“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 193: Michael Carroll

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 Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie. A great romp, lots of fun, some great jokes and really nice twists. It’s more of a spy thriller than a typical crime novel but it’s so good I just had to mention it. It’s also one of the very few cases in which a comedian has written a book that’s actually readable.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Old Marvel comics: I’ve got the first forty years of Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men on DVD Rom (actual bought copies from shops - none of this bootleg stuff for me!). A lot of the early tales are silly, overblown and overwritten, but they’re presented with such fun and gusto that they’re tremendously entertaining.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Typing “The End” on the last day of every first draft. Even though the book still has a long way to go, getting the first draft completed always feels a major achievement. Reality kicks in a few days later when I go back over it with my Ruthless Red Pen.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
I really enjoyed Jim Lusby’s A Waste of Shame. It’s the sort of book that makes me wish I had a time-machine and fewer scruples.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Black Angel by John Connolly is very filmable. I can see it as a vehicle for someone like Ridley Scott. In fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t already been made.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best thing: Being able to work from home. Worst thing: Constantly receiving phone calls from well-meaning friends and relatives who mistakenly believe I want to know how successful my peers are. “Did you see Darren Colfer was in the paper again? He’s sold a short story for eighteen billion dollars and it’s going to be made into a big-budget movie! And he’s bought another island! And he’s younger than you are! Isn’t that great?” Yes. It’s bloody marvellous. Now please leave me in peace to eat my hearty lunch of dry yellow-pack noodles straight out of the packet.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Top secret. I never reveal anything about upcoming work until I’ve actually written it (because if I tell someone then I've gotten it out of my system and that diminishes the impetus to write). Besides, I’ve got four different ideas I’m currently developing. I know that’s usually a writer’s euphemism for “I’ve done nothing but play Solitaire on my computer for the past six months”, but I promise that this time it’s true.
Who are you reading right now?
Well, I could pretend that I’m reading something worthy by some obscure dead nineteenth-century writer, but I’m not. I'm re-reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels, and I’m about to embark on a lengthy voyage through Janet Evanovich’s entire Stephanie Plum series (if my sister ever gives them back).
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
After MUCH deliberation, I’ve concluded that the only three words that accurate describe my writing are: “By Michael Carroll”. Sorry. I was tempted to come over all humble and put “could be better” or something like that, but I’m not quite that mad.

Michael Carroll’s The New Heroes: Absolute Power is available in all good bookshops

Here We Go A-Carrolling

The promo elves over at HarperCollins were kind enough to send us on a copy of the third in Michael Carroll’s The New Heroes series, Absolute Power, which unprovoked generosity increased our store of Michael Carroll-related info by roughly 100%. A disgraceful state of affairs, that, particularly as Carroll has in the past been short-listed for the Ottakar’s Children’s Book Prize - here’s hoping that that consignment of elf-sized hair-shirts comes through by the end of the week, eh? Anyhoo, here’s an excerpt from an interview with Michael conducted by Fractal Matter that increases the Comic Book Guy quotient of Crime Always Pays by roughly 1000%:

FM: Can you recall where your love of superheroes came from?
MC: “I can! Some time in the early 1970s my dad went to London. In those days travelling from Dublin to London was a big thing. Ireland was in the middle of a very long recession, and we were by no means a wealthy family. Anyway, while he was over there Dad bought me a copy of The Mighty World of Marvel, a black-and-white comic that reprinted some of the early Marvel stories. I’d never seen anything like it! The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four… I was completely blown away. Shortly after that, the UK Marvel comics started being imported to Ireland, so I was able to get a reasonably regular fix. Around that time I was also lucky enough to see one of the original Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons on a friend’s television set (we didn’t own a TV at the time - I told you we weren’t wealthy, didn’t I?), and one of my friends owned a little Batman figure with a parachute. I was hooked on superheroes, and especially loved Spider-Man, but what really impressed me was the Marvel UK reprint of The Avengers. My first issue was #16 - “The Old Order Changeth” – the one in which Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch joined the team. I actually still have that comic. Well, most of it: the cover is long gone and I coloured in the splash page …”

Michael? We believe there is help available. But you must want to be cured.

The Monday Review: Yet More Hup-Ya Frippery From The Interweb Margins

Good vibes for Eoin McNamee’s 12:23 this week, to wit: “Although McNamee’s in-between of fact and fiction is blurred – with some characters from real life, some fiction and others hard to tell – its blend is part of its skill, and the novel is more than just an entertainment using the princess’s death as a point of commercial departure. In keeping with McNamee’s previous explorations of the unaccountable worlds of secret intelligence, it offers a serious meditation on the nature of conspiracy,” says Chris Petit at The Guardian … They’re inclined to agree at Reading Matters: “Despite the roller-coaster of emotions that this book delivers, this is not an easy read. It’s written in the cold, emotionally distant manner of a spy thriller, employing language that is clipped, dry and very sparse … But McNamee has a way with words and is able, through just a handful of phrases, to evoke all manner of dark emotion.” Meanwhile, Tom Adair of The Scotsman comes over all historical: “The text of his story is flawlessly polished, you can’t see the join between documentary and invention, though some of the spooks are reminiscent of Graham Greene’s finest early creations.” Lovely stuff … “I am not the first to remark on the importance of plot in Glenn Meade’s books, and The Devil’s Disciple could not carry on at the speed and length it does if was not tightly plotted, and if every character did not have surprising secret or at least was capable of being suspected of having some surprising secret,” reckons LJ Hurst at Shotsmag … But stay! T’would appear Critical Mick has allowed a shaft of sunlight into his deep, dark dungeon of Critical Mickism, to wit: “[Andrew] Nugent’s narrative was told in a good-humoured, hopeful, and sincere voice that gradually charmed even my cranky heart. By its conclusion, The Four Courts Murder had won me over, snakes and bell-ropes and all. How could I, of all people, forget: the one rule is that there are no rules, it is whatever an author can make work.” From the monk to the priest: Publisher’s Weekly is impressed with Andrew M. Greeley’s latest Blackie Ryan outing, The Bishop at the Lake: “A few chapters … jar, but strong character development, snappy dialogue and a multilayered plot make this one of the better entries in the series,” quibble they via Amazon US … The Library Journal of Review likes Gerard Donovan’s Julius Winsome: “This novel of great emotional impact is enthusiastically recommended,” they say rather tersely via Powell’s Books, where you’ll also find Mr and Mrs Kirkus offering a glowing report thusly: “Donovan’s command of language is astonishingly precise, eerily reflecting Julius’s disarmingly mild-mannered pathology as it ascribes no more importance to the cold-blooded shooting of a hunter than to going into town for groceries. Finely tooled outsider fiction, as chilling as it is ultimately humane.” Which is nice … “The New Heroes must remain the superhero series of choice for the sophisticated young reader, bringing many disparate and literary elements to the much-maligned and often ill-served genre,” says Write Away of Michael Carroll’s latest, Absolute Power … Love Reading loved reading Declan Hughes’ The Wrong Kind of Blood, to wit: “A great new voice in the thriller genre, gripping and authentic, and even when you get close to figuring out ‘who’ you have to read to the end to understand ‘why’. Ed Loy is the central character and we can’t wait for the next in the series – make sure you don’t miss out.” Message received and understood, folks … “His most visceral, satisfying effort yet …[Adrian] McKinty writes masterful action scenes and he whips up a frenzy as the bullets begin to fly,” says Publishers Weekly of The Bloomsday Dead over here … Finally, some Ken Bruen / Ammunition hup-yas to start the week off in traditional pirate fashion: “This reviewer’s reaction to the novel is ambivalent. The writing is interesting, characterizations poignant. Yet the story is confusing, except for the main theme of the shooting and Brant’s reaction to it … the other players and their stories are less meaningful, and, more important, perplexing, at least to me,” reckons the comma-crazy Theodore, Feit, at, Films and Books … Happily, Book Reporter was a little less baffled: “Like McBain, [Bruen] can make you laugh at human foibles and absurdity one moment and then bring you right back into the random terror of modern life the next … Bruen is a master of noir, taking that very American genre and putting a unique Irish twist on it. Books like Ammunition are quick, fun reads, excursions to the dark side of the street. If you haven’t read them, then search out the entire series.” And, so, say, all, of, us – except, Theodore, Feit, obviously …