It All Goes Better With An E: THE BIG O Goes Digital

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed the arrival of a new book in the right-hand column of Crime Always Pays – or a new book cover, to be precise. For lo! A mere six years after it first appeared in print, THE BIG O is finally available as an e-book (at $4.99 / £4.99 / €4.99).
  First published by the marvellous Marsha Swan of Hag’s Head Press back in 2007 (actually, I co-published the book with Marsha, on a 50/50 costs-and-profits arrangement, and great fun it all was too), and subsequently published by HMH in the US, THE BIG O for some reason never made it into digital.
  Shortly after HMH picked it up, the editor (the wonderful Stacia Decker) who signed me moved on to pastures new with the Donald Maass Literary Agency, and THE BIG O – beautifully published in hardback though it was – became something of an orphan (pauses to sniffle, chokes back a sob).
  Anyway, I bought back the rights late last year because I’m particularly fond of the story, which is a black comedy about a kidnap-gone-wrong, and I hated the idea of it languishing in a kind of publishing limbo. It’s also true that its sequel, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, was also stuck in said limbo, and while I did go ahead an e-publish CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, there wasn’t a huge appetite out there for the sequel to a book that wasn’t readily available.
  I’ve always felt that that was a pity, because the book did receive some very nice reviews. A sample looks like this:

“Imagine Donald Westlake and his alter ego Richard Stark moving to Ireland and collaborating on a screwball noir and you have some idea of Burke’s accomplishment.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Burke has married hard-boiled crime with noir sensibility and seasoned it with humour and crackling dialogue … fans of comic noir will find plenty to enjoy here.” – Booklist

“Carries on the tradition of Irish noir with its Elmore Leonard-like style ... the dialogue is as slick as an ice run, the plot is nicely intricate, and the character drawing is spot on … a high-octane novel that fairly coruscates with tension.” – Irish Times

“Burke has [George V.] Higgins’ gift for dialogue, [Barry] Gifford’s concision and the effortless cool of Elmore Leonard at his peak. In short, THE BIG O is an essential crime novel of 2007, and one of the best of any year.” – Ray Banks

“THE BIG O is a big ol’ success, a tale fuelled by the mischievous spirits of Donald E. Westlake, Elmore Leonard and even Carl Hiaasen … THE BIG O kept me reading at speed – and laughing the whole damn time.” – J. Kingston Pierce, January Magazine

  So there you have it. As you might imagine, I’m very keen to spread the word about the e-availability of THE BIG O, so if the spirit so moves you, I’d be very grateful for any mention you could give it on your blog or Twitter account, or Facebook, or to your friends by quill and ink … Oh, and the Amazon page looks rather bare, so if you’ve read THE BIG O, and have the time to post a quick review, I’d be very grateful indeed.
  Meanwhile, if there’s anyone out there who’d like to receive a review copy of THE BIG O, just drop me a line at dbrodb[at]gmail.com.
  Thanks kindly for reading, folks. I really do appreciate your time.

Fade To Black

Born in New York, Stephan Talty’s roots extend all the way across the Atlantic to County Clare, from which fabulously exotic setting his parents hail. What has that to do with his debut novel, BLACK IRISH (Headline)? Erm, nowt. To wit:

Harvard-educated Detective Absalom ‘Abbie’ Kearney has returned to ‘The County’ - an Irish enclave in Buffalo, NY - to take care of her ageing father, legendary former cop John Kearney. In one of America’s most deprived and dilapidated cities, tensions run high and Abbie’s day job is never easy. But when it becomes apparent that a relentless and merciless killer has set to work, it’s about to get a lot harder. Faced with scenes of inconceivable violence, Abbie’s investigation takes her to the heart of this fiercely closed community. And the darkness she finds there will affect her life in ways she could never have imagined ...

  Someday soon I’m going to write a book on Irish-American crime writers, incorporating Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, George V. Higgins, Horace McCoy, et al. And now Stephan Talty. The starting point, of course, will be Raymond Chandler’s sojourn in Waterford. Or perhaps Liam O’Flaherty’s wanderings in the alleys of San Francisco? Hmmmm …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2010: Alan Glynn

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?
Depends. AMERICAN TABLOID for big, insane, ambitious. THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE for small, tight, perfect.
What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Tom Ripley.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
The only guilt I associate with reading is guilt at not finishing books I’ve started, like still being on page 111 of AGAINST THE DAY’S 1,085, sixteen months after it came out.
Most satisfying writing moment?
That rare moment when something clicks, and the whole thing comes - fleetingly - into focus. Then it’s back to work.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD by Declan Hughes. The words ‘quantum’ and ‘leap’ spring to mind.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I think the Benjy Black books would translate very well. It’d be interesting to see THAT version of the world my parents were young in - but you’d need a shitload of CGI to recreate the Dublin of the 50s.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst is the insecurity - eight years between publishers saying, ‘Yes’. Best is having it be what you do.
The pitch for your next book is …?
A doppelganger story. Watch these spaces . . .
Who are you reading right now?
Otto Friedrich’s CITY OF NETS. Hooray for Hollywood.
God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Why, the idea. Away beast, I say - a pitchfork, a clove of garlic, a WMD . . . whatever it takes.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Always Be Closing.

Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND will be published in spring 2009 by Thomas Dunne

The Embiggened O # 943: Yet Another Little Ray Of Sunshine

Greetings from the grimy coalface of independent publishing, folks, where the big-ups we’ve been begging from actual real writers have been coming in thick and thicker for our humble offering, THE BIG O. The latest ray of sunshine comes, appropriately enough, from Ray Banks, whose arm we viciously Indian-burned until he finally uncled and (ahem) volunteered the following:

“THE BIG O is a scintillating mixture of genuine wit, charm by the bucket-load and the kind of whip-crack plotting that makes “a couple of pages” turn into an all-nighter. Burke has [George V.] Higgins’ gift for dialogue, [Barry] Gifford’s concision and the effortless cool of Elmore Leonard at his peak. In short, THE BIG O is an essential crime novel of 2007, and one of the best of any year.” – Ray Banks, author of DONKEY PUNCH

Ray? Sorry about the, y’know, assault. But we’re told Indian burns don’t leave any actual scars …

The Embiggened O: Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You

Things ain’t easy here at the coalface of independent publishing, folks. Mind you, some days are better than others. One such good day was when a US house got in touch to say they were keen on publishing The Big O. Now, being keen is one thing, crossing the line and actually offering contracts is another. And while they’re happy enough with the fact that The Big O has received decent reviews to date, they’re concerned it mightn’t translate to the US. Which is fair enough. So they asked if there was any way we could get some best-selling / well known / award-winning American authors to big up the book. Not a problem, says we, except for one tiny detail – in common with most people, we’ve never met a single best-selling / well known / award-winning American author. But hell, what’s the point in the interweb if you can’t persecute famous authors via their websites and blogs and ask them if they’d mind having a read of your book and – providing they liked it – say as much in print, right? So we drew up a list (checking it twice, for naughty rather than nice), and got busy persecuting. The result? Not the restraining order we were expecting, no sirree (and ma’am). No indeed – every single last author we got in touch with said yes, here’s my address, send the book. Now, from our limited experience of blogging over the last few months, we already knew the crime writing and reading community is generous above and beyond the call of duty. But for every single person we got in touch with to say yes? That’s simply incredible. So incredible – naïve as it might sound to say it aloud – that we quickly realised their collective reaction is actually more important to us now than whether or not the US house decide to publish the book. Because the world can live without one more book published, and God knows the shelves are already jam-packed, but you can’t buy decency, generosity of spirit and a willingness to lend a hand. God bless you, one and all. Meanwhile, the first author to get back to us was Jason Starr (left), who was kind enough to pitch in his two cents thusly:

“Declan Burke’s The Big O has everything you want in a crime novel: machinegun dialogue, unforgettable characters, and a wicked plot. Think George V. Higgins in Ireland on speed.”

Is it really necessary to say our cup runneth over like we’re Oliver Twist standing under Niagara Falls? Yes indeed, Momma never told us there’d be days like these …