Event: ‘Being New York, Being Irish’ at Hodges Figgis

Edited by Terry Golway, BEING NEW YORK, BEING IRISH (Irish Academic Press) is subtitled ‘Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Irish America and New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House’. The book will be launched at Hodges Figgis on Thursday, November 8th, at 6.30pm, with John Connolly as special guest speaker.
  Glucksman Ireland House has long been a staunch supporter of Irish crime writing, not least due to the good works of Dr John Waters and the inimitable Joe Long, among others. A particularly fond memory is the launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS at Glucksman Ireland House in 2011, which involved John Connolly, Alex Barclay, Arlene Hunt, Declan Hughes and Colin Bateman, and which – being frank – was a surreal experience for yours truly.
  Anyway, Thursday night should be a fascinating event at Hodges Figgis – if you’re in the vicinity, do drop by …

Event: The Launch of ‘Murder One’ at Hodges Figgis

To launch the forthcoming Dublin-based crime fiction festival Murder One, Sam Blake (right), Catherine Ryan Howard and Dr Bernice Murphy take part in ‘Serial Thrillers’ at Hodges Figgis on September 20th. To wit:

Join the MURDER ONE team for Serial Thrillers, an evening of criminal conversation at Hodges Figgis Bookshop, Dawson Street, at 6.30pm on Thursday 20th September, 2018.
  In 2017, crime fiction overtook general and literary fiction to officially become the biggest selling genre in the book trade. What is it about serial killings, police investigations and tales of domestic suspense that keep us coming back for more? Ahead of Murder One, bestselling Irish crime writers Catherine Ryan Howard and Sam Blake will be in conversation with Dr Bernice Murphy, co-director of the M.Phil in Popular Literature at Trinity College Dublin, in an event that’s sure to thrill all crime fiction fans.

  For all the details about the Murder One festival, clickety-click here …

Launch: THE CONSTANT SOLDIER by William Ryan

Launch: SOUR by Alan Walsh

SOUR is the debut novel from Alan Walsh, a modern retelling of the myth of ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows’ – sounds like a cracking idea. The launch details are as follows:

Event: The Hodges Figgis Book Festival

I’ve always been very fond of the Hodges Figgis bookstore on Dublin’s Dawson Street, which is currently hosting its own book festival (it runs from September 10th to 19th). The event that caught my eye, and which I’m hoping to get to, is the crime fiction night on Thursday 17th, when John Connolly will host a conversation between some of the most impressive talents of the new wave of Irish crime fiction, said talents being Karen Perry, Jane Casey, Alex Barclay, Liz Nugent and Sinead Crowley.
  It won’t have escaped your notice that, with the exception of the Paul Perry half of the ‘Karen Perry’ writing partnership, all those writers are women. Whether by accident or design, the Hodges Figgis event is certainly a timely one in that it celebrates the fact that female writers are very much to the fore in Irish crime writing these days. There have always been terrific women writers in terms of Irish crime fiction, among them Julie Parsons, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Ingrid Black, Cora Harrison, Erin Hart, Tana French, Niamh O’Connor and Arlene Hunt, but in the last couple of years women have come to dominate the scene, not least in terms of winning the crime fiction prize at the Irish Book Awards (Louise Phillips and Liz Nugent have won the last two awards); and this year alone we’ve seen debuts from Andrea Carter, Jax Miller, Sheena Lambert, Anna Sweeney and Kelly Creighton.
  I don’t have any theory as to why this might be the case (“Wot!?” I hear you gasp – “No theory?”), but if there is any underlying reason(s) for the trend, there’s no better man than John Connolly to winkle it/them out. The event takes place at Hodges Figgis, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, on Thursday 17th September, at 6.30pm. The event is free, and no booking is required.

Cry Havoc, And Let Slip The Hound Of Slaughter

And so was launched the good ship SS SLAUGHTER’S HOUND at Hodges Figgis last night, the pic above coming courtesy of the good folk at Portnoy Publishing. I have to say I was a little bit stunned - and delighted, naturally - at the turnout. As I said on the night, there’s a kind of double terror that comes with launching a book, the first being that no one will turn up, the second being that people will actually turn up, so that you have no choice but to go ahead and read out loud. But the marvellous support and goodwill in Hodges Figgis made all the nerves worthwhile.
  Heartfelt thanks to everyone who came along, it was truly wonderful to see you all. And thanks too to everyone who got in touch to say they couldn’t make it, but who passed on their good wishes. We’re hugely grateful to Liam and Steven, for taking care of us so well at Hodges Figgis, and I’d like to personally thank the good folk at Liberties Press, but particularly Caroline and Alice, who made the night run like clockwork.
  I need to run off out into the real world to start earning a living again now, so I’ll keep this one short. Next stop Belfast, next Thursday, August 30th, for the launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS. It might well be epic …

Do You Remember The Good Old Days Before The GHOST TOWN?

A fine old time was had last Wednesday night at the Hodges Figgis ‘Crime Night’, and very nice it was to meet with some familiar names, and put faces to said names. It was a tidy turn-out, too, and I sincerely hope that everyone who turned up enjoyed it as much as I did. Most enjoyable, perhaps, was the fact that the evening’s moderator, Professor Ian Campbell-Ross, declared yours truly the ‘senior member’ of a panel that included Arlene Hunt and Conor Brady, which was the first and very probably the last time I’ll be referred to as such in the presence of an ex-Irish Times editor.
  One person I didn’t get to speak with, unfortunately, was Michael Clifford, who was there on the night but who slipped away very quickly at the end. Which is a shame, because Michael Clifford is yet another Irish crime fiction debutant, with GHOST TOWN (Hachette Ireland) due in May. Herewith be the blurb elves:

A Dublin gangland king pin on the chase. A corrupt property mogul on the run. A hungry crime journalist determined to put his destroyed career back on track. And the return of the ‘Dancer’ - Joshua Molloy, small-time Dublin ex-con, recently out of prison, off the booze, determined to stay on the straight and narrow. When Molloy hires Noelle Higgins, a solicitor and boom-time wife with a crumbling personal life, to help find his young son, both are soon drawn into a web of treachery and violence, where Ireland’s criminal underworld and fallen elite fight it out to lay claim to what’s left from the crash: €3 million in cash, in a bag, buried somewhere in the depths of rural Ireland. From Dublin to Spain and finally a debris-strewn ghost estate in Kerry, GHOST TOWN is the fast-paced and tightly written debut thriller by leading Irish journalist and commentator Michael Clifford.

  Clifford is one of Ireland’s most respected journalists and commentators, currently writing for the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Times, and the author of some non-fiction books in the recent past: LOVE YOU TO DEATH: IRELAND’S WIFE KILLERS REVEALED and (as co-author) BERTIE AHERN AND THE DRUMCONDRA MAFIA and SCANDAL NATION. Mark it down on your calendar, folks - GHOST TOWN is a very intriguing prospect indeed …
  Incidentally, Clifford isn’t the only Irish writer to trade in ghost estates for his fiction, with Tana French and Rob Kitchin’s latest offerings also employing the abandoned developments literally and figuratively. “Speak,” as Hamlet might have said were he wandering around the desolate wastelands of suburban Ireland, “I am bound to hear …”