted guts used as a divining tool to predict the future stock market performance of his company.
  Gruesome? Gory? Unsurprising when you realise this is the work of Darren Shan, who in his million-selling, 19-strong range of books for children variously dismembers families, dives into a world of guts and splatters characters with vomit. PROCESSION OF THE DEAD (Harper Voyager, March) is his first novel for adults, originally published by Orion in 1999 as AYUMARCA and now reworked and repackaged under the name D.B. Shan.
  Shan makes a naughty schoolboy chuckle when Spanton’s name arises. “In my children’s books I often kill off people I know—loads of my friends get torn to pieces,” he says, reclining on a smart leather couch in his London crash pad (home is Limerick in Ireland).   “It’s a mark of respect—I never kill off anyone I don’t like, so I thought it would be nice to go back, put Simon in there and kill him off.” His publicist Helen Johnstone, he adds, will probably be killed off at some stage.
  The addition of Spanton is not the only change Shan has made to the original novel. Written when he was 21, it was the first book he ever had published, and it sold only “a couple of thousand” copies despite positive reviews. Apart from changing the name of the book (“no one could actually pronounce it”), he has cut it back by around 100 pages and filtered in elements of the modern world to bring it up to date.
  “I never felt that it was finished before,” he says. “I didn’t change the structure very much, as I didn’t want to go back and rewrite it completely. I just cut out things that didn’t need to be there. Back then, in my mid to late 20s, I was learning to express myself, I was saying more than I needed to say. These days I write more than I need and edit down, edit down, edit down.”
  The cuts really show. PROCESSION OF THE DEAD rattles along at a breakneck pace, following the story of wannabe gangster Capac Raimi as he learns about life in the City, crosses paths with the all-powerful Cardinal, delves into the mysteries of the Incan priests who control more than meets the eye—and slowly comes to realise that he has entirely forgotten his own past. Shan describes it as a cross between “The Godfather” and the Coen Brothers.
  PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is published under the name D B Shan to avoid alienating Shan’s large fan-base, but also to prevent his younger readers from picking it up. “One of the interesting things about this book will be how many readers follow across,” he says. “I don’t want 11–12-year-olds but I do want 14–15-year-olds to . . .”—he thinks for a second—”to follow me down the road of utter darkness.”

Gore and morality

  Shan always knew he wanted to be a writer, and after finishing an English and sociology degree at Roehampton University, he wrote while working for a television cable company in Limerick for two years, before quitting to see if he could make his dreams come true.
  “I knew there was a good chance I might not get published, and I was drawing the dole for two years, but it was what I wanted to do.” First written was AYUMARCA, then the idea for his first children’s book, CIRQUE DU FREAK, arrived fully formed in Shan’s head. His agent Christopher Little loved it but initially struggled to sell it, as publishers thought it was too dark. HarperCollins took a chance—and eight years later sales through BookScan of Darren Shan’s books total 1.8 million.
  Shan is still surprised there has not been more outcry about the gore, but says that despite the blood and guts, the books are actually very moral. “In LORD LOSS, in chapter two, a kid walks in and his family has been torn apart by demons: his dad is hanging upside down with his head chopped off, his mum is cut in two with a demon behind her moving her around like a puppet. It’s a really gory scene that I thought would get the book banned everywhere. But what it’s about is a kid dealing with loss, losing his parents. Good fantasy, especially for children, is about real life. It gets children to reflect on these things. Kids don’t want lessons, they don’t want to be told what to do if their mother dies in a car accident—snore—but reading an adventure book, they get close to the character, and if the character loses someone, they think about it.”
  Shan works a few years in advance, so is currently up to 2012 in terms of his children’s books and 2010 for his adult titles; sequels HELL’S HORIZON and CITY OF SNAKES will follow PROCESSION OF THE DEAD in 2009 and 2010. He’s keen to write more adult books, and the ideas are lining up thick and fast. “The trouble I’ve always had is getting the publisher to release the books quickly enough. I’d written up to book nine [in The Saga of Darren Shan] by the time they published CIRQUE DU FREAK.”
  He spends around two years writing each book and has four titles on the go at once, doing eight drafts of each book. Working with long series means he can go back and sow the seeds for a future event if he desires: “If I come up with an idea in book seven, I can go back and put a hint about what’s to come in book two,” he says. “It’s quite a chaotic way of writing—like juggling—but it’s just the way my mind works.
  “When I do my first draft in my head, I’m thinking everything’s brilliant—this is going to be ULYSSES for the 21st century. Then I leave it for a year, and because I’ve put it aside for so long I can say ‘rubbish, rubbish, rubbish’. When you’re writing a book, you’ve got to get beyond that precious stage, and see it as the reader’s seeing it.” – Alison Flood

This interview was first published in The Bookseller

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,097: D.B. Shan

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
I love James Ellroy, so probably one of his. Maybe LA CONFIDENTIAL or THE BLACK DAHLIA. Though it would have been special to write THE MALTESE FALCON too ...
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t believe in guilt when it comes to reading. Read what you like and have no shame about it!!! Having said that, if you’re talking about books that other people might look down their noses at, I guess Mickey Spillane would probably rank high on my list. He might be down ‘n’ dirty, and his so-called heroines all turn out to be nasty, stab-ya-in-the-back vixens, but he’s lots of fun!!
Most satisfying writing moment?
Finishing my first novel at the tender age of 17 was probably my most satisfying personal moment. It was no bloody good (nor were the next 6 or 7!), but I’d proven to myself that I could take a story all the way to the end. All that was left after that was working hard enough to be able to tell a good story!
The best Irish crime novel is?
One of John Connolly’s. I have all of his books, but I only came to him recently, and I’ve only read a few so far, so I’m not in a position to pick a favourite at the moment – but I’m getting through them quite quickly, so I will be soon!
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Again, I’d have to go with Connolly. I think there’s great movie potential in his books – they’re crying out to get the A-grade treatment.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing is the isolation. You have to spend large chunks of your time by yourself, no company, no one to gossip with or discuss last night’s TV with. I miss being able to go to an office every day! The best thing is bringing stories to life which would otherwise never be told. The harder you work at writing, the more you develop, and you find yourself capable of writing stories that you never even dreamt you could tackle when you were younger.
The pitch for your next novel is?
HELL’S HORIZON (out in March 2009) is more of a straightforward crime tale than PROCESSION OF THE DEAD. A woman is murdered in a hotel. Her boyfriend is ordered by his boss (a crime kingpin) to investigate. He’s soon in over his head, and finds suspects everywhere he looks. He also comes to realise that the case ties in with his past and the death of his father. Someone’s playing with him, moving him around like a pawn piece, and it becomes much more than a case of just finding out who murdered his girlfriend. His entire life is under threat, as are the lives of those close to him ...
Who are you reading right now?
I’m currently reading THE KITE RUNNER. But I’m also working my way through the works of John Connolly and I recently began reading Meg Gardiner.
The three best words to describe your own writing are?
Twisted, twisting fun!!!

D.B. Shan’s PROCESSION OF THE DEAD will be published on March 3rd

D.B. Or Not D.B., That Is The Question

D.B. Shan, aka Darren Shan, the prolific and best-selling author of young adult horror novels, makes a play for the adult crime market when PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is published on March 3rd. Quoth the blurb elves:

The first volume in a noirish, gritty urban fantasy for adults from the bestselling author otherwise known as Darren Shan. Quick-witted and cocksure, young upstart Capac Raimi arrives in the City determined to make his mark. As he learns the tricks of his new trade from his Uncle Theo – extortion, racketeering, threatening behaviour – he’s soon well on his way to becoming a promising new gangster. Then he crosses paths with The Cardinal, and his life changes forever. The Cardinal is the City and the City is The Cardinal. They are joined at the soul. Nothing moves on the streets, or below them, without the Cardinal’s knowledge. His rule is absolute. As Capac begins to discover more about the extent of the Cardinal’s influence on his own life he is faced with hard choices. And as his ambition soars ever higher he will learn all there is to know about loss, and the true cost of ultimate power!

Hmmm … Any chance yon Capac Raimi is a nod to schlock-horror maestro and A SIMPLE PLAN director Sam Raimi? Only time, that perennially doity rat, will tell …

Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

Being our slightly jaundiced look back over the Irish crime fiction week that was, to wit: Arlene Hunt’s MISSING PRESUMED DEAD got its paperback release and pole-vaulted into the bestseller list, prompting in no little amount of gadzooking around at chez Hunt: “While sitting here at my desk earlier, chewing the end of a biro to ribbons and pondering the imponderable, namely how in the name of shark-jumping I was going to get John out of the scrape I’d just written him into, my telephone rang. Wearily, blearily, none too cheerily, I got up and went to throttle the offending racket. But gadzooks! Stall the ball! Hold yer horses. For it was news, good news, the sort of news Tuesdays never bring forth. MISSING PRESUMED DEAD is number five in the bestsellers list in Ireland!” Yaaaay! … Meanwhile, no one bothered to tell us that Darren Shan, prodigious and bestselling YA author, is shooting for the adult market when PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is released on February 25 … Ditto for THE INSIDER: THE PRISON DIARIES OF EAMONN BOYCE, which was published by Lilliput back in November. Like, was it something we said, people? Happily, the ever-lovely folk at Hodder Headline Ireland saw fit to pop a copy of Stephen Leather’s latest, DEAD MEN, in the post. It hits the shelves on January 24 … Marshal Zeringue was kind enough to wrassle our humble offering THE BIG O to the ground and Page 99 it until it uncled … Irish Independent columnist Kevin Myers (right) took a pop at gun crime and the Irish political classes, the gist of the piece running thusly: “For we have criminal gun crime for the same reasons that IRA gun crime went on for so long: because our political classes have not been shot, and are too morally inert to have taken the necessary action to have crushed either terrorist or criminal. But just one gangland killing, just one, among the precious 4 and 6 brigade, and by God, policing priorities would soon change. Until then, our political establishment will not really care what happens in working-class housing estates. If it really did, Garda Commissioner Murphy’s head would be on a stake outside Dublin Castle for even daring to promise a mere 2pc drop in crime in exchange for an 11pc increase in resources. Instead, his bonce is still on his shoulders, and the outcry from TDs over the ploddish modesty of his ambitions could have been completely drowned out by the din of tadpoles darning their socks.” Yep, those blummin’ tadpoles, darning while Rome burns … Finally, here’s Oscar-winning director Martin McDonagh introducing the trailer for the upcoming IN BRUGES, which stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes in which looks a lot like an Irish take on an Elmore Leonard-style caper flick. “If I’d grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t, soooo … it doesn’t.” Maybe not, but the movie impressed Clint at Ain't It Cool News. Roll it there, Collette …