Review: THE LONESOME HEART IS ANGRY by Paul Charles

Born in Derry, but living in London for most of his adult life, Paul Charles first came to our attention with the Camden Town-set series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy, publishing his debut, I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass, in 1997.
  There have been ten Christy Kennedy books in total, and Charles has also written a pair of crime novels set in rural Donegal, but he goes back to his roots for The Lonesome Heart is Angry (New Island Books), which is set in the early 1960s in the fictional Co. Derry town of Castlemartin, which also provided the backdrop to The Last Dance (2012).
  The opening brings to mind both John B. Keane and Sam Hanna Bell’s December Bride. Michael Gilmour, Castlemartin’s resident matchmaker, is shocked when he is approached by the twins Pat and Joe Kane, local farmers in need of a wife. Unfortunately, they intend sharing a single wife. Outraged by the impropriety, not to mention the potential damage to his own reputation, Gilmour sends them on their way, only to be deeply wounded when his beloved sister-in-law, Maggie, agrees to accept the twins’ unusual terms and conditions and marries Pat Kane.
  It’s not long before Michael Gilmour’s instincts about the ‘unnatural’ arrangement are proved correct. Joe disappears after a vicious and very public fight between the brothers, and the rumours of the local gossips force District Detective Inspector Doyle – a devotee of the methods of Sherlock Holmes – to investigate the intimate lives of the Kane clan …
  The Lonesome Heart is Angry is a delightfully genteel mystery novel, one that is very firmly rooted in the ‘cosy’ end of the spectrum. Apart from a couple of instances of fisticuffs, there is little here that remotely approaches the blood, gore and violence that characterises much of contemporary crime fiction. The diminutive Detective Inspector Doyle – aka ‘Wee Doyle’ – may well be investigating the disappearance and possible murder of Joe Kane, but that narrative strand is only one aspect of Paul Charles’ own exploration of a gentler, kinder time and place. His affection for his cast of quirky characters is palpable, as is his description of the town of Castlemartin itself, a fictional version of Charles’ own hometown of Magherafelt.
  The folksy, conversational tone, however, is bittersweet. The matchmaker, the bumbling policeman and the idyllic rural setting give the novel an old-fashioned air, but Castlemartin is a town in the early stages of a cultural revolution. The soundtrack in the local cafés and fairgrounds is jarring: The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles. Charles, who has spent most of his life working as a music promoter – his clients include Tom Waits, Christy Moore, Elvis Costello and The Waterboys – even has Wee Doyle’s investigation turn on a crucial clue provided by a Beatles single. Change is coming to Castlemartin and washing away the old values, and even paragons of virtue such as Michael Gilmour and Detective Inspector Doyle aren’t able to stem the tide.
  Curiously, perhaps, and in common with John McAllister’s similarly set The Station Sergeant (2012), religion and sectarian conflict play no part in The Lonesome Heart is Angry. The citizens of Castlemartin are entirely pragmatic when it comes to rules, laws and commandments, Heaven-sent or otherwise, adapting instead to circumstance as they see fit and bending to authority, as Wee Doyle discovers when he starts asking his questions, only when it suits their own agenda.
  It all sounds deliciously idyllic, of course, but the fate of Joe, Pat and Maggie Kane suggests that no society or community can thrive indefinitely if it is composed of moral anarchists, regardless of how friendly and sociable they might appear to be. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Irish Examiner

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Alan Croghan

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?
God, there is so many. I think A SEASON IN HELL by Jack Higgins, cracking book and like THE GODFATHER I read it five times.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
It used to be Luca Brasi (from the book of THE GODFATHER, as I had my own vision of him in my head and plus he was a lot more involved in the book than in the film. He was kinda my hero in the book – but when I saw him in the film I instantly changed my mind, as I was really disappointed) but ‘Jago’ has always being my favourite; the ex-SAS martial arts expert, sniper turned contractual professional killer/protector in Jack Higgins’ book A SEASON IN HELL – a real super-cool dude, he was the business. He took no shit and was very professional.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
For obvious reasons, when I was in prison I used to read a lot of Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. Today I don’t bother with it – there’s only so many hours in the day (smile).

Most satisfying writing moment?
Oh it has to be a toss-up between two; one was when the late John B Keane awarded me second place in the Drama Section of Listowel Writers week back in 1985, after I had written a short play. I was only 17 (some 29 years ago now – how time flies, eh?) and was in St Patrick’s Institution for young offenders at the time. And I had only recently learned how to read and write whilst in prison. I won a Gold Cross pen and a cheque for £20. I just couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. The second was getting the phone call from Penguin with an offer to publish WILD CHILD – it was like getting a belt of a hammer in the face!

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
Has to be THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville. What a great book

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Tana French’s novels on the Dublin Murder Squad. They should have never been disbanded.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is ‘Resistance’, preferring or choosing to do a hundred and one other insignificant things rather than do the most important thing that I really should be doing, like pressing the ‘power on’ button on my computer and bringing up my Word page – for me that can be the hardest thing in the world to do. The Best? That’s being in there, in my scene, in the story, being that invisible third party sitting in the car or at the bar table or in the bedroom – just waiting and wondering what each character is going to say or do to the other. They tell me what they’re going to do or say; I just write the words and describe their actions whilst my second brain scribbles like mad little notes and ideas that pop into my head as I work. I’m in that world, that time, that place and I love it because I know, at the end of the day, no matter where I go or what I do I am completely safe and I can bring my reader anywhere.

The pitch for your next book is …?
The working title is ‘Lord of the Underworld’. It’s a period ‘Faction’ book set in Ireland during 1834/35. During that time there was a forgotten but terrible growth in one of the darkest aspects of Irish history – the brutal, bloody and merciless period of Clan shillelagh fighting. Many factions formed to protect themselves not just from the British but from each other.

Who are you reading right now?
James Bland’s TRUE CRIME DIARY.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write – without a shadow of a doubt. Not being able to write … I’d go insane.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Honest, realistic and methodical.

Alan Croghan’s WILD CHILD is published by Penguin Ireland.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Lawrence Block

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?
I never know how to answer the question. There are any number of books I admire hugely, but I can’t say I yearn to have written them; what makes them work is that they were written by their own authors. So now my answer is THE DA VINCI CODE, on the basis not of its text but of its royalties.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Archie Goodwin, exc. for all the dancing.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Almost anything Charles Ardai publishes at Hard Case Crime.

Most satisfying writing moment?
I don’t believe I’ve ever had more sheer enjoyment writing than I did with Getting Off. It was enormously satisfying for me, esp. the conversations between Kit and Rita.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Tough one for me, as I’ve not read all that much in recent years. I’ve enjoyed Ken Bruen’s work, and both the Banvilles, John and Vincent. And they’re not crime novels (though I think they’d go down well with many crime fiction fans) but Thomas Flanagan’s three historical novels are high on my list of favourite books.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
One that already did, not a novel but a play, was ‘The Field’, by my late friend John B. Keane. A dear man, a wonderful writer.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best: when I’m writing, I never have the unsettling feeling that there’s something else I really ought to be doing instead. Worst: when I’m NOT writing, I always have that feeling.

The pitch for your next book is …?
THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC is just out this week. All the Matt Scudder short fiction, including two new and previously unpublished stories, all in a $2.99 eBook or $14.95 trade paperback. My next book’s not been written yet, and I don’t like to talk about them until they’re done.

Who are you reading right now?
SHOCK WAVE, John Sandford’s newest. He never disappoints.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Dunno whether it’s age or all those years in the business (not that they don’t go hand in hand) but I’ve largely lost my taste for reading in recent years. It’s rarely what I feel like doing, and I don’t finish many of the books I start. Then again, two years ago I thought I was done writing novels. (Shows what I know.) But if I have to pick one, I’ll stay with writing. After all, nobody pays me to read...

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
“Fool never quits.”

Lawrence Block’s latest offering is THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC. Hard Case Crime publishes GETTING OFF.

If You’re Irish, Come Into The Parlour. And Get A Cap In Yo Ass

The Mystery Readers’ Journal goes forty shades of green for its summer issue, as ever-radiant editor Janet Rudolph brings together a veritable Who’s Who of Irish crime fiction to celebrate the current boom in dubh noir (three of the usual suspects pictured, right – yours truly, Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley-Edwards, and Declan Hughes). The magazine is for the most part subscription, but there’s a few free tasters available web-side, among them Glenn Harper’s ‘Ordinary Decent Criminals: Irish Noir Fiction in the 21st Century’, which kicks off with a few names unfamiliar to yours truly. To wit:

“There are a couple of literary thrillers from the last decades of the 20th century worth mentioning in passing because they approach noir in distinctive ways. M.S. Power’s CHILDREN OF THE NORTH is an intense, complex trilogy on the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland, in a dark, Graham Greene vein and with a rich sense of both tragedy and comedy. Another novel on the Troubles, THE PSALM KILLER by Christopher Petit, has an eerie quality of being both a documentary novel about the convoluted politics of Northern Ireland and a brutal thriller that has some common ground with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It’s also worth mentioning a few noir-ish late 20th-century Irish novels that aren’t exactly crime novels: Hugo Hamilton’s HEADBANGER and SAD BASTARD (featuring a cop and a noir atmosphere as well as considerable black comedy) and Seamus Smyth’s QUINN (featuring a career criminal and a lot of even blacker comedy).”

  Glenn? I love you like a mother from another brother, etc., but I have no idea of how Hugo Hamilton’s Pat Coyne tales, and that of Seamus Smyth’s QUINN, ‘aren’t exactly crime novels’. Hamilton, you could argue, offers a crude but quixotic protagonist raging against the world at large, and one who could just as easily be a middle-management figure as an Irish police detective tilting at the windmills of Irish justice or lack of same. But QUINN (1999), a first-person account of a killer-for-hire, is one of the defining Irish crime fiction novels of the current outpouring. Jump here for Ken Bruen’s verdict.
  Anyhoo, Tana French also features on the freebie list, and here ponders on why Irish writers took so long to embrace crime writing:

“Ireland had a deep, passionate resistance to bringing its problems out in the open. Maybe because of centuries of living under British rule, this country had an intense culture of secrecy: whatever you say, say nothing. Anything shameful or dangerous belonged tightly under wraps, unmentioned. To write about a murder, even a fictional one, would have gone very strongly against the grain. That mentality comes through even in one of the few pieces of Irish crime writing I can think of from before about 1990: John B. Keane’s powerful play The Field, in which a couple of local men kill an outsider for trying to buy a field that they feel belongs to them, and the community covers up the murder. Even the absence of crime writing can tell you a lot about a place.”

  Aye, sure we were all too busy slaughtering each other and starving to death to bother our collective arse writing about it. But lo! No more! For yea, verily, the full list of the MRJ’s contents runneth thusly:

• Shadows of Guilt: Ireland in the 1950s by John Banville, aka Benjamin Black
• Distance Lends Perspective by Colin Bateman
• Billy Boyle Goes to Ireland by James R. Benn
• An Irish Heroine by Rhys Bowen
• Crime Pays—On the Page by Declan Burke
• No, Not the Blarney Stone by Ken Bruen
• An Irishman's Lot by Doug M. Cummings
• The Importance of Being Irish by David Dickinson
• When Irish Writing Roots Are Showing... by Carole Nelson Douglas
• Where Fact Meets Fiction by Garbhan Downey
• Killing the Peace Process by Ruth Dudley Edwards
• The Roots of Murder by Tana French
• Rachel O'Reilly's Murder by Jenny Friel
• Josephine Tey and Nuala Anne McGrail by Father Andrew M. Greeley
• Finding Mythic Ireland by Lyn Hamilton
• Foxes, Cabbages & the Ancient Laws of Ireland by Cora Harrison
• Stumbling on a Body in the Bog by Erin Hart
• How the Irish Created My Civilization by Jeremiah Healy
• I Owe My Life to an Irish Criminal by Eoin Hennigan
• Irish Soul by Tobsha Learner
• A Literary Tour of One Dublin Author by Stephen Leather
• The Irish in P.I. Frank Johnson's Debut Outing by Ed Lynskey
• Casting a Cold Eye on the Gloss of Modern Ireland by K.T. McCaffrey
• Irish Connection by John McEvoy
• Patrolling the Border by Brian McGilloway
• The Absence of Death by Cormac Millar
• Writing and Ireland by Pat Mullan
• The Elusive Irishman by Teagan Oliver
• An Arresting Tale by Ralph Robb
• The Irish in Me by Les Roberts
• Balancing the Book by Zoë Sharp
• Lark and the Quaker Connection by Sheila Simonson
• Interwoven Irish by Therese Szymanski
• Irish Crime Writing: Truth Sells Better Than Fiction by Neville Thompson
• Sister Fidelma, 7th-Century Supersleuth by Peter Tremayne

Hmmm, colour us impressed. Meanwhile, the Macavity Award nominees have been announced, and John Connolly and – oh yes! – the ever-radiant Tana French are among the front-runners. To wit:

Best Novel
SOUL PATCH by Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House)
THE UNQUIET by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton*/Atria)
BLOOD OF PARADISE by David Corbett (Ballantine Mortalis)
WATER LIKE A STONE by Deborah Crombie (HarperCollins)
WHAT THE DEAD KNOW by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

Best First Mystery
IN THE WOODS by Tana French (Hodder & Stoughton*/Viking)
HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
THE SPELLMAN FILES by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)
STEALING THE DRAGON by Tim Maleeny (Midnight Ink)
THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM by Matt Beynon Rees (Soho)

  So there you have it. Irish crime fiction – we finally pulled our heads out of the sand and thumbs out of our asses and started talking about what’s really happening in modern Ireland. Sure aren’t we only marvellous all the same?