“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” JJ Toner

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?
PERFUME by Patrick Suskind, a totally wonderful and original story told as a fable. If I have to choose an Irish book: Colin Bateman’s MYSTERY MAN or THE BUTCHER BOY by Patrick McCabe, or any of Gene Kerrigan’s books, or ...

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
I have a long list, starting with Philip Marlowe, Indiana Jones and, for the quieter moments, George Smiley.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Colin Bateman, Christopher Brookmyre, John Le Carré, Declan Burke (!), Gene Kerrigan, etc. It’s all guilty pleasure, really!

Most satisfying writing moment?
When a book is released and sent out into the world. My latest book, FIND EMILY, took 49 weeks to complete. There were nine major rewrites. I have a wonderful editor, but I think she trained with the Spanish Inquisition.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
DARK TIMES IN THE CITY by Gene Kerrigan. This is a wonderful book, with a stunningly well-crafted plot and great writing.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer, maybe.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best thing: I love it when an idea first arrives and even more when the idea becomes a written short story. Better again is when someone says they want to include it in an anthology (and I’ll get paid). Worst thing: Lack of exercise.

The pitch for your next book is …?
1096 AD, Brittany. While a killer preys on boys and young men, two teenagers join the Crusade. They must endure a long, difficult journey to the Holy Land before facing the perils of battle, but at least they’ve left the serial killer behind – or have they? I wrote this book years ago. Time to dust it off, do a major rewrite or two and get it out there.

Who are you reading right now?
Joe McCoubrey’s SOMEONE HAS TO PAY, BEAT TO A PULP: HARDBOILED, A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS by Conor Brady, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL and several others (mostly e-books).

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
No contest. I’d have to be a reader. There are too many great writers out there and I need the exercise!

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Fun, idiosyncratic, idiomatic (who said “idiotic”?).

JJ Toner’s FIND EMILY is available on Amazon.

Caveat Emperor

Over at the Facebook Irish Crime Fiction page, Joe McCoubrey has made a valiant stab at nailing down a comprehensive list of Irish crime scribes. It isn’t definitive, but then Joe’s cause isn’t helped by the fact that debut Irish crime writers are popping up like mushrooms these days. Still, it’s impressive list.
  One name that isn’t on the list is that of Ruth Dudley Edwards (right), aka ‘Cuddly Dudley’, possibly because she’s been busy writing non-fiction titles for the last few years. But lo! The Ruth Returns this coming October with KILLING THE EMPERORS, her 12th crime fiction title, with the blurb elves wibbling thusly:

Sir Henry Fortune, celebrity curator, has vanished. So too has his partner in love and money, disreputable art dealer Jason Pringle. Panic spreads throughout the London art world when more people go missing. No one can locate Anastasia Holliday, sensational Abject artist; Jake Thorogood, the critic who catapulted her into stardom; or Dr. Hortense Wilde, notorious for having influenced generations of art students to despise craftsmanship.
  Hysteria hits the media when it is found that the common link between the victims is that their careers blossomed when they embraced newly fashionable conceptual art. Could it be that they are hostages? If so, why? Ransom? Revenge?
  Who will be next? Will it be Sir Nicholas Serota, mighty overlord of British temples of the avant-garde, or the internationally renowned young British artist Damien Hirst, whose dross became platinum? Is danger in store for Charles Saatchi, mega-rich husband of a TV cook and the genius who took talentless young people and turned them into a winning brand?

  Given that Ruth Dudley Edwards has pretty much slaughtered an entire herd of sacred cows in her blackly comic crime fiction, I’m going to take a wild guess here and suggest that the ‘emperors’ of the title are some kind of nod to the emperor’s new clothes. Or maybe not. Is it possible, do you think, that Ruth has (koff) mellowed a tad since the publication of her most recent title, MURDERING AMERICANS …
  No. Me neither.