GALLOWS LANE: Vote Early, Vote Often

Good news for mild-mannered, Derry-based English teachers everywhere: Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE has made the cut for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and belated congratulations to him. The full short-list runneth thusly:

IN THE DARK – Mark Billingham
THE SURROGATE – Tania Carver
A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE – RJ Ellory
THE CROSSING PLACES – Elly Griffiths
DEAD TOMORROW – Peter James
GALLOWS LANE – Brian McGilloway
DOORS OPEN – Ian Rankin
CHILD 44 – Tom Rob Smith

  It’s a strong list, so whoever wins it will have their work cut out, and good luck to all contenders. If you’re Irish, however, and given that the government is waffling on about how an exports-led ‘creative economy’ will lead us out of recession, it’s your patriotic duty to vote Brian. The voting form can be found here, people, and the closing date for voting is July 21st: you know what to do …

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

The CAP reviewing elves are mightily fond of Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE, the sequel to BORDERLANDS, and thus are delighted to announce that the ever-lovely people at Macmillan have offered three copies of said tome to be given away for free, gratis and sweet-piddle-all. First, the blurb elves:

Taking its title from the name of the road down which condemned Donegal criminals were once led, GALLOWS LANE follows Inspector Benedict Devlin as he investigates a series of gruesome murders in and around the Irish borderlands. When a young woman is found beaten to death on a building site, in what appears to be a sexually-motivated killing, Devlin’s enquiries soon point to a local body-builder and steroid addict. But days later, born-again ex-con James Kerr is found nailed to a tree – crucified – having been released from prison and returned to his hometown to spread the word of God. Increasingly torn between his young family and his job, Devlin is determined to apprehend those responsible for the murders before they strike again, even as the carnage begins to jeopardise those he cares about most. GALLOWS LANE is the heart-stopping follow-up to Brian McGilloway’s acclaimed debut BORDERLANDS.

To be in with a chance of winning a free copy, just answer the following question:

Is Brian McGilloway:
(a) a mild-mannered teacher by day and a hard-bitten noir writer by night?
(b) a mild-mannered noir writer by day and blood-quaffing vampire by night?
(c) only spreading that risible vampire rumour because he fancies some Brian-on-Buffy chop-socky action?

Answers in the comment box with an email contact, please (replacing the @ with (at) for your own peace of mind), before noon on Tuesday, April 15. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: GALLOWS LANE by Brian McGilloway

It hasn’t happened overnight, and there are more complex reasons as to why it is so than can be satisfactorily addressed in a book review, but policing in Ireland is suffering from something of a crisis of confidence. In recent times the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), historically perceived to be facilitating a pro-Loyalist agenda, has been reformed into the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in a bid to provide a police service in which both Nationalist and Loyalist communities in the Ulster province can – theoretically, at least – place their trust.
  Across the border in the Republic of Ireland there have been similar calls for a reform of An Garda Siochana, the Irish police force. Here the issue is not that the Gardai favour one community over another, but that the Irish people are simply losing faith with the purported guardians of the peace. A number of high-profile cases strongly suggests that members of An Garda Siochana have subverted the course of justice and the law of the land in pursuing personal agendas and vendettas. As a self-regulating body, subsequent investigations by the Gardai into alleged wrong-doing have not resulted in satisfactory conclusions for the public at large. There are also issues relating to the separation of powers, allegations of undue political influence being brought to bear, and a creeping sense that a crude philosophy of arrogant lèse majesté pertains within An Garda Siochana.
  Donegal, where Brian McGilloway sets his Inspector Devlin stories, makes for fertile ground in relation to these issues. Although one of the 32 counties of the Republic of Ireland, Donegal is also one of the Ulster counties, the majority of which make up the political entity of Northern Ireland. In geographical terms, Donegal is somewhat cut off from the rest of the Republic, and its main town, Letterkenny, has more in common with Derry and Belfast in Northern Ireland than Dublin or Cork in the Republic. The ‘high-profile’ cases of An Garda Siochana’s abuse of its powers referred to above have occurred in Donegal.
  The plural in the title of McGilloway’s debut, BORDERLANDS, and its implicit subtext of ‘badlands’, makes clear from the outset that there are unresolved issues about the morality of policing in Ireland that go far beyond lines on a map.
  In GALLOWS LANE, the sequel to BORDERLANDS, Inspector Devlin reluctantly applies for promotion, and attends an interview. “Things seem to be a little out of control up there at the moment, Inspector,’ the air-line manager said. “Quite a number of killings – no arrests as such. It’s a bit of a wild frontier you’re policing.”
  Devlin, while in the mould of the classic ‘good guy doing the wrong thing for the right reasons’, isn’t exactly Dirty Harry. A sensitive and thoughtful policeman, he is not naïve, but is prepared to go by the book even as he investigates the particularly brutal murder of a young girl. That line of enquiry provides the spine of the narrative, but McGilloway deftly weaves a number of sub-plots around it: Devlin’s personal life, and how his job impacts on the family home; Devlin’s passive response when he finds himself compromised when he discovers that fellow Gardai are planting weapons and drugs and claiming them as ‘results’ in order to boost their own promotion prospects; and Devlin’s active compromising of himself, when he resorts to similar methods in order to secure an arrest he is convinced is sound, despite the lack of evidence.
  It’s a very personal story, in that Devlin’s responses to practically any situation is to refract it through the prism of his domestic life, to question the rightness of what he does by referring to the touchstone of his family unit of wife and two young children. Devlin, for the sake of his sanity, believes in doing the right thing in order to maintain the fabric of society for the silent majority, of which his own family is only a tiny part. But McGilloway isn’t content to allow Devlin to wallow in a nobility that that comes at a price. When he tries to persuade a colleague, hospitalised by an act of sabotage intended for Devlin, that she is not only entitled but morally obliged to accept the risks that go with the job, she is scathing in her response. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I look at you, sir, and I don’t want to be like you anymore. I don’t want to die for people who don’t really give a shit.”
  The novel compares favourably with William McGivern’s THE BIG HEAT, in which an ostensibly upright cop quickly turns rogue vigilante when his family are murdered by the corrupt forces infiltrating his police department. McGilloway too illustrates that the personal is the political in the narrative arc that takes Devlin from passive observer to active player in the rogues gallery of compromised public officials who populate GALLOWS LANE. It offers a bleaker vision of modern Ireland than its predecessor, a more cynical evaluation of the poisoned body politic; even in the ending, which offers the traditional note of hope that the system can be leached of its toxins, McGilloway can’t help but qualify the illusion of closure. “Assuming Shane was stirring for a bottle, I went into his room. He was already standing in his cot, his arms gripping the vertical bars, a juvenile prisoner. When he saw me, he raised his arms to be lifted and fell backwards, landing softly on his rump.”
  Eugene McEldowney’s Superintendent Cecil McGarry is the godfather of the Irish policier, but writers such as Tana French, Ingrid Black and Gene Kerrigan have taken up the baton in recent years. It is probably no coincidence that two of those writers are working journalists; if journalism is the first draft of history, crime fiction is the finished article that probes the roots of our culture’s morality. Brian McGilloway – a teacher, as it happens – is to the forefront of this vanguard, and GALLOWS LANE is a superb example of why crime fiction is not just important, but essential. – Declan Burke

Disclaimer: It should be noted that Brian McGilloway was kind enough to thank Declan Burke, among many others, in his list of acknowledgments in GALLOWS LANE. If anyone has any issues about bias arising from this fact, please outline your complaint in block capital letters on the back of used €50 note and send it to The Grand Vizier, c/o the Crime Always Pays Slush Fund, Filthy Lucre Towers, Blaggerville, Cape Wonga, The Maldive Islands. We thank you for your cooperation

Mi Casa, Su Casa: Brian McGilloway On the Essence of Crime Fiction

A Grand Vizier writes: The motives behind ‘Mi Casa, Su Casa’ are twofold. First, the idea is to give guest bloggers the few molecules of oxygen of publicity Crime Always Pays can provide. Secondly, even we’re sick of listening only to ourselves, and we reckon some new voices will provide fresh perspectives on crime fiction in general, and Irish crime fiction in particular. And so, with minimum fanfare – a tiny tootle there, please, maestro – here’s Brian McGilloway (right) on the nexus between real and fictionalised crime.

‘The Obligation To Tell the Truth’

“This past week in Strabane, a 27-year-old man was abducted, taken just over the border, shot twice in the chest, and left to die outside a small Catholic church. The man’s murder caused outrage and rumour in equal measure in the local area.
  “Twenty miles away, a man, having served eight years of a 16-year sentence for the rape of a 91-year-old woman, who died two weeks later of a heart attack, perhaps precipitated by her ordeal, was released from prison and moved into a small farmhouse near a community with a number of lone, aged females. Those in the surrounding area have no control over who has moved into their midst. Some argue that the man has served his sentence. Others argue that his seeming lack of remorse and refusal to comply with police procedures make him unsafe in such a community.
  “These two events have, unsurprisingly, featured highly in our local media this past week. However, on a more personal level, in recent days, over a dozen of my colleagues have smiled knowingly at me and said; ‘That’s the plot of your next book taken care of then, eh?’
  “Whilst the comment was, for the most part, intended in a good-humoured way, and I’m not in the least egotistical enough to see a link between the two things, it did set me thinking. Firstly, I found the recent shooting both shocking and deeply frightening. Strabane/Lifford is a small, fairly tight-knit community. Murders happening in large cities are somehow more anonymous, although none the less horrible for that. In a small community though, it’s perfectly possible that the man who pulled the trigger that killed the 27-year-old Strabane man, or who raped a 91-year-old spinster, could be standing behind my wife and children in the corner shop, could be the person who drives the bus into town, offers you the Sign of Peace in Church. Someone who thought little of taking another person’s life in such a brutal and violent manner.
  “Secondly, the quip about the Devlin books also gave me pause for thought. As I started drafting book four, THE RISING, I found myself questioning the use of violence and crime in the books I write and those I read. In a time when Hollywood seems preoccupied with violence as the new pornography, is there something deeply flawed in using crime for entertainment?
  “But that, to my mind, disregards the purpose of crime fiction. I wrote my first novel around the time of the birth of my first son. I am convinced that that event was at least a catalyst in my writing. Nothing creates an awareness of the threats of the world quite as much as a new-born child. Particularly in post-Troubles Ireland, where a mixture of the Ceasefire and increased affluence has, paradoxically, seemed to create more criminal activity. And as the cases of this week show, all too often justice is not done, or those who commit crimes not necessarily brought to justice in a manner most people would like.
  “Yet crime fiction allows that to happen, imposing some form of morality and order on a world that seems increasingly lacking in both. Our detectives in books achieve clearance rates massively above the average in Ireland. And perhaps offer us some vicarious hope that good will always triumph. The books themselves allow us to safely face our fears, safe in the knowledge that some form of resolution will be imposed in a manner unlike real life, much as the ancient Greeks experienced catharsis watching dramatic tragedies.
  “Whilst I wouldn’t claim that crime fiction necessarily matches Greek Tragedy, its purpose and its appeal in raising difficult issues to a wide reading public far outstrips most literary novels. James Lee Burke [right] argues that it is the artist’s obligation to ‘tell the truth about the period he lives in and to expose those who exploit their fellow man.’ I believe few genres are as well placed to do this in modern Ireland than the crime novel and so, as I started writing THE RISING today, I did so not with a voyeuristic use of violence but a dedication to deal truthfully with issues that affect myself, my children, and those who live in Ireland in 2008. In this I believe I am no different from any other writer named in this blog over the past year.
  “And I am proud to be among their ranks.” – Brian McGilloway

Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE will be published on April 4

Build His Gallows High

The good people at Macmillan New Writing were kind enough to send us on an early copy of Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE, and needless to say the elves were all (ahem) stretching their necks for a sneaky peek. Forty pages in and the jury is still out – they’re all down at Ad Lib Bookshop in Strabane, apparently, queuing up for a signed copy. Quoth the blurb elves:

Taking its title from the name of the road down which condemned Donegal criminals were once led, GALLOWS LANE follows Inspector Benedict Devlin as he investigates a series of gruesome murders in and around the Irish borderlands. When a young woman is found beaten to death on a building site, in what appears to be a sexually-motivated killing, Devlin’s enquiries soon point to a local body-builder and steroid addict. But days later, born-again ex-con James Kerr is found nailed to a tree – crucified – having been released from prison and returned to his hometown to spread the word of God. Increasingly torn between his young family and his job, Devlin is determined to apprehend those responsible for the murders before they strike again, even as the carnage begins to jeopardise those he cares about most. GALLOWS LANE is the heart-stopping follow-up to Brian McGilloway’s acclaimed debut BORDERLANDS.

Insert your own “hang ’em and flog ’em” punchline here at your leisure, people …

Better The Devlin You Know

A hat-tip to Karen Meek at Euro Crime, via whom comes the news that Brian McGilloway’s short story, THE LOST CHILD, featuring BORDERLANDS’ Inspector Devlin, will be featured on BBC 4’s Afternoon Reading Programme this afternoon, at 3.30pm (GMT). The pitch runneth thusly:

A couple hear a baby crying on their child monitor. Unfortunately, it’s not their baby. A cry for help or a call from beyond the grave? Inspector Devlin investigates.

Ooooh, spooky. Meanwhile, the good folk at Macmillan have promised us an early copy of BORDERLANDS’ follow-up, GALLOWS LANE, which should be with us in a couple of weeks. If you’re good, we might even feature an excerpt …

The Life Of Brian II: This Time It’s Personal

Not content with having a bright ‘n’ shiny website, Brian McGilloway has gone and got himself one of them there newfangled blogging contraptions, courtesy of Macmillan New Writing, the first post of which runneth thusly:

“Hi all – Just thought I should introduce myself: I’m Brian McGilloway and my first novel, BORDERLANDS, was published by MNW in April this year. The follow-up, GALLOWS LANE, will be published on April 4th 2008 alongside the Pan paperback of BORDERLANDS. I’m currently writing the third Inspector Devlin novel, BLEED A RIVER DEEP, which I suspect will feature prominently in future posts on writing and the drafting process.
The Devlin books are being given a series look for the launch in April and now seems as good a time as any to unveil the first of the new covers – this one for the pb edition of BORDERLANDS. Hope you like it ...
And, in between times, Inspector Devlin makes an appearance in a new short story called The Lost Child, which will be broadcast on Friday 2nd November at 3.30pm on BBC Radio 4.”

Go on – scoot over there and leave a comment. It can get lonely out here in the deepest, darkest blogosphere …

Where There’s A Will, There’s A McGilloway

Good news, people: while the elves were busy mucking out the Crime Always Pays aviary, a little bird whispered that Brian McGilloway is set to join the ever-growing list of Irish crime writers to be published in the US of A. Thomas Dunne, an imprint of St Martins, is to release Borderlands in hardback 2008, with the paperback following in 2009 to coincide with the release of the follow-up, Gallows Lane, in hardback. Quoth Brian:

“Having read so much American crime fiction and admired writers like JL Burke for many years, I’m obviously delighted to think that Borderlands and Gallows Lane both will be made available in the US. And a little nervous ...”

Nervous, schmervous. Not when one John Connolly is of the opinion that Borderlands is “Beautifully written and very gripping ... [McGilloway] is going to be a considerable force in Irish crime writing.” You heard it here first, folks. Unless you heard it somewhere else before, of course.

Gallows Humour: Laughing All The McGilloway To The Bank

The ongoing raves for Brian McGilloway’s (right) Borderlands suggest that people will be taking a more critical squint at the second in his DI Devlin series, Gallows Lane, which will be published by Macmillan next spring to coincide with the mass-market publication of a paperback edition of Borderlands in April. Happily, you can starting squinting now, as Crime Always Pays offers an exclusive-ish extract from the first chapter of Gallows Lane, to wit:

Things reached a peak for James [Kelly] when he took a shine to a neighbour’s daughter, Mary Gallagher, who was seventeen. Their blossoming relationship seemed to keep James on the straight and narrow right up until the day, just a week shy of his sixteenth birthday, when he discovered that Mary was in fact his half-sister, the product of one of his father’s clandestine affairs. Things became further complicated when it transpired that Mary was pregnant with James’ child and, in the manner of parochial Irish towns country-wide, the girl was sent to live with an aunt in England and James became the wandering protagonist in his own personal Greek tragedy. […]
Finally, Kelly had been injured fleeing the scene of an armed robbery just over the border and had been arrested by the RUC, the law in the North before the Police Service of Northern Ireland was established. He had served eight years of a twelve year sentence before allegedly finding God and, the Friday previous to my meeting him, had earned early release for good behaviour. All of this Superintendent Costello had explained to me that Sunday morning in his office. Costello had received word from the PSNI that Kelly had been released from Maghaberry Prison. Since then, Costello had posted someone on the border waiting for Kelly to appear – which he finally did.
‘I don’t want Kelly coming back here, making trouble, Benedict. If he arrives, convince him to stay on the Northern side of the border, eh?’
‘What’s he done?’ I asked.
‘Found Jesus, apparently; that’s why they let the wee shite out.’
‘Maybe he has,’ I suggested.
‘What?’
‘Found Jesus.’
‘I doubt it,’ Costello said. 'If Jesus knew Kelly was looking for Him, He would’ve hid.’

If you haven't already got your grubby mitts on Borderlands, we'd advise you to do so toot sweet. This bandwagon is officially leaving the station ...