“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Sheena Lambert

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?
Kevin Barry’s CITY OF BOHANE – although there is no way that book would ever have found its way inside my head.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Mrs Danvers …

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Penny Vincenzi. Like Jilly Cooper, but better. Give me champagne-drinking, horse (and other people’s husbands)-riding, upper-class, family saga escapism over James Joyce any day. Sorry, James.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Seeing my first full-length play, ‘Glanaphuca’, come to life onstage in rehearsed reading at The New Theatre in Dublin last year. It’s something a novelist never gets to see – but as a playwright, I observed my characters as real, living people for two hours on a cold day in December, and not only did I get to hear them speak, I got to witness the audience’s reaction to them. Amazing. Amazing.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
Liz Nugent’s UNRAVELLING OLIVER.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
THE LAKE, of course! And I cannot wait to see ‘City of Bohane – The Movie’ when it comes out (I think there is a screenplay in the works …). I’m picturing a ‘Sin City’-type production myself.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best: Being able to work anytime, anywhere. Worst: Your siblings looking at you like you should probably be trying to get a real job.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Some family trees should never be climbed.

Who are you reading right now?
Just finished ALL THE THINGS I NEVER TOLD YOU by Celeste Ng.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write of course! I LOVE reading my own stuff!!

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Original, readable and fabulous.

Sheena Lambert’s THE LAKE is published by Killer Reads.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Richard Beard

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 love the Robert B. Parker Spenser novels (‘you remember more stuff that doesn’t make you money than anyone I know’). I’m also a big fan of the Australian crime writer Peter Temple. My favourite of his has to be The Fatal Shore, and if I were Australian and utterly brilliant, that’s the novel I’d like to have written.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?

Ah, I know the answer to this one - not anyone realistic. Otherwise I could become that person in real life. I’d like to be someone so obviously fictional that I’d live an entirely novel experience. Maybe one of the characters from The Da Vinci Code, though none of the ones that get killed (though how would it feel to be killed, if I were fictional?)

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?

Most writers will tell you, a little righteously, that no reading should feel guilty. I’m not among them. When nothing else hits the spot I go to the library and take out a celebrity biography. I’m a sucker for the rags (not always that raggy) to riches (usually surprisingly rich). Recent under-the-cover reads have included Chris Evans and Alex James. But like McDonalds, one is enough for a while.

Most satisfying writing moment?

There comes a time towards the end of writing a novel when it feels as if the plane is coming into land. The effort of getting this unwieldy contraption off the ground, then finding a destination, then managing the fuel (add other flying metaphors to taste) is almost at an end. Now there are small tweaks that can make significant improvements, and my fingers feel the music in the keyboard. I’m overcome by a physical sense of elation. The euphoria doesn’t last, but that’s the best bit.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?

This feels the wrong way round – Crime Always Pays should be recommending Irish crime novels to me. I’m pretty up to speed on the brilliant Stuart Neville, and would recommend him to anyone who enjoys a bit of finely-crafted mayhem.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?

Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane, with its dapper gangsters and eternal grudges, has to count as a crime novel (among other possible classifications). And even though the rhythms of the language are one of the great pleasures of the Kevin Barry reading experience, the world he creates is intensely visual. He writes a future in techni-colour, and a daring film-maker who could combine the Bohane plot with a cinematic equivalent to Barry’s language could make a film like no other.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?

I like being in charge of my own time, when I am. Not so keen on the anxiety, but mustn’t grumble.

The pitch for your next book is …?

Italian-born Claudia Moretti, as she approaches retirement as a state-employed Speculator, is assigned to Messiah Watch. In particular, she responds to reports of cults where the leader claims to be immortal - from experience the government knows that immortality is trouble. There’s an easy way to refute the claim to immortality, but when Claudia is sent to small town Ephesus in bible-belt Georgia, nothing is quite as it seems.

Acts of the Assassins is the second book in a trilogy, following Lazarus is Dead. This is a ‘trilogy’ in a very loose sense – all three books are self-contained. At the end of Acts of the Assassins all the disciples are dead, except John. This is his story. (Which doesn’t yet have a title – suggestions welcome).

Who are you reading right now?

I’m reading a Bible commentary by Richard Bauckham called The Theology of the Book of Revelation, and alternating that chapter by chapter with an idiot’s guide to physics: The Quantum Universe: Everything that Can Happen Does Happen, by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. You did ask.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?

Would have to be reading. Other writers (especially all of them gathered together) have much more of interest to say than I do.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Never knowingly unedited.

Acts of the Assassins by Richard Beard is published by Harvill Secker.

“Democracy Is Coming / To The IBA …”

Editor's note: The public vote for the Irish Book Awards closes on Sunday, November 18th. Here’s a post from a couple of weeks back, in which I suggest a couple of books and writers that I think are worth your hanging chad …

I’m not hugely enthralled, I have to say, with the idea that the prizes in the Irish Book Awards will be decided, in part at least, by a public vote. I do appreciate that a public vote means raising the profile of the Awards, and by extension that of all the writers involved, and that this can only be a good thing; and God knows the publishing industry in Ireland, and all who sail in her, could do with all the help they can get right now.
  That said, it just doesn’t feel right to harangue people to vote for your book. For starters, I’m not very good at asking people for favours. If I was, I wouldn’t have retreated into a silent room to fabricate fantastical versions of reality; I’d have gone into politics, and told the whole world any old lie they wanted to hear.
  It’s also true that anyone who spends any time on Twitter or Facebook, et al, is badgered on a daily basis to vote for people and things they’ve never heard of before, which rather undermines the whole basis of the award process in the first place. Literary awards aren’t some kind of Olympic Games, in which there’s only one clear winner; but even allowing for the inevitable intrusion of taste, opinion and prejudice, a literary award should aspire to reward quality rather than quantity. I don’t believe it should become a popularity contest, especially as we already have the bestseller lists as a reasonable guide to a writer’s popularity (or - koff - lack of same).
  And even if you confine your ‘Vote for Me-Me-Me!’ requests to those people who have already read and liked your book, that’s a bit much too. You’ve already asked people to pay good money for the book, and to devote their precious reading time to your tome. To ask any more is a little rude, I think.
  Mind you - and this may sound perverse, or even hypocritical - I do like the notion of the various shortlists being established by public vote, with a panel of judges then deciding which of the shortlisted offerings is the best. Does that make any sense? Or is it just replicating the issues outlined above, but at an earlier stage in the process?
  Anyway, I won’t be asking you to vote for my own book this year, but given that the system is what it is, I’m more than happy to point out some shortlisted books that I’ve read and enjoyed, and which you might well enjoy too if you haven’t already. To wit:

In the Popular Fiction category, Marian Keyes is nominated for THE MYSTERY OF MERCY CLOSE, which is a very funny take on the private eye novel but one that’s pretty dark and poignant too. Incidentally, Melissa Hill is shortlisted here as well, for THE CHARM BRACELET; I haven’t read it, but I was surprised that Casey Hill’s TORN didn’t make the Crime Fiction shortlist.

Over in the Novel of the Year category we have Keith Ridgway’s HAWTHORN & CHILD, another crime-influenced tome, albeit a crime novel in which all the conventional narrative gambits have been excised. A very interesting offering. I’ve also read Kevin Barry’s DARK LIES THE ISLAND, which I’d be inclined to vote for out of sheer devilment, simply because it’s collection of short stories shortlisted for novel of the year.

In the Crime Fiction category, I’ve gone on record many times to say that Tana French’s BROKEN HARBOUR is a superb piece of work, and well worth your time. Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, it’s easily the most terrifying book on any of the shortlists this year. Also in contention is TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT by Niamh O’Connor, a writer I’ve huge admiration for.

I haven’t read any of the titles in the Sports Book of the Year category, but if Keith Duggan’s surfing tome THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY is half as good as his weekly columns in the Irish Times then it’s probably an instant classic. Also, it rips its title from THE PRINCESS BRIDE, which means Keith Duggan should be conferred with sainthood in time for Christmas.

In the Children’s Book of the Year category it’s very difficult to see past Eoin Colfer’s ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE LAST GUARDIAN, which is a stonking good read, very funny, and a satisfying climax to the Artemis Fowl epic cycle. I loved it.

Finally, the Bookshop of the Year category features ye olde Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar, Dublin, which has hosted more book launches of mine than I care to remember (two, to be precise). A fine emporium, and well worth your patronage.

  So there you have it. The Irish Book Awards - vote early, folks, but not often …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” Marian Keyes

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?
The first book by Nicci French. I think it was called THE MEMORY GAME, it’s a long time since I read it but I remember being awestruck by the subject matter (‘retrieved’ memories of childhood abuse) and all the twists and turns that go with something as unreliable as that.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
I’d like to be Faith Zanetti from the series by Anna Blundy. She’s tough and cool and funny.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t think any reading should be regarded as a guilty pleasure. If you’re enjoying whatever you’re reading, then there’s no need to apologise for it.

If you could recommend one Irish crime novel, what would it be?
Ah here! There are so many brilliant books and if I pick one, all the writers I didn’t choose will take agin me. [Ed - I'm afraid I'm going to have to put a gun to your head, ma'am.] However, as you have the gun to my head, I’m going to go for THE LIKENESS by Tana French because the atmosphere is so magical and strange and spooky.

Most satisfying writing moment?
I’d never written a ‘mystery’ book before THE MYSTERY OF MERCY CLOSE and plot-wise it was a big challenge, but most people don’t guess the whereabouts of my missing person. I was ‘quietly pleased’.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I’m not sure Kevin Barry will thank me for describing CITY OF BOHANE as a crime novel, but it is, as well as being about 800 different types of book. It’d be great to see the fantastic, colourful world he’s created, on the screen. (Mind you, I get cranky when people go on about turning books into films, as if the medium of books is somehow second-rate …)

The best thing about being a writer?
Getting to play with words. I love words. They’re beautiful things.

The pitch for your next book is …
My current book (THE MYSTERY OF MERCY CLOSE) is a missing persons case about a ex-boyband member who has disappeared five days before a massive reunion gig. Is that any good to you?

What are you reading right now?
GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn. Bloody fantastic!!!

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
First of all I’d have strong words with God about the cruelty of the human condition. When I was finished berating him, I’d pick reading. I love writing but it’s very fecking hard.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Conversational, dark, funny.

THE MYSTERY OF MERCY CLOSE by Marian Keyes is published by Michael Joseph.