Out Of The Past, Again

Congratulations again to all those shortlisted in the Ireland AM Crime Fiction category at the Irish Book Awards. I know that no one sits down to write a book in order to see it nominated for a prize, but it is a very nice bonus when it does happen, and I’m delighted for everyone involved.
  All told, it’s been another very good year for Irish crime fiction. Looking at my shelves during the week, I realised that the following books were just some of those eligible for the Crime Fiction award, all of them, in my not-very-humble opinion, equally entitled to consider themselves shortlist material:

RATLINES by Stuart Neville
CROCODILE TEARS by Mark O’Sullivan
COLD CASE by Patrick McGinley
I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET by Adrian McKinty
CROSS OF VENGEANCE by Cora Harrison
SCREWED by Eoin Colfer
GRAVELAND by Alan Glynn
THE DEAL by Michael Clifford
ECHOLAND by Joe Joyce
HOLY ORDERS by Benjamin Black

  There were many more Irish crime novels published this year, of course; those above are just the ones I’ve read. If I’ve missed out on any you think deserve a mention, feel free to let me know.
  Incidentally, it may or may not be interesting that six of the ten novels listed above are historical novels, while three of the six shortlisted for the award are also set in the past. That’s also true of three further novels: Arlene Hunt’s THE OUTSIDER, Conor Brady’s THE ELOQUENCE OF THE DEAD and John McAllister’s THE STATION SERGEANT.
  Maybe the past isn’t such a different country after all; maybe things aren’t done so differently there as we might like to imagine.

The Growth Economy

Journalist and non-fiction author Michael Clifford made his crime fiction debut last year with GHOST TOWN, and a very fine piece of work it was too. He returns this year with THE DEAL (Hachette Ireland), with the blurb elves wibbling thusly:

Karen Riney is a young woman desperate to put bad memories behind her and get back on her feet when she hits upon an idea to make fast money. In the depths of a recession, there’s no business like the grow house business. But getting her venture off the ground requires some assistance. Enter Paschal Nix, a Dublin crime lord with a fearsome reputation. Nix provides more than money for the deal by throwing in the services of out-of-work builder Kevin Wyman, who is up to his ears in hoc to Nix and grappling with serious personal problems. He also dispatches hitman-for-hire Dara Burns to keep an eye on the investment, a man who’s fiercely guarding his back in a world where life is cheap. All have their eyes on one prize: a quick killing. But as Karen Riney soon learns, when you’re in over your head, there’s no such thing as easy money. THE DEAL is a gripping, blind-siding tale of greed, revenge and the price of survival.

  I’ve yet to see a copy, but I’m reliably informed that THE DEAL is in the shops as we speak. If it’s on a par with GHOST TOWN, it will be one of the best Irish crime novels of the year.

A Week Of A Thousand Scribes

It’s been one of those weeks. One of THOSE WEEKS. Last Saturday I did a very pleasant event at Electric Picnic with one of my all-time heroes, the shockingly modest and self-effacing Ken Griffin, during which I read from SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and Ken played acoustic versions of the Rollerskate Skinny songs I mention / quote from in the novel. It may not sound like a lot, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime gig for yours truly.
  I also bumped into Keith Ridgway at the Picnic, and had a short but sweet chat about how his new novel, HAWTHORN AND CHILD, isn’t really a crime novel but might be, sorta.
  Onward then to Wednesday, when I interviewed Howard Jacobson, who has just published ZOO TIME, the follow-up to his Booker Prize-winning THE FINKLER QUESTION. The novel - ZOO TIME - might well have been written about yours truly, given that it’s a comedy about a failing, narcissistic writer, although if the truth be told, all writers are equally narcissistic and failing. Anyway, Howard Jacobson was wonderful company - irreverent, funny, thoughtful, profane. A hugely enjoyable hour or so.
  On Thursday it was off to Dubray Books on Grafton Street in Dublin, for the launch of BOOKS TO DIE FOR, where John Connolly and I were joined by contributors Brian McGilloway, John Banville, Arlene Hunt, Eoin Colfer, Stuart Neville and Colin Bateman. All of which was terrific, but Barbara Nadel and Julia Wallis Martin also flew over from the UK to join in the festivities, which was very much in keeping with the spirit of the book. The good people at Dubray arranged the writers in a conveyor belt-style set-up for signing purposes, which left me sitting between Eoin Colfer and John Banville and - not to put too fine a point on it - acutely aware of my deficiencies. Ah well. Declan Hughes, who was elsewhere detained at the Mountains to Sea Festival out in Dun Laoghaire for the actual launch, schlepped along to the post-launch party, and regaled all and sundry - as is his wont - with details of how his new play is progressing. Said play will open at The Gate next month, incidentally, so stick that one in your diary.
  On Friday I took myself off to Dun Laoghaire for the aforementioned Mountains to Sea Festival, where I hosted a conversation between two very fine Irish crime writing debutants, Conor Brady (A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS) and Michael Clifford (GHOST TOWN). It’s a very impressively run festival, Mountains to Sea, I have to say, and Conor and Michael had a very fine turn-out.
  Saturday morning I jaunted in as far as Dundrum, there to meet with Lee Child to interview him about his latest Jack Reacher offering, A WANTED MAN. A very nice guy, Lee Child, even if he has lowered his standards so far as to provide a big-up for the cover for yours truly’s latest tome. He’s remarkably frank, too, when discussing topics such as Tom Cruise and Ian McEwan. All told, another very pleasant hour.
  Back to Dun Laoghaire for Saturday afternoon, then, to host a crime writing workshop that was filled out by eight very interesting authors-in-progress, all of whom were at a different stage of the writing process. Hand on heart, I honestly can’t say that I was much use to them, but I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours we put in, and that I learned quite a bit myself. Not the object of the exercise, of course, but great fun all the same.

  I’ll heading back to Dun Laoghaire again this afternoon, this time to read alongside - or in the shadow of - the great Daniel Woodrell. I’m presuming it’ll be terrifying and exhilarating in equal parts, but hopefully I won’t disgrace myself entirely.
  And after that, happy days, I can relax into … Oh hold on, no. I’m off to the UK next week to gatecrash John Connolly’s THE WRATH OF ANGELS / BOOKS TO DIE FOR tour, and meet the lovely burghers of York, Scarborough, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool to talk books, books, books.
  Not incidentally, there were a couple of very nice feature pieces on BOOKS TO DIE FOR in the newspapers yesterday. For more, clickety-click here and here …
  People, I love this life …

Mountains To Sea: Book Early, Book Often

Two of the more interesting Irish crime fiction debuts this year were A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS by Conor Brady and GHOST TOWN by Michael Clifford. They were two very different books, one being a historical crime novel, the other being so contemporary it might well have been ripped from tomorrow’s headlines, but they had in common a background in journalism - or their authors did, at least.
  On Friday evening, September 7th, I’ll be hosting a conversation between Michael Clifford and Conor Brady at the Mountains to Sea Festival in Dun Laoghaire, the event taking place at the Pavilion Theatre at 6.30pm. I’ll be particularly interested in finding out how each of them brought their experience in journalism to bear on their particular stories, or if they had to leave behind a fact-based approach in pursuit of their fiction. If you’re going to be in the vicinity, we’d love to see you there …
  It’s going to be a busy weekend for yours truly in Dun Laoghaire, actually. On Saturday I’ll be hosting a crime writing workshop, while on Sunday evening I’ll be reading with Daniel Woodrell. That should be a suitably chastening experience …

A Blume By Any Other Name

The latest Irish Times ‘Crime Beat’ column was published on Saturday, featuring short reviews of the latest titles from Elmore Leonard, Claire McGowan, Barry Forshaw, Hesh Kestin and Lyndsay Faye. It also included THE NAMESAKE by Conor Fitzgerald. To wit:

Commissioner Alec Blume returns in Conor Fitzgerald’s third novel, THE NAMESAKE (Bloomsbury, £11.99), although the usual Rome setting quickly gives way to southern Italy as Blume investigates the murder of an apparently innocent man and discovers that the victim shares a name with a magistrate intent on prosecuting a high-ranking member of the Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia. As with Claire McGowan’s novel, THE NAMESAKE is as much an exploration of the social, cultural and political factors that led to the rise of the Ndrangheta as it is a conventional police procedural; indeed, the book has as much in common with a spy novel, as Blume joins an undercover agent as he penetrates the Calabrian heartland.
  Exquisitely written in a quietly elegant style, and dotted with nuggets of coal-black humour, THE NAMESAKE is a bold blend of genre conventions that confirms Fitzgerald’s growing reputation as an author whose novels comfortably straddle the increasingly fine line between crime and literary fiction.

  Elsewhere, over the last few days, Eilis O’Hanlon reviewed the debut offering from Michael Clifford, GHOST TOWN; and Eamon Delaney reviewed yet another debut Irish crime title, Conor Brady’s A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS.

Do You Remember The Good Old Days Before The GHOST TOWN?

A fine old time was had last Wednesday night at the Hodges Figgis ‘Crime Night’, and very nice it was to meet with some familiar names, and put faces to said names. It was a tidy turn-out, too, and I sincerely hope that everyone who turned up enjoyed it as much as I did. Most enjoyable, perhaps, was the fact that the evening’s moderator, Professor Ian Campbell-Ross, declared yours truly the ‘senior member’ of a panel that included Arlene Hunt and Conor Brady, which was the first and very probably the last time I’ll be referred to as such in the presence of an ex-Irish Times editor.
  One person I didn’t get to speak with, unfortunately, was Michael Clifford, who was there on the night but who slipped away very quickly at the end. Which is a shame, because Michael Clifford is yet another Irish crime fiction debutant, with GHOST TOWN (Hachette Ireland) due in May. Herewith be the blurb elves:

A Dublin gangland king pin on the chase. A corrupt property mogul on the run. A hungry crime journalist determined to put his destroyed career back on track. And the return of the ‘Dancer’ - Joshua Molloy, small-time Dublin ex-con, recently out of prison, off the booze, determined to stay on the straight and narrow. When Molloy hires Noelle Higgins, a solicitor and boom-time wife with a crumbling personal life, to help find his young son, both are soon drawn into a web of treachery and violence, where Ireland’s criminal underworld and fallen elite fight it out to lay claim to what’s left from the crash: €3 million in cash, in a bag, buried somewhere in the depths of rural Ireland. From Dublin to Spain and finally a debris-strewn ghost estate in Kerry, GHOST TOWN is the fast-paced and tightly written debut thriller by leading Irish journalist and commentator Michael Clifford.

  Clifford is one of Ireland’s most respected journalists and commentators, currently writing for the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Times, and the author of some non-fiction books in the recent past: LOVE YOU TO DEATH: IRELAND’S WIFE KILLERS REVEALED and (as co-author) BERTIE AHERN AND THE DRUMCONDRA MAFIA and SCANDAL NATION. Mark it down on your calendar, folks - GHOST TOWN is a very intriguing prospect indeed …
  Incidentally, Clifford isn’t the only Irish writer to trade in ghost estates for his fiction, with Tana French and Rob Kitchin’s latest offerings also employing the abandoned developments literally and figuratively. “Speak,” as Hamlet might have said were he wandering around the desolate wastelands of suburban Ireland, “I am bound to hear …”

Death, Where Is Thy Sting? Oh, There It Is …

Two true crime releases for you this week, folks. Hachette Ireland publishes LOVE YOU TO DEATH by Sunday Tribune journalist Michael Clifford, which offers a potted history of Irish wife-killers, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

From the recent notorious and horrific murders of Rachel O’Reilly, Dolores McCrea and Siobhan Kearney, cases are outlined as far back as the poisoning of Margaret Lehman in Dublin of the war years, for which her husband was hanged in 1945. A picture is revealed about how little has changed in this area of crime, but also about how society’s attitude has changed towards it, as reflected in court verdicts and sentences. From open-and-shut cases to ones that relied on detailed forensic evidence, the book also examines the aftermath, describing courtroom scenes of high emotion as the bereaved family seek to ensure their former in-law is held accountable for the crime. In its detailed examination of Ireland’s most notorious wife killings from the 1940s right up to present day and the most recent returned verdict in the Siobhan Kearney case, LOVE YOU TO DEATH charts each story from apparently normal marriages all the way to a violent ending and a legal conclusions. A chilling, gripping and at times gruesome read.

Meanwhile, Maverick House republish GANGSTER by the Sunday Times’ John Mooney, which details the life and crimes of John Gilligan. To wit:

GANGSTER is the critically acclaimed biography of John Gilligan, the biggest drugs trafficker to emerge from the Irish underworld. The book is an extraordinarily account of how a young Dubliner became a multi-millionaire criminal. It uses first-hand interviews with Gilligan, his thugs, friends, family, enemies, anti-drugs activists, members of the IRA and the police. It tells of violence, kidnapping, shootings, criminal espionage, drug dealing and how criminal gangs vied for power to control the Irish trade in drugs. Shocking, fascinating and frightening, GANGSTER also tells the story behind the murder of Veronica Guerin, the crime reporter. Fully updated and revised with new photographs.

Can’t say I’ve ever been bitten by the true crime bug, although IN COLD BLOOD is a terrific read. Maybe it’s because the details are too sordid and the evil banal, but mainly I think it’s because although there’s crime and (usually) punishment, which satisfies the basic narrative arc, it generally lacks the sense of redemption – something other, something sacred or hallowed – that good crime fiction delivers. Any thoughts and / or recommendations?