Event: Irish Crime Writing at Boyle Arts Festival

I’m hugely looking forward to taking part in the Irish crime writing panel at the Boyle Arts Festival on July 22nd – they’re a fabulous bunch in Boyle, and looked after yours truly very well the last time I was there. Andrea Carter will be moderating a panel composed of Arlene Hunt, Louise Phillips and your humble correspondent, with the event taking place at 5pm on July 22nd at the Family Resource Centre, Boyle. If you’re in the vicinity – and where else would you want to be on a summer’s evening? – drop on by and say hello. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Launch: TROUBLE IS OUR BUSINESS, ed. Declan Burke

I’m very much looking forward to the launch of TROUBLE IS OUR BUSINESS (see details above) – if you’re in Dublin on Wednesday 21st, please do drop by the Gutter Bookshop, we’d love to see you there. Here’s the all-important blurbio:

Selected and edited by award-winning crime writer Declan Burke, TROUBLE IS OUR BUSINESS showcases the absolute best in Irish crime writing today. From originators like Patrick McGinley and Ruth Dudley Edwards to global crime megastars like John Connolly and Eoin Colfer, there can be no doubt as to the serious quality of Irish crime writing in the twenty-first century. An absolute must-have for crime lovers! Featuring stories by: Patrick McGinley, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Colin Bateman, Eoin McNamee, Ken Bruen, Paul Charles, Julie Parsons, John Connolly, Alan Glynn, Adrian McKinty, Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay, Gene Kerrigan, Eoin Colfer, Declan Hughes, Cora Harrison, Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville, Jane Casey, Niamh O Connor, William Ryan, Louise Phillips, Sinead Crowley, and Liz Nugent.

One to Watch: HIDE AND SEEK by Jane Casey

An Edgar award winner earlier this year for THE STRANGER YOU KNOW, featuring London-based detective Maeve Kerrigan, Jane Casey also writes YA crime fiction. HIDE AND SEEK (Corgi) is the third novel to feature Jess Tennant, with the gist running thusly:

‘If I hadn’t walked into the room at that moment, maybe everything would have worked out differently. Maybe everything would have been all right after all . . .’
  Port Sentinel may be a beautiful seaside tourist trap, but in the short time Jess Tennant has lived there, it has seen its fair share of tragedy. Tragedy that somehow Jess keeps getting caught up in.
  A schoolgirl from the town goes missing, leaving her diary behind and a lot of unanswered questions. Has she run away from her unhappy home or is there something much more sinister going on? And can Jess find her before it’s too late?

  HIDE AND SEEK will be published on July 30th.

Essay: ‘The Irresistible Rise of Irish Crime Fiction’

There’s a very nice essay on the rise – irresistible, it seems – of Irish crime fiction over at the 746 Books blog, which provides a concise appraisal of the last decade or so in Irish crime writing. Sample quote:

“What Ireland couldn’t offer pre-Celtic Tiger, pre-Stormont was anonymity. The country was too small, too parochial with a lack of big cities. With the economic growth of the boom all that changed and suddenly cities were booming and immigration was on the rise. It was possible to be a stranger in Ireland, to go unnoticed. With the crash came a growing distrust in politicians and those in power and coupled with a lack of faith in the Catholic Church, the old hierarchies were being disassembled and the lines between good and bad were being blurred even more. Society was no longer a hierarchy of authority with the priests and the politicians at the top. The gangsters were as likely to be in expensive offices as on the streets. Society had been shaken up and that makes for great subject matter for crime writers.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here.
  Meanwhile, Claire Coughlan contributes a very nice piece to the Irish Times’ ‘In Praise Of’ series celebrating Irish women writers, with a short but heartfelt paean to Tana French. You’ll find it here.

A Former Editor Writes

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there has been a tremendous boom in Irish crime fiction in the last couple of years. When I first started writing here about Irish crime, we’d be lucky to see two debut writers in a whole year. These days it’s not uncommon to find two writers making their debut in the same month.
  It’s not just about individual writers being published, either. By the end of 2013, the Irish Writers’ Centre will have run three dedicated crime writing courses. Trinity College will host Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival. Plans are afoot for an Irish crime writing festival next year. The Irish Book Awards will, yet again, include a Best Irish Crime Novel category. RTE radio is currently running a four-part documentary series called ‘Irish Noir’. And it’s become increasingly rare for an Irish literary festival not to include at least one panel on crime fiction.
  It’s terrific to see, and long may it continue.
  The downside for yours truly is that it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with all the new writers, the new books from more established writers, and all the various events and newsworthy items. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a wonderful development; in terms of this blog, which is a labour of love, it’s become almost impossible to do justice to them all.
  In fact, and as the more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed already, the coverage has been rather patchy of late. It’s been pretty busy lately here at CAP Towers, with work and my own writing, and I’ll be starting into a new book any day now. Rather than pretend that I’m providing any kind of decent service in terms of information about Irish crime writing, I’d much prefer to acknowledge that I can’t keep up, and bow out gracefully.
  This hasn’t been an easy decision to make, although to be fair it’s a decision a lack of time has made for me. I’ve met a host of wonderful people through this blog, and the goodwill has been terrific. Moreover, I have a special interest in Irish crime writing, and I know I’ll particularly miss writing about new Irish authors. Ultimately, however, with my time being squeezed on all sides, I simply need to be sensible and concede that I can’t do everything I’d like to do.
  I will be maintaining this blog for my own ends, of course, as it’s been a brilliant way of meeting other readers and writers over the years. I do hope you’ll stick around for the occasional news update, review or interview. Cheers, Declan

Irish Crime Writing, Unicorns And Other Mythical Beasts

It’s been a funny old week, folks. I posted a couple of pieces in relation to the absence of Irish crime writers at various Irish literary festivals this summer (I use ‘summer’ in the loosest definition of the term, obviously), the gist of said pieces being that Irish crime writers are under-represented at such events, and up with this we shall not put, etc.
  As a result of the modest but positive feedback to the posts, I took myself off to make inquiries (for the most part funding-related) as to how this situation might be rectified next year, this on the basis that if you want something done, you’re best off doing it yourself. Said inquiries were well received, I have to say, and I’d be pretty hopeful, even at this early stage, that there’ll be more Irish writers represented at the various festivals next year.
  But all along, and even while engaging with this process, I was wondering if it’s the right tack to pursue.
  Are Irish crime writers entitled to believe that they have a right to be taking their place at said literary festivals?
  I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll be saying it again: there are many very good Irish crime novels being published right now. Given the size of our population, which is roughly that of Greater Chicago, the quantity of quality Irish crime novels is very impressive indeed. And this in itself, surely, says something about the culture from which this relatively new phenomenon springs.
  Are they sufficient reasons to have Irish crime writing represented at literary festivals?
  The glib and self-serving answer is, Yes, of course.
  The honest answer is, I really don’t know.
  It probably goes without saying that I’m hopelessly compromised when it comes to answering this question, given that this blog was initially set up to celebrate the fact that a number of Irish crime writers were producing world-class work.
  I still believe that. But even taking that bias on board, what I’m wondering now, and have been wondering for quite some time, is whether it’s reasonable and / or logical to attempt to encapsulate the work of a number of very good Irish crime writers in the phrase ‘Irish crime writing’.
  Personally, I think I’ve been trying to stuff a lot of square pegs into a single round hole.
  Yes, there are a lot of writers who are Irish who are publishing novels that can be considered crime or mystery fiction, or thrillers, or noir, or a half-dozen variations on all of those terms. That doesn’t automatically equate with ‘a phenomena of Irish crime writing’.
  That suggests to me that I’ve been coming at this idea of literary festivals all wrong - believing, essentially, that ‘Irish crime writing’ should be represented at such festivals by one or more of its practitioners.
  I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t been blundering up a very long blind alley. I’ve discovered some fantastic writers in the process, and read some great books, and made some good friends.
  But a blind alley is a blind alley.
  Meanwhile, out in the meritocracy of the real world, and particularly in the US and the UK, individual Irish crime writers are critically acclaimed best-sellers. This, obviously, is because of their own worth, and not because they are in the vanguard of some notional ‘Irish crime writing’ scene.
  I suppose what I’m asking myself at the moment is whether it’s worth it to continue on doing what I’ve been doing, which can very often feel like banging my head against the brick wall at the end of that blind alley.
  Those funding-related inquiries I mentioned seem as if they’ll pay dividends in a year or so - but the number of hoops I’d have to jump through to make it happen are many and complicated. I’m talking about drawing up mission statements, drafting proposals, arranging for and taking meetings - all of which are a massive drain on time and resources that I really can’t afford.
  My head says that following through on my initial inquiries is probably the smart thing to do. My heart says that it’s a good thing to do.
  My gut says, No.
  My gut is telling me that Crime Always Pays has been running for five years and more at this stage, and that with the best will in the world it delivers very little by way of real worth to the writers I mention here.
  My gut is telling me that the law of diminishing returns is at work here.
  My gut is also very aware that I’ll be starting into a new novel in the very near future, a tricky one that will be very difficult to get right. What I’ll need is time; what I won’t need is distractions.
  So I think I’m going to let the funding-related inquiries slide. The possibilities are there; if anyone is interested in taking the idea(s) further, and wants to contact me privately, I’m more than happy to pass on the contact details.
  In the meantime, I’m off on my holidays. See you back here in a couple of weeks ...

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

A quick post today, in response to yesterday’s comments on the idea of a coordinated ‘branding’ of Irish crime fiction (see post below), in which Irish writers band together to promote Irish crime writing according to a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ philosophy. Great to see such positive feedback, by the way.
  I’ll try to answer some of the questions posed insofar as I have any answers, which I mostly don’t.
  Re: Bill Ryan’s suggestion about a ‘modest subscription’. That may be workable, certainly, but I for one would feel very uncomfortable to be in receipt of other people’s money, particularly when I know only too well the extent to which, for many, and yours truly included, the writing game is already an expensive hobby.
  I’ll post again tomorrow on this topic, when I have a bit of time to flesh out some ideas, but for now let me say that it would be possible to put into place a low-level / beta version of what I’m thinking about that wouldn’t require funding, apart from a commitment of a little time from each writer, if the interest is there. And going by the reaction to yesterday’s post, the interest is certainly there.
  Rob asks if I have comparative websites in mind. The answer is not really, but a collaborative blog such as Do Some Damage might make a good starting point.
  In terms of the possibility of official funding, I really have no idea as to whether such would be possible, and particularly in such straitened times. That said, and given the extent to which Irish crime writing is an all-island affair, it may be possible to speak with Arts Councils on either side of the border, and also to tap into funding for cross-border cultural initiatives. I have my doubts, but we’ll see.
  If anyone wants to contribute thoughts or suggestions, the comments box is open …

A Murder Less Ordinary

I had a review of Conor Brady’s A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS published in the Irish Times yesterday, which could well have been a delicate commission, given that Conor Brady is a former editor of said Irish Times. I enjoyed the book tremendously, though, not least for its historical detail and setting, and for its complex protagonist, Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow, who reminded me very much of Kevin McCarthy’s RIC Sergeant O’Keefe in PEELER (2010).
  There have been some very interesting historical crime novels set in Ireland recently: Kevin McCarthy’s PEELER, as noted; Eoin McNamee’s novels from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s; Benjamin Black’s novels, set in 1950s Dublin; Cora Harrison’s fifteenth century books set in Clare’s Burren country; Adrian McKinty’s THE COLD COLD GROUND, which is set during the hunger strikes of 1981.
  It’s a relatively small number of titles, but it makes for an interesting trend, and A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS is a fine addition to the ranks. To wit:

DUBLIN SWELTERS IN the notorious heatwave of June 1887 as Conor Brady’s debut novel opens. The authorities at Dublin Castle are more concerned with the city’s simmering political tensions. With Prince Albert Victor due in Dublin to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee against a backdrop of violent Land League agitation, the castle is concerned that any one of a number of subversive organisations might attempt an assassination.
  So when Det Sgt Joseph Swallow of Dublin Metropolitan Police’s G division is sent to the Chapelizod Gate in Phoenix Park to investigate the discovery of the badly mutilated bodies of a man and a young boy, the authorities are initially relieved that the murders are “ordinary” rather than politically motivated.
  In all the best crime fiction, however, a juicy murder tends to minimise the distance between the criminal fraternity and the higher echelons of society, and such is the case in A June of Ordinary Murders . The death of career criminal Cecelia “Pisspot Ces” Downes makes matters trickier for Swallow, as her grasping lieutenants jockey to fill the power vacuum left in her wake, and the subsequent discovery of a young woman’s body in the Grand Canal complicates things even more.
  Brady weaves a police procedural that does full justice to the complex nature of the social, political and criminal labyrinth that was Dublin in the summer of 1887. He paints a vivid picture of the city as it bakes beneath the unrelenting sun, employing Joe Swallow’s sharp eye and the character’s ambitions as an amateur painter to deftly sketch both its landmarks and its less salubrious corners.
  The novel is set at the dawn of what we would now consider to be the age of forensic science, and we find Swallow dabbling in such radical innovations as ballistics and reconstructive portraiture. There’s also the occasional nugget of historical delight to be gleaned, such as the archaic notion of a “dying declaration”, a legal concept that held a man’s final words to be sound as evidence in court, on the basis that no dying man would knowingly lie.

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Dana King

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?
Probably either THE MALTESE FALCON [by Dashiell Hammett] or THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE [by George V. Higgins]. Everything written after each of them had to deal with the comparisons, and each of them changed some aspect of crime fiction writing forever.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
My right brain says Chili Palmer in GET SHORTY [by Elmore Leonard]. No one is cooler, or had more fun making lemonade from lemons than Chili. My left brain says Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct novels, for being the guy everyone depended on to be stable and reliable.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I hope this doesn’t sound condescending, but Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. They’re more like contemporary thrillers than the sometimes ambiguous, gritty things I usually read, but Child’s clarity and simplicity of approach are refreshing every so often. They’re modern day American Westerns with an invincible hero, and great fun to read because so much of each book keeps you wondering how Reacher is going kick this guy’s ass. Not if; how. Child doesn’t get enough credit for what a good writer he is. He always stays out of the way as the author, lets the story play out through Reacher’s thoughts and actions.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Getting the release and check from Todd Robinson of the late, sorely missed, Thuglit, when he selected a short story of mine for one of his ‘Blood, Guts, and Whiskey’ collections.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Of those I’ve read, I’d vote for Declan Hughes’s ALL THE DEAD VOICES. All of the Ed Loy books are good, but the way this book uses background from The Troubles is wrenching, and also informative for someone who grew up far away from them. John Connolly’s THE BLACK ANGEL also struck a chord with me, but I don’t know that I consider Connolly to be crime fiction so much as paranormal / PI / I sure hope none of this is true.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Depends on where the movie is made. For an American film, Adrian McKinty’s THE DEAD YARD would work well, especially if someone like the Coen brothers made it. In the movie were made on your side of the sheugh (thanks to Adrian McKinty for teaching me that term), I’d vote for Declan Hughes’s THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD. Americans don’t seem to want to make movies anymore with the kind of subtlety it needs. Same thing with THE BIG O. We’d make it a farce because it’s funny, but it’s not a farce. The humour has to be treated just so. I thought Ken Bruen’s LONDON BOULEVARD would be a great movie as I was reading it, but that movie has been made, so it’s off the list. I’ve yet to see it, so I can’t say whether a great movie was made. If it wasn’t, it should have been. Everything is there.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst is about halfway through the first draft, when I’m convinced whatever I’m working on is a piece of shit and I might want to start over. The ability to read other writers’ blogs and interviews on the Internet has taught me I am not alone here. That helps a lot. The best was when several writers I regard as my betters went out of their way to compliment and promote WILD BILL. It was rewarding beyond any expectations and made all the work and waiting worthwhile. I hope to be able to repeat that with WORST ENEMIES and going forward. Thanks for giving me a leg up with getting the word out.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Small town cops aren’t in as far over their heads as some people think, but knowing who did something and proving it are two different things.

Who are you reading right now?
I finished John Connolly’s THE WHISPERERS late last night. Adrian McKinty’s FALLING GLASS is next. (No, I didn’t set those up to look good on CAP. I really was reading THE WHISPERERS when you asked about the interview, and FALLING GLASS arrived in the mail a day or so before.)

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. My writing would soon bore me if I had no one else to recharge my batteries. I never tire of reading.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Tight. Realistic. Sardonic.

Dana King’s WORST ENEMIES is a Penns River Novel.

Scandinavian Crime Fiction: Whither The Mavericks?

I’m reading Barry Forshaw’s DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE at the moment, and a fine piece of work it is too, being a forensically detailed account of the rise and rise of Scandinavian crime fiction. One interesting aspect is the short interviews dotted throughout the text with British-based editors who have signed Scandinavian authors, who respond to Forshaw’s question of whether the current trend for Scandinavian crime fiction is running out of steam with variations on a standard response of, ‘Well, all good things must end, but my guy / gal is different to the rest because …’ Yes. But you would say that, wouldn’t you?
  The book has got me thinking about the future of Irish crime fiction, though - or rather, about the fact that ‘Irish crime fiction’ doesn’t really have a future. A couple of weeks ago I posted a comment on a website which was asking about which country was likely to break through as the ‘next Scandi crime’ phenomenon, suggesting that it had to be Ireland. Now I’m not so sure; in fact, I’m pretty certain it won’t happen.
  That’s not to say that Irish writers aren’t on a par with their peers all over the world; they are, and then some. I honestly believe that some of the Irish crime writers currently plying their trade are some of the finest writers working in the genre.
  The problem, in terms of the break-out to mass commercial success, is also one of Irish crime writing’s greatest strengths: its diversity.
  Over the last year or so I’ve read novels by Karin Fossum, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo, Camilla Lackberg, Roslund & Hellström, Liza Marklund, Jan Costin Wagner, Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Anne Holt. Some were better than others; some were very good indeed.
  What struck me most forcibly, however, is how narrow are the parameters of Scandinavian crime fiction. That’s not to say that all the writers are working off the one palette - Karin Fossum’s novels are very different to Liza Marklund’s, for example, and there’s a marked difference in the urban- and rural-based police procedurals written by Jo Nesbo and Camilla Lackberg, respectively.
  Essentially, though, the Scandinavian novels I’ve read have been for the greater part characterised by the classic crime fiction model: a state-sanctioned investigator (cop, private eye, lawyer, etc.) charting the symptoms of turbulence in society and persuading us that the (admittedly tarnished) status quo is better than the alternative.
  There’s nothing wrong with that story-telling model, of course. I’m a fan of many writers who employ it. But it does seem to me, from my limited reading of Scandinavian crime writing, that there’s a homogeneity to the ‘brand’.
  I find that odd. It’s not as if the current crop of Scandinavian crime writers only began writing last year, or the year before. Hakan Nesser published his first novel in 1988; Henning Mankell’s first Wallander novel appeared in 1991; Karin Fossum’s first Inspector Sejer novel arrived in 1995; Anne Holt’s first novel came in 1993. Which is to say that the earliest pioneers have been working in the field for the best part of two decades. Shouldn’t a few mavericks have appeared at this stage, writers keen to subvert the established form by playing with narrative structure, or humour? Are there any Scandinavians working in the historical crime fiction realms that predate WWII, say? Is it the case that there are Scandinavian writers who take a decidedly post-modern take on the crime narrative, in the way Ken Bruen or Colin Bateman does, or in the way that John Connolly blends genres, but simply aren’t translated into English?
  Where are the Scandinavian comedy crime capers? The classical noirs that take the part of the wretched and doomed criminal as he seeks in vain for an escape from the labyrinth?
  If they’re out there, and I’m simply not aware of them, please do let me know.

  In the meantime, the whole reason I started writing this post was to celebrate the fact that Eoin Colfer’s postmodern comedy crime caper about a wretchedly balding bouncer, PLUGGED, has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Prizes in the ‘Mystery / Thriller’ category. The full shortlist runs as follows:

STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG by Kate Atkinson
PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer
11 / 22 / 63 by Stephen King
SNOWDROPS: A NOVEL by AD Miller
THE END OF THE WASP SEASON by Denise Mina

  Nice one, Mr Colfer sir. The prizes will be awarded on April 20th, by the way, and here’s hoping that Eoin will emulate Stuart Neville, whose THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST) won said category back in 2009.

A Very Irish Noir

Some whippersnapper called Otto Penzler has been making predictions about the ‘Future Masters of Noir’, and of the five tipped for the top (or bottom, if you’re being noir-ish about it), two are Irish. Not bad going, chaps. The two are Ken Bruen and Stuart Neville (right), authors of the recently published THE DEVIL and COLLUSION, respectively, and while I’m certainly not going to quibble about the inclusion of either, you’d have to question the bit about Ken Bruen being a ‘future’ master of noir. Which is to say, Sir Kenneth of Bruen has been writing some of the most provocative noir for the best part of 20 years now - although Otto does hedge his bets a little there, suggesting that Ken is already a master, even if the mainstream has yet to embrace his bleak, twisted vision of the world.
  Anyhoo, it’s all kinds of good news for both men, and well deserved to boot. For the full list of Penzler’s ‘Masters of Noir’, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, Stuart Neville had a piece on ‘Emerald Noir’ published in the Sunday Tribune last weekend, and a fine piece it is too, with Stuart waxing lyrical on the origins of the current boom in Irish crime writing and invoking names such as John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Adrian McKinty, Colin Bateman, Ken Bruen, Arlene Hunt, Gene Kerrigan and FL Green. Quoth Stuart:

“Perhaps the blossoming of home-grown crime fiction can be better explained by a change in attitude, rather than circumstance. Having more money in our pockets, however fleetingly, was a symptom of change, rather than a cause. The simultaneous transformations of the Celtic Tiger and the peace process went hand-in-hand with a deeper, more permanent shift that occurred on this island: Ireland, north and south, began to look outward rather than inward. With that change came a greater willingness, particularly in the Republic, to discuss and confront the uglier aspects of its own history, such as state and church abuse against children.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Foxing Clever

The Thought Fox - aka Faber editor Katherine Armstrong - posts a piece on her blog titled ‘In Praise of Emerald Noir’, in which she offers a list of the ‘25 best writers of Emerald Noir’. It’s a comprehensive list - so comprehensive, in fact, that it even includes yours truly - with proceedings kicking off thusly:

“I grew up in Northern Ireland in the eighties and nineties, which was probably not Judith Chalmers’ first point of call for Wish You Were Here but still, it was home. As most people will remember, Northern Ireland during that period was an interesting place to be if you were particularly keen on scaring yourself silly. The television most evenings would have talk of car bombs, murders, knee-cappings and other assorted terrorist activities. Going to school in Belfast every day on the train you became used to having to get a replacement bus service due to bomb scares. For anyone who wanted to skip class the various alphabetical groups bent on death and destruction could guarantee that no one would question your excuse for being late – there always seemed to be a bomb scare somewhere.
“Throughout the difficult years there were books that focused on the Troubles – you know the stuff – where an English spy from British Intelligence would invariably fall in love with a Catholic girl who would betray him to the IRA and he’d be executed. But there was a huge gap in the market for really good home grown crime fiction. Over the past twenty years or so there has been an emergence of what has become known as Emerald Noir. It’s gritty, it’s realistic, and contemporary Ireland – both north and south – is a whole lot better for it …”

  For the full list of 25 Irish crime writers, clickety-click here …
  Naturally, and given the nature of such things, even a list of 25 Irish crime writers is going to miss out on a few names that really should be in there. John Connolly doesn’t make the cut because he doesn’t set his novels in Ireland, but Armstrong’s roll-call of honour doesn’t include Julie Parsons, Paul Charles, Liam O’Flaherty, Garbhan Downey, Ava McCarthy, Peter Cunningham, Hugo Hamilton, Rory McCormac, Vincent McDonnell, Cora Harrison, or - shock, horror! - Twenty Major. On the upside, it’s nice to see that the list does include Eilís Dillon, Eugene McEldowney, Jim Lusby, Andrew Nugent and Vincent Banville, all of whom tend to get overlooked in discussions about Irish crime writing.
  Perhaps understandably, the list is also short on recent debutants, such as Niamh O’Connor, Kevin McCarthy, Gerard O’Donovan, Gerry O’Carroll and Rob Kitchin. There are also a number of mavericks who deserve a plug, like TS O’Rourke, John Kelly, Patrick McGinley and Seamus Smyth, all of whom were writing Irish crime fiction when it was neither popular or (even less) profitable.
  So there you have it. Any names that should be on that list, but aren’t? You know what to do …

The Deceptively Simple Art Of Murder

There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether Irish writers are engaging with modern Ireland, a conversation begun by Julian Gough and continued in the Irish Times recently by Eileen Battersby and Joseph O’Connor. Despite the fact that most Irish crime writers tend to be as contemporary in terms of storyline and setting as the business of publishing will allow, said writers are noticeably absent from the conversation. Caroline Walsh, the Literary Editor at the Irish Times, was good enough to suggest that I write a piece rectifying that state of affairs, and the piece is published today, with the opening following below.
  I honestly think there’s something important at stake here. It’s not simply an issue of relevance in terms of writing about contemporary subject matter, as I say in the piece; it’s about the relevance of literature itself, and the function of a body of literature in relation to the culture it springs from. At the risk of sounding a complete plank in quoting myself, I have this to say: “Making a distinction between crime and literary fiction in Ireland today is … redundant, unless it’s to suggest that contemporary Irish crime authors are producing a canon of work that’s equally important as that of their literary counterparts.” To paraphrase Raymond Chandler from The Simple Art of Murder, crime writers are taking the Irish novel out of the drawing room and dropping it in the alley, where it belongs.
  Have on, James, and spare not the horses …

We always take great pride in our writers – except for our crime writers, who, despite being feted abroad, get little recognition here. Strange, given that they seem to be the ones tackling the burning issues, writes DECLAN BURKE

THE ASSASSINATION in 1986 of the Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme sent shockwaves through Sweden in particular and Scandinavia in general. One consequence was the emergence of an indigenous crime fiction, a phenomenon taken very seriously by cultural commentators in Sweden and Norway. Today, writers such as Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø are household names across the world.
  The then Irish minister for justice, Kevin O’Higgins, was assassinated on his way to Mass in July, 1927. In 1928, Liam O’Flaherty published The Assassin, a political thriller set in Dublin about the murder of a prominent politician. Its staccato rhythms, spare style and bleak tone, the psychological study of a disturbed criminal mind, was practically a blueprint for the hard-boiled crime writing produced in the following years by American writers Dashiell Hammett and James M Cain, yet Ireland has had to wait until the past decade for a comparable outpouring of crime writing ...

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Irish Crime Cinema: Now In Gigglevision

Perrier’s Bounty, a thriller starring Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, opened in Ireland on Friday. I need hardly add that it’s a comedy crime caper; the humour is black, and the gangland Dublin setting suitably grim, but there’s no mistaking it for a serious crime flick.
 In fact, Ireland doesn’t really do serious crime flicks these days. The notable exception is the biopic Veronica Guerin, but even the two movies based on Martin ‘The General’ Cahill were played in large part for chuckles. I Went Down is a terrific film, but the criminals are for the most part figures of fun. In certain circumstances, such as Divorcing Jack, the comedy is the whole point, because Colin Bateman’s novel was written during a particularly dark period of the Troubles, when being able to laugh, and to do so by poking fun at paramilitaries of all stripes, was no mean feat in itself. But why hasn’t Irish cinema responded to the last decade or so in the way crime fiction has? Not all Irish crime fiction is a considered response to how we live now, but a good (the best) chunk of it is, and there’s no parallel development in Irish film. It can’t be a result of snobbery, because the genre / literary divide doesn’t seem to exist in cinema – The Departed and No Country For Old Men, to give two recent examples, won Best Picture Oscars and did serious box office in the process. So why, when faced with the issue of crime, does Irish cinema dissolve in a fit of giggles?
  Anyway, my review of Perrier’s Bounty runneth thusly:

Perrier’s Bounty (16s)
Michael McCrea (Cillian Murphy) is a man with problems. With only a few hours in which to find the money he owes to Dublin gangster Darren Perrier (Brendan Gleeson), Michael finds his woes multiplied when his next-door neighbour Brenda (Jodie Whittaker) shoots dead one of the thugs sent to put him under pressure. All of which is bad enough, but Mutt the loan shark (Liam Cunningham), who might be able to ease Michael’s financial burden, is a double-crossing rat. Oh, and Michael’s father (Jim Broadbent) shows up to tell Michael he’s dying. Given its gangland milieu, the archly comic tone and a script dense with incident and interwoven plot-strands, it’s almost inevitable that Perrier’s Bounty will be compared with Guy Ritchie’s comedy crime capers. The Dublin gangsters speak in a quasi-philosophical way about the business of criminality, much in the same way as the East End crooks do in Ritchie’s movies, and the writer, Mark O’Rowe, never misses an opportunity to insert a joke or gag, even when the story is crying out for a little gravitas give the characters some emotional ballast. Brenda, for example, never seems at all dismayed by the fact that she’s murdered someone, while Michael’s grim determination to pay back Perrier excludes any possibility of his taking time out to commiserate with his dying father. Modelled, in terms of Irish film, on Intermission and (the superior) I Went Down, the movie hits the ground with the cinematic equivalent of a screech of smoking tires, and goes from nought to sixty in seconds flat. For the first half-hour that’s all hugely entertaining, as the characters bounce off one another in an anarchic game of gangland pinball. Murphy is enjoyable as a cynical bottom-feeder with no illusions about life, while Gleeson is in scenery-chewing form as Perrier, a man with a grandiose perception of who he is and a loquacity to match. The director, Ian Fitzgibbon, showcases a deft hand at sustaining momentum, and it’s all shot with panache by cinematographer Seamus Deasy, who finds intriguingly murky corners of Dublin city to poke his camera into. That said, the fact that the pace never flags grows tiresome after a while, as the story turns into a relentless series of incidents that fails to give the audience the kind of emotional involvement that might allow them to care whether Michael survives through the night. ***

Those About To Write The Shop-And-Fuck Novel, We Salute You

Yours truly had a piece in the Sunday Independent yesterday about the current explosion in Irish crime fiction, the idea being to promote next weekend’s Books 2008 Irish crime writing series. Here’s one reason:

Perversely, the influence of chick lit can’t be discounted as a factor in the emergence of crime fiction. The shop-and-fuck novels might be criticised for skating along the surface of the Celtic Tiger, and charting the new Irish obsession with vacant consumerism, but their best-selling status gave a huge boost to genre fiction in a country that has traditionally been more concerned with literary issues. Where chick lit celebrated the gaudy delights of the Celtic Tiger, crime fiction proposes to penetrate to its dark heart, which is likely to get a lot darker now that the recession has kicked in and that big fat pie starts to shrink.

  In the interests of openness, transparency and plagiarism accusations, I should say that I ripped that off from a quote John Connolly gave me for another article I’ve written on the same subject for the Evening Herald, which will appear later this week. Turning a buck writing about Irish crime fiction – who’d a thunk it, eh?