The St. Patrick’s Day Steal

Okay, ‘steal’ might be pushing it a little, but the lovely people at Severn House are celebrating the week that’s in it with a St Patrick’s Day eBook offer, i.e., selected titles by Irish authors at knockdown prices. One of said titles is mine own CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, with the Severn House blurb running thusly:

Author and journalist Declan Burke, described as a “comic genius” by Booklist, is on his usual hilarious form in the mad-cap caper, Crime Always Pays. Let Declan whisk you away to the Greek islands as cops and robbers, losers and hopers, villains, saints – and a homicidal Siberian wolf called Anna – all collide.
  With the eBook reduced to £4.99 / $7.99, why not give it a whirl?

  The offer runs from 16th-18th March 2016. The UK edition can be found here; and the US edition can be found here. And if the spirit moves you to spread the word via a simple click on one of the buttons below, I – and all my saintly and scholarly ancestors – will be deeply appreciative …
  Oh, and while we’re on the subject of my books, you can read a sample from any of them courtesy of the fine folks at the Los Angeles Public Library …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: The Fix Is In

I’m delighted to discover that CRIME ALWAYS PAYS has been selected as part of the Kobo thriller promo (UK only), which runs from 6th-10th August. The ebook of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS will be available for £1.99, and available at that price from all ebook vendors (Amazon, etc.) for the duration. Quoth the blurb elves:

Who says crime doesn’t pay? The perpetrators of a botched kidnap make their getaway in this hilarious sequel to THE BIG O.
  Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from her ex-husband Rossi when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Stephanie Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray. And then there’s Melody, the wannabe movie director, who’s pinning all her hopes on Sleeps, the narcoleptic getaway driver who just wants to go back inside and do some soft time.
  A European road-trip screwball noir, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS features cops and robbers, losers and hopers, villains, saints – and a homicidal Siberian wolf called Anna. The Greek islands will never be the same again.

  As all Three Regular Readers will already know, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS was shortlisted for the Goldsboro ‘Last Laugh’ award at Crimefest earlier this year. So if you like your crime fiction in a sun-splashed destination, with some giggles thrown in for good measure, you’ll find it here (scroll down)…

Sideline: Greek Islands and Me

You’ll excuse me diverting away from the usual fare on Crime Always Pays, I hope, but I stumbled across this fabulous photograph of the Greek island of Monemvasia on the Huffington Post’s Travel section this morning – I’ve never been to Monemvasia, but there was a certain shock of recognition, given that it strongly resembles (in my mind at least) the fictional island of Delphi, in Donegal’s Lough Swilly, where I set a goodly chunk of my spy thriller THE LOST AND THE BLIND (Severn House). To wit:

Once we’d crossed the central channel, we began curving sharply around to the south, the ferry picking up speed as we ran with the current and came around parallel to Delphi’s western shore. The coastline was unforgiving, a high rocky bluff crowned with thick forest, and I began to wonder if we’d need to anchor off-shore and take a tender to the island. Then, as we were passing a stubby promontory, the pilot pulled a ferry’s equivalent of a handbrake turn, throwing the wheel over and dragging a dull bellow of protest out the engines as he rammed them into reverse. For a moment we hung suspended in the current and then we slid easily into a tiny horseshoe bay surrounded on three sides by sheer cliff. The harbour was so calm that for a second or two, as we steamed towards the village tucked into a crevice in the cliffs, I believed we were going to ram the outlying buildings. It wasn’t until the first few houses began to waver and dance that I realized they were a reflection, the mirror-still surface unsettled by the wake pushed out under our prow ...
  Kee rolled the car down on to terra firma, up on to the pier. There she paused. On our left, tucked in under the sheer headland, was a large car park sparsely populated by cars, some of them under tied-down canvas coverings, along with a couple of small trucks and a handful of camper vans. At its entrance we found a topographical map informing us that Delphi boasted no more than a single road that was navigable by car, which encircled the island and hugged the coast all the way round. Otherwise the interior was essentially a steep-sloped pine-covered mountain accessible only by footpaths and hiking trails, with a single donkey path leading straight up from the rear of the village to a viewing point high on the cliffs above …

  For more on Monemvasia, clickety-click here.
  For more on THE LOST AND THE BLIND, clickety-click here.

Publication: CRIME ALWAYS PAYS now available in paperback

I’m delighted to announced that my current tome, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS (Severn House), is now available in paperback, which means that you can score the hardback edition for £16.99, the paperback for £11.99, or the e-book for £9.65. Quoth the blurb elves:

Who says crime doesn’t pay? The perpetrators of a botched kidnap make their getaway in this hilarious sequel to THE BIG O.
  Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from her ex-husband Rossi when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Stephanie Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray. And then there’s Melody, the wannabe movie director, who’s pinning all her hopes on Sleeps, the narcoleptic getaway driver who just wants to go back inside and do some soft time.
  A European road-trip screwball noir, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS features cops and robbers, losers and hopers, villains, saints – and a homicidal Siberian wolf called Anna. The Greek islands will never be the same again.

  According to the good people at Publishers Weekly, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is ‘both baffling and entertaining’. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Crime Always Pays: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before …

As all three regular readers of this blog will be aware, I published my latest opus, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS this week – or rather, had it published on my behalf by the lovely folk at Severn House (I’m talking about the UK edition here; it will be published in the US and Canada in July). The story features most of the same characters (aka reprobates) who previously showed up in THE BIG O, and even though it can be read as a sequel, CAP is basically your common-or-garden comedy crime caper trans-Europe road trip with a homicidal Siberian wolf-husky along for the ride. Stop me, as they say, if you’ve heard this one before …

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  CRIME ALWAYS PAYS is my fifth novel, and it’s by some distance the book I had most fun writing. I sincerely hope people have as much fun reading it. If you’d like a very short taster, Chapter 1 can be found here …
  Finally, and as you might imagine, I’m very keen to spread the word about CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, and I’d be very grateful indeed if you could find the time to click on one of the buttons below. Much obliged, folks …

CRIME ALWAYS PAYS: The Countdown Begins …

It’s hard to believe it’s that time again, but my latest tome, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS (Severn House), is published next week, on March 27th. It feels kind of strange right now, because there’s a sense of being in limbo, of not knowing how it’s likely to be received. Meanwhile, as you might imagine, I’m cracking on with the new book, and just today hit the halfway point – although ‘cracking on’ might be a bit misleading, as there are very many days when ‘trudging waist-deep in treacle’ might be more apt.
  Anyway, the blurb for CAP runs as follows:

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  If you’re in the mood for a short taster, Chapter 1 can be found here.
  If that piques your interest, and you’d like a review copy of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, there are digital copies available via NetGalley. If you have any problems downloading it, just drop me a line and I’ll do my luddite best to help.
  Here endeth the shilling … for now.

Crime Always Pays: The Stamp of Approval

The good people at Severn House have forwarded on the cover for CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, which they will publish in the UK next March (and in the US in July), and with which I’m very happy indeed. I love the idea of a stamp as a book cover – CAP is a comedy crime caper set in the Greek islands, and the cover perfectly captures the kind of escapist fun I was aiming for with the story. Of all my books, CRIME ALWAYS PAYS was the most fun to write, and I’m delighted that that’s reflected in the cover. Here’s hoping that you all enjoy it too …

Some Sentimental Musings On Turning 40

Yet another rather fine weekend was had by your humble host, folks. As some of you already know, I turn 40 today. It’s also Lilyput’s first birthday on Thursday, 26th, and it was my mother’s birthday yesterday, Sunday, which was also Mother’s Day. So it was off to Sligo for the Family Vizier, and a splendiferous time was had by all. The book-shaped cake above was provided by said mother, by the way, who has always been my Number One fan. I think she’s just glad I can spell, and I haven’t the heart to tell her about spell-check.
  Anyhoos, and at the risk of tempting fate, I realised while driving to work last week that I’ve pretty much achieved everything I’ve ever wanted to from life. The big stuff, anyway – find a soul-mate, have a baby, get a book published. So what now? I guess it’s a matter of recalibrating the ambitions: have another baby; write better books, so that it becomes possible to earn an actual living from the process; become a worthy husband and father; become a quantum physicist.
  I guess it’s the human condition to always want more. But – and again, at the risk of tempting fate – right now, on the 23rd of March, 2009, I’m a happy man. Not particularly balanced and well-rounded, or smart or successful, but content, with who I am and what I’ve done and the people around me. All of which may not sound very dramatic, but – like most people – there were long periods in my life when even that much seemed like a fantasy too far.
  Life is good, folks. Life is good and interesting and full and surprising. If the next 40 years are half as good as the first, I’ll go out a happy man. Peace, out.

Life highlights to date:

1. Lily May Burke is born on the 26th of March, 2008.
2. Mrs Grand Vizier makes a mockery of her reputation for being an astute observer of the human condition by marrying your humble host, April 2006.
3. EIGHTBALL BOOGIE published, April 2003.
4. THE BIG O published in the U.S., September 2008.
5. Winning the All-Ireland Minor (B) Hurling Final at Croke Park for Sligo, versus Tyrone, in 1987.
6. Graduating from junior to senior at Sligo Library at the age of 11, a full year before I was legally entitled to, and a full year after beginning petition to achieve same, 1980.
7. Wexford beat Limerick to win the All-Ireland Hurling Final, 1996.
8. Liverpool beat AC Milan 3-3 to win the European Cup (aka Champions League) for the fifth time, 2005.
9. Touching down in the Greek islands for the first time, 1991.
10. Making it to 40.

Abzorba Da Greek

Not long before he died, Kingsley Amis was asked in an interview what he’d do differently if he could live his life over again. He thought for a while and said, “Well, I wouldn’t read THE MAGUS again.”
  I love THE MAGUS. I know it’s not fashionable anymore, and that no one seems to read John Fowles these days, but I’ve read THE MAGUS three times (maybe four, I’ve started leaving out the last bit), and I’m gearing up to read it again. Which is a bit of a commitment, it being a re-read of 656 pages (554 if you stop where I generally stop: I was marooned; wingless and leaden, as if I had been momentarily surrounded, then abandoned, by a flock of strange winged creatures; emancipated, mysterious, departing, as singing birds pass on overhead; leaving a silence spent with voices. Which seems to me to be an excellent way to end a novel, and the experience of reading a novel, and writing one). Anyway, THE MAGUS is set on a Greek island, and Greek islands are the literary equivalent of cat-nip for yours truly.
  I’m also partial to a good private eye, and fine writing, and Paul Johnston combines all three in A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE, which features Alex Mavros. Quoth Mr & Mrs Kirkus:

Famous for his Quintilian Dalrymple series based in 2020s Edinburgh, the first of which won the John Creasy Memorial Dagger in 1997, Johnston changes location for this thriller, set on a Greek island. Trigono is breathtakingly beautiful and seemingly peaceful. But is there an evil hidden beneath its paradisiacal exterior? Rosa Ozal, a young Turkish-American beauty, has gone missing and the clue to her last known whereabouts is a postcard from Trigono. Alex Mavros is the private detective hired to find her. But when he reaches the island he discovers a community intent on hiding its secrets, and the task of finding any information regarding Rosa is not an easy one. The sudden deaths of a young island couple, found naked in a fishing boat with terror on their faces, make the atmosphere even more sombre. And is there a connection with the dreadful events that took place on Trigono during the Second World War? The plot moves on apace and soon Alex is confronted with a terrifying murderer. This is a high-class thriller, tautly written with the contrast between the idyllic surroundings and the shadow of violent danger adding to the charged atmosphere. Johnston's plotting and characterization are just as adept as they are in his Dalrymple books, and this is a novel to be enjoyed by anyone who loves thrilling prose and action-packed storylines.

  Nice. The good news is that the Mavros trilogy is (are?) being republished in April, with A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE renamed CRYING BLUE MURDER. I prefer the original title, but there you go. THE LAST RED DEATH and THE GOLDEN SILENCE complete the triptych, but neither of them are set on Greek islands (the Peloponnese and Athens, respectively), which is a total bummer.
  Anyone got any suggestions for Greek island novels? The last one I read was the very fine SONGS OF BLUE AND GOLD, and I need my fix.