Declan Burke Writes

“Life, unlike crime, was not something you could solve ,” observes the retired Parisian police inspector Auguste Jovert in Mark Henshaw’s Th...

I know that true success, according to Gore Vidal and others, means that you triumph while your friends fail, but I can’t help feeling more ...

I find myself in something of a bind courtesy of the good folks at Spinetingler Magazine. Their annual Award nominees have just been announ...

Zero hour approaches, folks. The date for the official launch of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (Liberties Press) has been set, and it’s August 10th, ...

It’s not a book I hear mentioned a lot these days, but Alistair MacLean’s WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL is one of my favourite crime thrillers, and...

“ Good times for a change / See, the luck I’ve had / Can make a good man turn bad …” I don’t invoke those mopey depressmeisters The Smiths...

I had a piece published in the Irish Times yesterday, the gist of it concerned with the development of the crime novel in settings and coun...

All three regular readers of CAP will be aware that John McFetridge (right) is a terrific writer , or at least good enough to be dubbed ‘th...

Canada is justifiably lauded for many things, but gritty urban noir isn’t one of them. Unless, of course, you’re one of the cognoscenti who...

A strange old week, folks. First off, heartfelt thanks to everyone who left a comment on the post below, and those of you who got in touch ...

As all three regular readers of this blog will know, I’ve been banging on about a writers’ co-op recently, this despite (or because of) the...

I posted last week about Darley Anderson’s comments on how ‘good writing’ was less important to his literary agency than character and plo...

Get out the ceremonial kazoo, maestro: John McFetridge announces that the paperback of EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE will be published o...

It’s over a year now since I read John McFetridge’s SWAP, the third in his oeuvre after the Toronto-set DIRTY SWEET and EVERYBODY KNOWS TH...

Stick a fork in my skinny white ass, I’m done. At least, I’m done for the next 10 days – by the time you read this, I’ll be with the Lovely...

Okay, so you’ve probably had it up to your proverbials with A GONZO NOIR blurbs this week, but I really couldn’t resist this one. All three...

I’ve mentioned the Holden Caulfield impulse before on these pages, the Holden Caulfield impulse being the one where Holden says that someti...

The Spinetingler Awards are with us again, people, and all very democratic it is too – if you can click a mouse, you can vote. The good new...

Some interesting news via John Connolly’s blog , folks, where he’s musing on a novel he’s currently writing: “At the same time, having fini...

There’s been a lot of negativity and pessimism around these here parts lately – I blame John McFetridge, myself – but here’s a piece from P...