Smarter Than The Average Bears

It’s a pic-a-nic, Boo-Boo. If you do happen to be in the vicinity of the Electric Picnic this coming Saturday, September 4th, here’s a gentle reminder that the crème-de-la-crème of Irish crime writing (and one clot) will be yakking it up over at the Arts Council Literary Stage as part of the Mindfield offerings over the weekend. Yours truly is said clot, hosting a conversation between the inseparable Arlene Hunt and Declan Hughes (above right) and Gene Kerrigan about the books that inspired them to take reading and writing seriously when they were kids, so expect more than one reference to Enid Blyton. As for your humble host, and given the way the writing career isn’t exactly working out as anticipated, I’m planning on breaking out my radical ‘trapped-in-a-box’ mime routine. Don’t say you haven’t been warned …
  The following weekend, Dun Laoghaire hosts the Mountains to Sea literary festival, and I’ll be front and centre at 12 noon on Saturday 11th for what promises to be an enthralling hour of conversation between Eoin McNamee and Stuart Neville - providing, of course, the Dun Laoghaire folks provide an interpreter that allows our delicate Southern ears to decipher those beguiling Norn Iron accents. Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION is one of the finest thrillers I’ve read so far this year, and is even better than his many-splendoured debut, THE TWELVE, while McNamee’s ORCHID BLUE, which is published in November and offers a fictionalised version of a true crime that occurred in 1950’s Newry, is probably his best novel yet. All in all, a tantalising prospect.
  I’m also hoping to get along to see Kate Atkinson at the Mountains to Sea festival. I missed out on WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, but Atkinson’s recent release, STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, is a tremendous piece of work. She’ll be in conversation with Mia Gallagher at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, the 11th, at the Pavilion Theatre …

Irish Crime Fiction, Eh? Now That Is A Novel Idea …

John Spain, literary editor at the Irish Independent, lamented the State of the Irish Novel back at the end of December, the gist of his piece running thusly:

“In that sense 2007 was another year in Irish fiction when not much emerged that was new or engaged with Celtic Tiger Ireland … It was more of the same misery, sexual unhappiness and navel-gazing. Isn’t it time our best writers got over themselves and started to tackle the Ireland of today? […] Non-fiction writers like historian Roy Foster and economist David McWilliams have been trying to capture the changes of the last 20 or 30 years in their most recent books. But so far our fiction writers – even the gifted [Anne] Enright – have dodged the challenge. It’s time to move on, guys.”

Erm, John? You might want to try, in no particular order, Gene Kerrigan, Ken Bruen, Tana French, Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway, Andrew Nugent, Ingrid Black, Sean Moncrieff, Mia Gallagher … Actually, it’s a pretty long list of diverse stories and storytellers, with a common theme being that they’re all investigating what makes the Ireland of today tick. Just thought we’d mention it …

The Monday Review

It’s Monday, they’re reviews, to wit: “It’s possible that Banville is the best writer at work in the genre at the moment, in terms of artfulness at least. His prose is simply brilliant, gorgeous and evocative and poetic. The sentences he writes stun, the descriptions of the people and the city seem lovingly penned,” says Fiona Walker of Benny Blanco's THE SILVER SWAN over at Euro Crime. “Grubby, creepy, sexy and dark, THE SILVER SWAN marks John Banville’s arrival as an unlikely new voice on the crime scene, rather than a snooty one-off visitor slumming it,” reckons Claire Sutherland at Perth Now. Over at the Daily Telegraph, Susanna Yager agrees: “Benjamin Black, John Banville’s crime alter ego, has followed up the acclaimed CHRISTINE FALLS with THE SILVER SWAN, another beautifully written but bleak tale featuring the melancholy pathologist, Quirke.” As does Joanna Hines at Time Out: “Black / Banville is unable to suppress his delight in observation and description, the need to stay and explore the endless present moment, and that is both the glory and the downfall of this valiant effort to fit in with a particular genre … This novel will probably appeal more to Banville’s existing fans than to anyone expecting the undemanding promise held out by crime fiction.” Hmm, snooty. No such quibbles from Jake Kerridge, also at the Daily Telegraph: “If CHRISTINE FALLS was an angrier book, [THE SILVER SWAN] is sadder. Black ensures that the familiar satisfactions of unravelling a mystery plot lead us to a very unsatisfying fact: that despicable crimes stem as easily from the most humdrum emotions of ordinary people as from the machinations of the power-hungry.” Meanwhile, here’s a late one for CHRISTINE FALLS: “A stylish, atmospheric thriller that is both beautifully written and solidly plotted … this elegantly crafted book with its haunting story is deeply satisfying,” raves Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, via Mystery Books Reviews. Onward to Claire Kilroy’s most recent offering: “TENDERWIRE is a carefully-balanced book, constructed with as much skill and precision as the instrument at the centre of it, and as haunting as the strains of its music,” says Hags, Harlots and Heroines, via Faye L. Booth … They’re still tumbling in for IN THE WOODS, to wit: “Just finished IN THE WOODS by Tana French and loved it. A great atmospheric mystery ...” says Janey at Book Crossing. “Brilliant! I enjoyed this book more than any I have read for quite a while. It is very well written and the story builds up beautifully. An astonishing first novel. It is very atmospheric and weaves a web of intrigue. The characters are believable and the whole book is excellent,” reckons one of the Bailiff Bridge Library Crime Readers’ Group. Oline H. Cogdill at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel includes IN THE WOODS in her ‘Best of 2007 debuts’ round-up: “An intelligent, atmospheric thriller blends the gothic novel with the modern mystery.” Spookily, the Baltimore Sun agrees virtually word-for-word: “Beautifully written, this intelligent thriller is laden with an atmosphere that blends shades of the gothic novel with the modern mystery.” On to Ronan Bennett’s latest: “ZUGZWANG is a novel worth a few days of your time, and if you love the game of chess, you won’t be able to get enough of this text that profiles the somewhat bizarre traits of a few well known chess players,” says iGoChess. There’s a double whammy for Andrew Nugent from Jill at Murder By The Book: “THE FOUR COURTS MURDER is written in the wry, elegant style of Cyril Hare and Edmund Crispin; SECOND BURIAL FOR A BLACK PRINCE is a more serious and affecting work, exploring the murder of a member of London’s Nigerian community with sensitivity, power, and astonishing insights into a little-known culture.” Mmm, lovely … LitMs at the Stinging Fly discussion board likes Mia Gallagher’s HELLFIRE quite a lot, to wit: “An amazing book – from its sprawling dark mythology to its spot-on Dublin skanger speak. A vivid, audacious, messy masterpiece … a brave and rare achievement.” Finally, Gerard Donovan’s JULIUS WINSOME is still generating raves, and from all points on the globe. First to the Caribbean: “The writing is sparse yet superb. The characters are heavy yet approachable. The story is quick yet involved. The result is an enthralling expose on the fall of an ostensibly normal man who is doomed by his inability to allow emotions or morality to impact fundamental decisions,” says a reader’s review at ttgapers, while Brienne Burnett, at The Program in Oz, is also impressed: “As a novel JULIUS WINSOME is constructed and written extremely well, with each chapter journeying you through Julius’s mental states which alternate from grief to anger to detached madness … The story ends like it begins, mysterious and quaint. It really is a lovely piece of writing.” It most certainly is that, ma’am …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: HELLFIRE by Mia Gallagher

Mia Gallagher’s debut novel utilises two risky devices to embellish its narrative, but boy, do they work. Firstly, the protagonist, Lucy Dolan, is trying to make sense of a horrific, life-changing event of 13 years earlier and narrates the story partly from the first person, but mostly from the second; she’s addressing her childhood friend, Nayler, who is the missing piece of the puzzle that is her life. This switching between pronouns works beautifully and imbues an epic story, which spans four generations, with a life-force from the beginning – who is this Nayler and why is he so central to the plot? It doesn’t become fully apparent to the end, but that device drives the narrative in its jumping from the present, which is 2003, back to the ’30s,’40s and ’50s of inner city Dublin and from there to the ’60s, right up to the heroin epidemic that infected the city in the ’80s. Secondly, the entire story is relayed in vernacular Dublinese, which can be tricky to pull off; Roddy Doyle is one the only writers to have successfully done it thus far. But Gallagher’s faithful rendering of Dublin’s wackers, ganglords, messenger boys, tinkers, dealers, fortune tellers, pimps, junkies and brassers is more comparable in flavour to Irvine Welsh (which is intended as a high compliment). My only criticism is that the novel is perhaps overly long – somewhere three-quarters of the way through it seemed as though its cohesiveness had slipped a little; the time that Lucy spends in prison feels like it could be shortened and is slightly at odds with the rest of the novel. But, that small quibble aside, it redeems itself by the end and HELLFIRE is, overall, as addictive as Lucy’s beloved ‘gear.’- Claire Coughlan

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

So don’t you play with Mia / ’Cos you’re playin’ with fire. HELLFIRE, that is, Mia Gallagher’s cracking debut tale, three copies of which we have to give away courtesy of the lovely folk at Penguin Ireland. First, the blurb elves:

On a midsummer’s evening, a young Dublin woman, Lucy Dolan, prepares for a showdown that will help make sense of a heart-breaking and brutal atrocity that happened thirteen years earlier, changing her life forever. As she waits for the arrival of the charismatic figure who is the key to the mystery, she recounts her life story – a rich and extraordinary tale spanning two generations of storytellers and deal-makers, fortune-tellers and gamblers, businessmen and warlords, and the people that feared, served and betrayed them. With each twist of this tumultuous story, Lucy revisits her childhood and early adolescence – trying to get her head around the things people do in the name of love and hate, greed and desire – and she pieces together afresh the events that led to the night that still haunts her.

Oooh, spooky. To be in with a chance of winning a copy, just tell us if hellfire is:

(a) Quite warm;
(b) Really, really hot;
(c) Don’t be complete Herbert, the pope said there’s no such thing as hell anymore.

Answers to dbrodb(at)gmail.com before noon on Monday, November 26, putting ‘Don’t be a complete Herbert’ in the subject line. Und Glück, unsere Freunde …

Do The Write Thing

It's like we keep telling you, people: crime always pays. There’s a pretty decent Irish crime fiction representation at next Saturday's writers’ day at Dublin City Library – Garbhan Downey (right), Mia Gallagher and Paul Kilduff are all offering their two cents, alongside Eoin McHugh (publisher at Transworld) and Patricia Deevy (Editorial Director, Penguin Ireland), among others. The idea is to take aspiring scribblers through every stage of the writing process, from page-blackening to finding an agent, self-promotion and securing a publisher. The details runneth thusly:

The Font Literary Agency, in association with Dublin City Libraries, hosts From Inspiration to Publication: A Day for Writers this coming Saturday, November 3, at Dublin City Library, 138-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 1, kicking off at 10am. Admission is €5 for the entire day, and it’s payable on the door, although it is advisable to book ahead.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 694: Mia Gallagher

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 LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
John Connolly, John Grisham, Jonathan Kellerman, Lee Child, Patricia Cornwell, Minette Walters, The Preacher graphic novels, any graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan (fantasy), Marian Keyes.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Reaching the end of a chapter when it’s finally right.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Tough question, there are so many good ones. I recently read Declan Hughes’ THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD and loved it. Very Ed McBain. Claire Kilroy’s TENDERWIRE is also brilliant; not strictly genre crime, but a wonderful tale of suspense and loss. And Cormac Millar’s AN IRISH SOLUTION featured a bad boy villain who I fell completely in love with.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I'd love to see Declan Hughes’ psychopath Podge in the flesh. The Irish actor Owen Roe would play him really well if he squeaked up his voice. If Hollywood did it they could cast Joe Pesci.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Not being able to write / writing.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Still working on it. Something about war, guilt, shame and families.
Who are you reading right now?
A sci-fi writer called Stephen Baxter. His book EVOLUTION is a fictional journey through major evolutionary periods in the earth’s history. Incredible and surprisingly readable. Like a mixture of Meercat Manor and The Sopranos.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Playful. Visceral. Edgy.

Mia Gallagher’s HELLFIRE is available in all good bookshops.

The Monday Review

How long has it been since we mentioned Eoin Colfer on these pages? That’s right, too long. “Another entertaining adventure from Eoin Colfer that has time travel, demons, warlocks, pixies, centaurs, fairies, dwarves, hitmen, bodyguards, and not one, but two human genii. I’m looking forward to the next instalment,” says Grubsneerg at Book Crossing of THE LOST COLONY … Over at Reviewing the Evidence, Diana Sandberg likes Cora Harrison’s MY LADY JUDGE, to wit: “I enjoyed reading this book. Many readers of historical mystery will be immediately reminded of another female working within the Brehon laws, Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma … The story would not suit a person looking for a thriller, it falls well into the realm of cozy, but many characters are well drawn and the historical and cultural information is nicely integrated into the story, not slathered on as some authors unfortunately do.” Which is lovely … “Despite being humourous, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of magic and action, SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT delivers, and delivers in style … Incredibly witty, and immensely fun – put SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT to the top of your “To be read” pile!” raves Bookiemonster about Derek Landy’s debut … “There are … occasional examples of clumsy phrasing. But these are minor quibbles. They do not detract from the smoothly crafted unfolding of the mystery and its surprising denouement,” says Roy Greenslade of Paul Charles’ THE DUST OF DEATH in the latest issue of Verbal … “SLIDE is slick. With the follow up to last year’s BUST, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have raised the bar. BUST … was a black comedy of errors; noir with a grin. The sequel is comic, but it’s not just slapstick. It’s satire,” asserts Nathan Cain over at Indie Crime … The big-ups just won’t quit for Ronan Bennett’s ZUGZWANG, to wit: “It is tempting to place ZUGZWANG in the same company as CJ Sansom’s WINTER IN MADRID and Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. What sets ZUGZWANG above those two works, however, is its complexity,” says Nick Greenslade in The Observer, although Julia Flynn, at The Telegraph, is rather less impressed: “I was bowled over by Bennett’s last novel, HAVOC IN ITS THIRD YEAR, but this one, despite excellent moments, does not scale the same heights. It is beautifully written, in lucid prose; but the story as a whole does not quite cohere.” Boo, etc. … They’re still coming in for Adrian McKinty’s latest: “Anyone in the mood for a few thrills need look no further than THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD … Literature buffs will enjoy McKinty’s numerous references to Joyce’s novel, which supplement the non-stop, and very bloody, excitement that Michael encounters on his own epic journey. Michael is an appealingly tough but tormented hero,” reckons Rebecca Oppenheimer at The Towerlight … And they just won’t stop coming for Tana French: “IN THE WOODS by Tana French is another solid debut novel … The ensuing psychological suspense tale has a teeny hint of the supernatural that provides a thrill of extra creepiness,” vouchsafes Ellen Datlow at her Live Journal … Benny Blanco’s latest, THE SILVER SWAN, isn’t due until next month, but Book Dwarf is already raving about it thusly: “Perhaps a stronger book than CHRISTINE FALLS (itself a strong debut in mystery), Black writes for an audience that doesn’t need all the answers handed to them … Black doesn’t rely on clichés and switchback plots to keep the book going. I hope he continues to write such gripping books.” … “A gripping follow-up to [Erin] Hart’s sensational debut, weaving together history, folklore, and forensics, and following in the evocative tradition of writers such as Elizabeth George and Daphne du Maurier, LAKE OF SORROWS is a passionate novel of suspense from a superbly gifted new crime-writing star,” raves Paperback Swap … Back to Verbal for Mia Gallagher’s HELLFIRE: “The book should be depressing since its rare moments of drug-free clarity portray a relentlessly harrowing world. Yet because of the author’s sheer ability with words and an abundance of characters that would have been the envy of Dickens, one reads on – perhaps white-knuckled,” says Sean McMahon. Finally, Sean Moncrieff’s THE HISTORY OF THINGS received some well-deserved oxygen this weekend, first from the Irish Times: “Moncrieff is a fluid, confident writer who expertly creates a sense of genuine menace, and this very readable book is genuinely unnerving at times … The story’s oppressive, threatening atmosphere lingers in the reader’s mind long after the final page,” says Anna Carey. The Sunday Tribune liked it too: “This ability to pique interest and hold it is ably assisted by his clipped, concise sentences which subtly switch between genuinely hilarious riffs and seemingly throwaway lines that only add depth. Moncrieff often leaves both jokes and key events to hang in the air and enhance the emotion.” Okay, but can the boy Moncrieff juggle chainsaws underwater? Huh? He can? Oh …

“More Brimstone, Vicar?”

Mia Gallagher’s Hellfire, published by Penguin at the beginning of summer, somehow managed to slip under the Crime Always Pays radar, for which dereliction of duty a number of radar-manning elves (radar-elving elves?) have been slathered in honey and staked out over an anthill. For lo! T’would appear Ms Gallagher has written something of a modern Irish classic! A first-person narrative of junk addiction in a Dublin inner-city ghetto, delivered in the local argot, it’s been garnering the kind of raves that are but a hairsbreadth from rants, to wit: “The gamble Gallagher takes - to insist on the redemptive power of story through one restricted voice and over so many pages - pays off. That’s an extraordinary ambition. A grand achievement, too,” says Niall Griffiths at Guardian Unlimited, while the Irish Emigrant made it their Book of the Week: “Ms Gallagher’s debut novel is a tour de force, an immensely powerful story written with an honesty that is both shocking and deeply affecting.” And the resolutely restrained Sunday Business Post was particularly moved. Quoth Alex Meehan: “The hell of the addict’s existence is rendered normal through Lucy’s eyes and it is horrible to witness. That we care so much speaks highly of a character drawn well with a believable narrative. This book could have been about the ugliness of heroin but instead it’s about the beauty of hope.” Dare we finish this post with an exultant “Mama Mia!”? Lawks, we do!