Irish Times Crime Fiction column, February 2018

An agoraphobic confined to her Harlem apartment, Anna Fox obsessively watches her neighbours in AJ Finn’s debut The Woman in the Window (HarperCollins, €15.99). Formerly a child psychologist, Anna self-medicates with too many pills and far too much wine. When she hears a scream from the apartment across the way, and sees her new neighbour, Jane Russell, stagger into view with a knife stuck in her chest, Anna is convinced she has witnessed a murder. When the police investigate, however, they introduce Anna to Alistair Russell and his wife, Jane – a woman Anna has never seen before. Is Anna hallucinating? Or is something more sinister going on in the Russell home? Taking its cue from Hitchcock’s Rear Window, as well as a host of noir classics, The Woman in the Window offers a clever variation on the unreliable narrator. Anna Fox is intelligent and resourceful, but the first-person intensity of the narrative’s diary format grows increasingly claustrophobic as the story unfolds. Fans of the psychological thriller will likely spot a couple of the big twists before they are revealed, but this is a hugely entertaining tale of cat-and-mouse that is steeped in the genre.

  E. Lockhart’s Genuine Fraud (Hot Key Books, €16.90) opens in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where Jule is living an aimless, decadent existence at an upmarket hotel. When a friendly stranger starts asking too many questions, Jule realises it’s time to move on – but it is ever possible to outrun your past? The question is a pertinent one in relation to Genuine Fraud, the story of which unfolds in reverse, with each successive chapter taking us a step further into Jule’s recent past via her turbulent relationship with the mysteriously disappeared Imogen. Imogen’s fate will come as no surprise to fans of Patricia Highsmith, especially as Lockhart specifically credits The Talented Mr Ripley as an influence, although in essentially rewriting crucial scenarios from that novel, Lockhart blurs the line between homage and pastiche. The antithesis of ‘the great white hetero action hero’ she repeatedly mocks, Jule is no slouch herself when it comes to slickly dispatching anyone who threatens to stand in her way of self-gratification, a bad-ass anti-hero who believes her life cinematic. A narcissistic, manipulative and homicidal sociopath, Jule is a thrilling guilty pleasure, albeit one prone to needy self-aggrandizing.

  Opening in Hollywood in 1922, Gerard O’Donovan’s The Long Silence (Severn House, €29.39) is a mystery centring on the death of Irish film director William Taylor. With the scandal of the Fatty Arbuckle murder trial still fresh in the memory, studio boss Mack Sennett calls in ex-NYPD cop and former studio ‘fixer’ Tom Collins to ensure that Taylor’s rumoured girlfriend and studio asset Mabel Normand isn’t involved in Taylor’s death. William Desmond Taylor’s murder remains unsolved to this day, but O’Donovan doesn’t set out to write a fictionalised true crime novel; The Long Silence is a densely plotted odyssey through the mean streets and dark alleyways of Prohibition-era Los Angeles that pays homage, with its neon-lit rainy streets and teeming cast of lowlifes, gangsters and Hollywood wannabes, to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, albeit in a brisk, functional style somewhere between the bruised poetry of the former and the pared-down minimalism of the latter. Adolph Zukor, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. and Gloria Swanson are just some of the historical figures who play bit parts in Tom Collins’ investigation, which delivers an atmospheric and cynical take on Hollywood realpolitik in the silent era.

  Laura Pierce sets out for the South of France at the beginning of Susan Stairs’ One Good Reason (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99), determined to confront artist Paddy Skellion, the father of Tory Skellion, a young man acquitted of taking part in a home invasion which caused Laura’s father to suffer a fatal heart-attack. Laura plans to subject Paddy Skellion to a rough form of natural justice, but her scheme quickly goes awry. On the face of it a revenge thriller, One Good Reason is refreshingly pragmatic in the way it addresses the corrosive effects of hatred and the impossible fantasy of revenge; it also delivers a sobering critique of the law’s limitations and a fascinating exploration of the psychological consequences of taking the law into one’s own hands. The plot isn’t always entirely plausible, but One Good Reason is a thrilling account of how the absence of justice can transform raw grief into a potentially lethal obsession.

  The narrator of Leo Benedictus’ Consent (Faber, €15.99) is a logical, erudite and ‘uncomplicated person’ who tries ‘to live by simple principles with doggedness and honesty, and with an open mind.’ Fair enough, until you realise that he’s applying said principles to ‘studying people’ – or, to be precise, stalking. Benign to begin with – one of his principles is to never engage with ‘the subject’ – the stalking becomes increasingly creepy as our narrator grows obsessed with Frances, and begins writing a novel told from Frances’ point of view, a novel that includes our narrator as one of its main characters. The narrator’s pompous self-importance and overly florid language bring to mind John Banville’s Freddie Montgomery or Dostoevsky’s Raskalnikov, but behind all the self-serving sermonising Benedictus is having fun with the genre’s tropes, at one point assuring the reader that his ‘moral duty, if I have one, is to get away with what I’m doing.’ By turns whimsical and bone-chillingly explicit, Consent is a gripping reimagining of one of the crime genre’s most tired tropes: “I wonder if you’ll see a monster,” the narrator asks of the reader, “and if I am one, or if monstrosity is a costume to be tried on.” ~ Declan Burke

  This column was first published in the Irish Times.

Stop The Press: Dublin Dead!

As a title, DUBLIN DEAD may well be the Platonic essence of the current wave of Irish crime writing, quite a lot of which is set in Dublin, and - unsurprisingly - features dead bodies. It’s the second offering from Gerard O’Donovan, following on from his debut PRIEST, and features that novel’s journalist Siobhan Fallon and DI Mike Mulcahy. Quoth the blurb elves:

Journalist Siobhan Fallon needs the help of DI Mike Mulcahy with a story she’s covering about the disappearance of a young woman from Cork. When he agrees, the duo find themselves dragged into the ruthless world of international drug smuggling - and finding a link between the murder of a retired drug dealer in Spain, the suicide of an estate agent in Bristol and a yacht abandoned off the south coast of Ireland. Once again justice and journalism make awkward bedfellows as Mulcahy and Fallon run a desperate race against a remorseless enemy determined to silence the one person alive who knows the truth ...

  Given the number of Irish criminals who operate out of southern Spain, it’s remarkable that it has taken this long for a writer to embrace the Mediterranean as a setting, even in part. Is there anyone out there writing an Irish crime novel set entirely on the south coast of Spain? Or, for that matter, Amsterdam? I know that Ava McCarthy’s forthcoming HIDE ME is set in the Basque region …
  Gerard O’Donovan, incidentally, is yet another former or current Irish journalist turning his hand to crime writing: the list, in no particular order, includes John Connolly, John Banville, Niamh O’Connor, Liz Allen, yours truly, Brian O’Connor, Gene Kerrigan, Colin Bateman, Conor Fitzgerald, Alex Barclay, Ingrid Black, Garbhan Downey and Ruth Dudley Edwards. Is there something about the Fifth Estate that turns a writer’s fancy to blood and gore? Is the daily grind of pursuing facts so punishing that it persuades an unsuspecting scribe to write fiction? Or is it that said authors wanted to be writers all along, and journalism was a substitute in order to earn a crust? Or is it simply the pursuit of the publishing game’s (koff) glamour?
  Answers on a used €50 note to Declan Burke’s Bouchercon Fund, c/o Funny Money Investments Inc., Grand Cayman, The Caribbean, The World. Alternatively, you could just leave a comment in the box below …

The Girl, The Thief, The Priest And Their Lovers

I read Brian McGilloway’s new standalone, LITTLE GIRL LOST, last week, and a terrific piece of writing it is too. It feels a bit like I’m betraying the very pleasant Inspector Ben Devlin in saying so, but DS Lucy Black, the protagonist of LGL, is potentially a more intriguing character, while the writing is beautifully spare and unadorned. I’ll be reviewing LITTLE GIRL LOST in due course, but the first sighting of a review of the novel appeared in the Irish Independent, with the gist running thusly:

“Brian McGilloway is the author of four critically acclaimed Inspector Devlin police procedurals set in his hometown of Derry. This standalone thriller is cleverly constructed, packed with vibrant and believable characters and admirably free of the clichés of the genre. It confirms him as one of the most original voices in the notably expanding field of Irish crime fiction and this reviewer, for one, would like to read more of DS Lucy Black.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Elsewhere, William Ryan’s THE HOLY THIEF - currently shortlisted for the Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Fiction Award - was belatedly reviewed in the Irish Times last weekend. To wit:

“Ryan’s absorbing page-turner is a worthy contender,” says Kevin Sweeney. “The mystery at the heart of THE HOLY THIEF is intriguing, with unflinchingly graphic descriptions of torture and murder. But it is Ryan’s details of life in the bad old USSR that make the story so engrossing.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Finally, over at Book Reporter, Joe Hartlaub is impressed with Gerard O’Donovan’s THE PRIEST, a novel which we haven’t really being giving a fair crack of the whip here at CAP Towers:

“THE PRIEST by Gerard O’Donovan comes with advance heralding that would have given the Silver Surfer a run for his money. Having read the book from cover to cover in one sitting, I am here to tell you that the praise is richly deserved … THE PRIEST is an addictive beginning by an author who is positioning himself as a major talent.”

  For the rest, you know what to do …
  So there you have it: three Irish crime writers feeling the lurve. Incidentally, Brian McGilloway will be appearing at No Alibis in Belfast on Friday night to announce the arrival of LITTLE GIRL LOST, where he’ll be joined by some whippersnapper called John Connolly, who may or may not be reading from his latest tome, HELL’S BELLS. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Emerald Noir: A Gem By Any Other Name

As flagged elsewhere on these pages, Val McDermid presented a rather fine BBC4 radio programme (produced by Robyn Read) on the phenomenon of Irish crime writing yesterday morning called ‘Emerald Noir’, although the demands of the lunatic asylum known as CAP Towers meant that I didn’t get to hear it until this morning, courtesy of the BBC iPlayer.
  A comprehensive romp through modern Irish crime writing it is, too, with Val covering the influence of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, the boom-and-bust of the Celtic Tiger, and the crime novel as a Protestant art form. There are even shades of Winston Churchill, as Val compares Ireland to the Balkans as a place unable to contain the history bursting from its seams. Contributors include Ruth Dudley Edwards, Brian McGilloway, Colin Bateman, Declan Hughes, Eoin McNamee, Tana French, Stuart Neville, No Alibis owner David Torrans, and one Declan Burke, who is the editor of an - allegedly - ‘influential’ blog on the subject.
  John Connolly fans may be a tad disappointed that the Dark Lord doesn’t feature in person, but never fear - virtually everyone quotes John Connolly at some point.
  Meanwhile, Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards has the good grace to mention DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, the collection of essays, interviews and short stories by Irish writers on the subject of Irish crime writing in the 21st century, which will be published by Liberties Press next month. Nice one, Ruth.
  Elsewhere, Gerard O’Donovan - author of THE PRIEST - had an interview with Val McDermid in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph on the same subject. Quoth Gerard:

“Writers such as Tana French, whose Dublin-based psychological thrillers have topped the US fiction charts, and Stuart Neville whose soul-searing tale of a former terrorist haunted by his victims, THE TWELVE, have been swamped in critical acclaim. Writers such as the pioneering Ken Bruen and Colin Bateman, Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan, Declan Burke, Niamh O’Connor, Brian McGilloway and, dare I say it, myself are attracting not just local but worldwide attention. The Irish economy may be on its knees, the political system in tatters, confidence at an all-time low. But in crime fiction at least Ireland has never been so vibrant.”

 For the rest of the feature, clickety-click here ...
  So there you have it. Irish crime fiction: the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees or the dog’s bollocks? YOU decide.

Kafka, Stalinism And Serial Killers: Yep, It’s The Irish Crime Novel

Yesterday I had the very rare joy of a Saturday afternoon all to myself, when I could have (a) toddled off to Dalkey to listen to Declan Hughes and John Connolly wax lyrical about ‘the 10 Crime Novels to Read Before You Die’, (b) watched a World Cup game in its entirety, or (c) got horizontal on the couch and cracked open Robert Fannin’s FALLING SLOWLY. I was very tempted to go for (a), but being a lazy bugger, and being all World Cupped out after England’s tragi-comic adventure against Algeria, I eventually opted for (c). A good choice, as it happens, and the early signs are promising in a Kafkaesque way. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, if anyone was at the Connolly / Hughes gig, and made a list of their 10 novels to read before you die, I’m all ears …
  Incidentally, Crime Watch hosted a John Connolly ‘9MM’ interview earlier this week; clickety-click here for more. And THE WHITE GALLOWS author Rob Kitchin also found himself staring down the same barrel: you can find his answers here.
  Staying with interviews, Sue Leonard recently quizzed William Ryan for the Irish Examiner, when William had this to say about the origins of his debut, THE HOLY THIEF:

“I’d read Isaac Babel’s short stories and was working on a screenplay of his life (Babel was executed in Russia’s reign of terror). I found that whole period in Russia fascinating.
  “I took a hero – Korolev, working with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Militia, who is not the brightest. I threw him in this situation and waited to see what would happen. I’m interested in dictatorship; in how ordinary people behave in extraordinary situations.
  “You were required to give absolute loyalty in the Stalinist period. They were prepared to do bad things, believing that the end justified the means. Communism was a religion really. It offered paradise on earth and in the near future. The only way they could function was to believe, ‘This must mean something’.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Finally, TV3’s Morning Ireland programme hosted Gerard O’Donovan during the week, with Gerard offering insights into the whys and wherefores of his debut novel, THE PRIEST, and why he decided (with his tongue firmly stuck in cheek, presumably) to ‘put the crucifix back at the heart of Irish writing’. More seriously, the conversation then goes on to investigate the challenge of writing a credible crime novel in Ireland that features a serial killer, particularly as Ireland has never had - officially, at least - a bona fide serial killer.
  So: why hasn’t Ireland had its very own serial killer? Is it because we’re all too nice ‘n’ cuddly ‘n’ twinkly-eyed ‘n’ pleasantly drunk to bother? Or because there’s always been any number of ‘causes’ available to offer an umbrella of political respectability and sectarian motivation if you’re of a mind to snuff people out?
  For Gerard O’Donovan’s TV3 interview, clickety-click here …

  Lately I have mostly been reading: THE USES OF PESSIMISM by Roger Scruton; THE WINGS OF THE SPHINX by Andrea Camilleri; TINKERS by Paul Harding; and THIEF by Maureen Gibbon.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Gerard O’Donovan

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?
So many, from DOUBLE INDEMNITY to LA REQUIEM via the Ripley trilogy and Rebus series. Recently, Peter Temple’s THE BROKEN SHORE was enviably great.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Chili Palmer on a good day, Joe Pike on a bad one.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Tabloid reporters.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Getting published, especially by Sphere here and Scribner in the US.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Any of Brian McGilloway’s novels.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
THE PRIEST, but if that’s not allowed, Gene Kerrigan’s LITTLE CRIMINALS.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Effort / reward – and the tightrope between them.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Here, mister, do you want to buy a really cracking crime thriller ...

Who are you reading right now?
Michael Connolly (THE SCARECROW), Simon Lewis (BAD TRAFFIC) and Ruth Dudley Edwards (AFTERMATH).

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read, although I think God might have other issues to tackle me on first.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Roller… coaster… ride.

Gerard O’Donovan’s THE PRIEST is published by Sphere.

THE DEVIL; and Mrs Jones

Maybe it’s the recession, but Irish PIs have been struck with a bad case of wanderlust. First Arlene Hunt’s Sarah Quigley goes walkabout in her latest novel, BLOOD MONEY, then Declan Hughes’s Ed Loy jumps a plane for LA in CITY OF LOST GIRLS. Now even Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor, a man as Galway as soft rain, wants out. To wit:

America - the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who’s just been refused entry. Disappointed and bitter, he thinks that an encounter with an over-friendly stranger in an airport bar is the least of his problems. Except that this stranger seems to know rather more than he should about Jack. Jack thinks no more of their meeting and resumes his old life in Galway. But when he’s called to investigate a student murder - connected to an elusive Mr K - he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really is who he says he is? With the help of the Jameson, Jack struggles to make sense of it all. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis. But why has he been chosen? And could he really have taken on the devil himself?

  THE DEVIL isn’t published until May 13, but my copy came dropping slow through the letterbox yesterday, so that’s the Bank Holiday reading taken care of.
  Ironically, or serendipitously, Gerard O’Donovan’s debut THE PRIEST arrived on the same day. Now, Ireland has had its fair share of scandals relating to clerical abuse of children in recent times, so THE PRIEST may well be a timely offering when it hits the shelves on June 3rd. To wit:

HIS NAME IS THE PRIEST. HIS WEAPON IS A CRUCIFIX. HIS VICTIMS DON’T HAVE A PRAYER. A killer is stalking the dark streets of Dublin. Before each attack, he makes the sign of the cross; then he sends his victims to God. After a diplomat’s daughter is brutally assaulted and left for dead, her body branded with burns from a scalding-hot cross, the case falls to Detective Inspector Mike Mulcahy. Mulcahy is one tough cop, but this crime is beyond imagination -- and the Priest is a nemesis more evil and elusive than any Mulcahy has ever faced: an angel of death with a soul dark as hell. As a media frenzy erupts and the city reels in terror, Mulcahy and his new partner, Claire Brogan, must stop the Priest in his tracks before he can complete his divine mission of murder. Light your candles. Say your prayers. Confess your sins. The Priest is coming.

  Another serial killer stalking Irish streets? To the best of my knowledge, there’s only one serial killer at work in Ireland today, and yet recent / current / forthcoming novels from Stuart Neville, Declan Hughes, Niamh O’Connor, Kevin McCarthy, Rob Kitchin and now Gerard O’Donovan all feature serial killers. Do the authors know something we don’t? Is the sudden appearance of so many fictional serial killers some kind of implicit commentary on Ireland’s scary economic position and the fear that we’re being stalked by the evil, ruthless, shadowy bogeymen who gamble on the international markets? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell …
  Meanwhile, I’ve come up with an idea for a new book. It’s about this serial killer, right, the cops dub her Mrs Jones, because she has a serious jones for offing male serial killers …