It’s A Shortlist, So It Must Be Tana French

It’s been good week for shortlists, nominations and generalised prize-winning flummery amongst the Irish crime fiction fraternity, people. First up is Derek Landy, whose SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT scooped the prestigious Red House Children’s Book Prize at the Hay Festival over the weekend, with The Guardian wibbling thusly:

“The Dublin writer Derek Landy owes much to his zombie detective, Skulduggery Pleasant. First Landy’s creation helped him to leave behind the cauliflower fields of his family farm, and now it has won him the coveted Red House children’s book prize, announced yesterday evening at the Hay festival by some of the children who voted for the book.”

Kids can vote now? Crumbs – next thing you know they’ll be passing laws to stop us sending them up chimneys. Anyhoo, onward to shortlists and nominations, and the ever-radiant Sarah Weinman reports on The Barry Awards. John Connolly’s THE UNQUIET is up for a gong in the Best Novel category, while Tana French’s IN THE WOODS gets a nod for Best First Novel, the latter news causing us to wonder if it’s even legal to have a shortlist that doesn’t feature the Edgar-winning Tana these days. For the full list of nominees, jump over here … The ever-fragrant Bill Crider, meanwhile, features the Anthony Award shortlists, where – quelle surprise – Tana French’s IN THE WOODS has been nominated for Best First Novel, and the Ken Bruen / Jason Starr collaboration SLIDE has been nominated for Best Paperback Original. Again, for the full list of nominees, slide on over here …

“Erm, There’s Just One More Thing, Ma’am …”

A quiet time for The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman (left) at the Hay Festival, folks – some fireside chats, a nice mug of Horlicks and tucked up in his Paddington Bear jim-jams by 9pm. Or not, as the case may be … Quoth Bateman:

“Hay was fantastic – I was hanging out with Columbo! Peter Falk was a guest speaker, promoting his book of memoirs, and we – my fellow crime authors were Alex Barclay and Allan Guthrie – got to hang out with him. He’s a lot older now obviously and, er, not completely aware of everything going on around him – I was introduced three times – but he just about managed to pull off his event. Alex and I, together with our PR people, managed to get very drunk and blag our way into his sold out event by creating a ‘posse’ for Peter and strolling past the door fascists by pretending to be his entourage. Shameful behaviour, of course, but great fun.”

Corks! A drunk Alex Barclay? How come the CAP crew never get invited to all the best blag-ins? Next week: The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman gets hammered with Kojak, Ironside and Streets of San Francisco-era Karl Malden!