And So To Derry

Here’s one for the diary, folks. Brian McGilloway (pictured right, with Uncle Travelling Rozovsky alongside) will play the genial host for a rather interesting crime fiction gathering at a City of Culture event in Derry next November. Quoth Brian:

“I’m currently working on a Crime weekend for Derry, Nov 1st-3rd as part of City of Culture 2013. Guests confirmed include Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt, Alan Glynn, Paul Charles, Garbhan Downey, Claire McGowan, Declan Burke and William Ryan, with more to follow. I’ll post further details closer to the time.”

  For all the details and updates, stay tuned to Brian’s Facebook page …

Crimefest 2013

Caveat emptor, as they say. There were no criminals on the stage, to the best of my knowledge, for the ‘Criminal Mastermind’ quiz on Sunday at Crimefest, and on the evidence produced by the question-and-answer session hosted by Barry Forshaw, there were precious few masterminds either. I took part (I use the phrase in its loosest possible meaning, and thanks to Ali Karim, who took this picture of yours truly about two seconds after I’d heard that Peter Rozovsky had compiled the questions for my ‘specialist subject’) with fellow victims, sorry, authors Peter Guttridge, Susan Moody and Matt Hilton, with my specialist subject being Irish crime fiction. Things went downhill even before the event began, when I learned that my questions had been compiled by Peter Rozovsky, who shall henceforth be known as ‘Et Tu Rozovsky’. I’ll draw a veil over how well (or badly) I fared on my ‘specialist’ subject. Suffice to say that I did not win the ‘Criminal Mastermind’ crown, which went, for the second year, to Peter Guttridge.
  For those of you interested in testing yourself against Et Tu Rozovsky’s questions, he has kindly provided the full list here. I got four right out of eleven questions asked, by the way …
  I was also shortlisted (or co-shortlisted) for two awards during the Crimefest weekend, for SLAUGHTER’S HOUND and – along with John Connolly and Clair Lamb, for BOOKS TO DIE FOR – and was conspicuously unsuccessful there too. Which should be disappointing, but in fact wasn’t – both shortlists were very strong, and you can’t win ’em all. Hearty congratulations, then, to Ruth Dudley Edwards, who won the Goldsboro Last Laugh gong for KILLING THE EMPERORS; and to Barry Forshaw, whose BRITISH CRIME WRITING: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA won the HRF Keating Award for Best Non-Fiction.
  All told, I had an absolute ball at this year’s Crimefest, which seemed to me to be the best to date. Yes, there are panels to attend, and awards to be competed for, but Crimefest is fundamentally about people for me, and I got to spend time with some terrific folk. I won’t list them all, because we’d be here all day, but I would like to say well done and congratulations, yet again, to Miles, Adrian and Donna for a brilliant weekend.
  Roll on Crimefest 2014 …

On Getting Plugged At Bouchercon

One of my highlights of the forthcoming Bouchercon in St Louis - had I been able to make it - would have been the panel hosted by Peter Rozovsky, ‘Cranky Streets: What’s So Funny About Murder?’, which will feature Colin Cotterill, Chris Ewan (who appears to be on an Uncle Travelling Matt-style walkabout across the length and breadth of the planet right now), Thomas Kaufman and Eoin Colfer.
  There’s a terrific buzz building around Colfer’s PLUGGED, the first adult crime novel from the man who turned teen megalomaniac Artemis Fowl into a literary superstar. There appears to be a growing awareness that, even if Colfer branded the Artemis novels ‘Die Hard with fairies’, there has always been a criminal instinct at play in his YA offerings, as suggested in last week’s interview with the LA Times. To wit:

Colfer, 46, might not have turned his talents to adult fare had it not been for Irish crime writer Ken Bruen, who, five years ago, asked Colfer to write a short story for the DUBLIN NOIR anthology he was editing.
  “I said, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I do fairy stories,’” Colfer told Bruen, but his colleague insisted that “when you take away the leprechauns, they’re all crime stories underneath.”
  Indeed, they are. In the seven Artemis Fowl books published so far, the crime stories are just populated with nefarious mud people and trolls and other fantasy creatures. What’s different about PLUGGED is the real-world setting, the subject matter — and Colfer’s voice, which, like the many books he’s written for children, is incomparably clever and witty. PLUGGED is just more profane and violent …

  Indeed it is. Meanwhile, there’s good and bad news for Artemis Fowl fans. The good news is, director Jim Sheridan has been confirmed to helm the first movie in the series, which will be produced by the Weinstein brothers; the bad news is, the next Artemis novel, THE LAST GUARDIAN, will be the last.
  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  As for the reviews, well, it’s fair to say they’ve been of the glowing variety. Quoth, for example, the Seattle Times:

“PLUGGED is that rare book that mixes terrific suspense with laugh-out-loud humour ... [Danny] McEvoy will appeal to fans of the crime novels of Elmore Leonard and the wacky characters prevalent in the novels of Carl Hiaasen.”

  For those of you attending Bouchercon, Eoin Colfer is as funny in person as the characters he creates on the page, even if he doesn’t have any (immediate) plans for world domination, and his hair is all his own. Miss ‘Cranky Streets’ at your peril …

Have Novel, Will Travel

FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES popped through the post-box the other day, said tome being a collection of essays on ‘Real Locations in Crime Fiction’ edited by Maxim Jakubowski and written by the likes of Barry Forshaw (Brighton, Edinburgh, Sweden and Venice), Sarah Weinman (New York and Washington DC), Peter Rozovsky (Iceland), John Harvey (Nottingham), Oline Cogdill (Florida), J. Kingston Pierce (San Francisco), Martin Edwards (Shropshire), David Stuart Davies (London), and Maxim himself on a selection of locations. It also - disclaimer alert - includes yours truly waffling on about Vincent Banville, Arlene Hunt and Declan Hughes, and the crime stories they set in good ol’ durty Dubbalin town. To wit:

Whether it be the London of Sherlock Holmes or the Ystad of the Swedish Wallander, Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco or Donna Leon’s Venice, the settings chosen by crime fiction authors have helped those writers to bring their fictional investigators to life and to infuse their writing with a sense of danger and mystery. FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES follows the trail of over 20 of crime fiction’s greatest investigators, discovering the cities and countries in which they live and work. Edited by one of the leading voices in crime fiction, Maxim Jakubowski, each entry is written by a crime writer, journalist or critic with a particular expertise in that detective and the fictional crimes that have taken place in each city’s dark streets and hidden places. The book includes beautifully designed maps with all the major locations that have featured in a book or series of books - buildings, streets, bars, restaurants and locations of crimes and discoveries - allowing the reader to follow Inspector Morse’s footsteps through the college squares of Oxford or while away hours in a smoky Parisian cafe frequented by Inspector Maigret, for example. Aimed at the avid detective fan, the armchair tourist and the literary tourist alike, FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES is the perfect way for crime fiction fans to truly discover the settings of their favourite detective novels.

  You’ll appreciate that I’m biased, of course, but it’s a lovely, detailed and not entirely unfunky piece of work …

Who Follows The Followers?

An interesting tome hoves over the horizon, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and rejoicing in the title FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES. To wit:

Whether it be the London of Sherlock Holmes or the Ystad of the Swedish Wallander, Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco or Donna Leon’s Venice, the settings chosen by crime fiction authors have helped those writers to bring their fictional investigators to life and to infuse their writing with a sense of danger and mystery. FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES follows the trail of over 20 of crime fiction’s greatest investigators, discovering the cities and countries in which they live and work. Edited by one of the leading voices in crime fiction, Maxim Jakubowski, each entry is written by a crime writer, journalist or critic with a particular expertise in that detective and the fictional crimes that have taken place in each city’s dark streets and hidden places. The book includes beautifully designed maps with all the major locations that have featured in a book or series of books - buildings, streets, bars, restaurants and locations of crimes and discoveries - allowing the reader to follow Inspector Morse’s footsteps through the college squares of Oxford or while away hours in a smoky Parisian cafe frequented by Inspector Maigret, for example. Aimed at the avid detective fan, the armchair tourist and the literary tourist alike, FOLLOWING THE DETECTIVES is the perfect way for crime fiction fans to truly discover the settings of their favourite detective novels.

  Maxim let yours truly loose on the fictional private eyes of Dublin, but don’t let that put you off. The intriguing line-up includes Barry Forshaw (Brighton, Edinburgh, Sweden and Venice), Sarah Weinman (New York and Washington DC), Peter Rozovsky (Iceland), John Harvey (Nottingham), Oline Cogdill (Florida), J. Kingston Pierce (San Francisco), Martin Edwards (Shropshire), David Stuart Davies (London), and Maxim himself on virtually every city in Christendom not already mentioned.
  The title is due in September, and already I’m dreading its arrival - the fear of not coming up to the mark has me quaking in the boots I bought specially for the occasion. For what it’s worth, though, the ‘Dublin’ entry concerns itself with the private eyes created by Vincent Banville, Arlene Hunt and Declan Hughes, all of whom are terrific writers, and all of whom I quote liberally, so hopefully I can skate by on their talent.
  Incidentally, for those of you wondering where Benjamin Black comes into all of this, he doesn’t, given that his protagonist, Quirke, isn’t a private eye. Which is a shame, but there you go - that’s remits for you. Boo, etc.

Alors! C’est Ken Bruen!

“Two Grand Prix are awarded each year,” says Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders, in his post about Ken Bruen (right) winning the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere 2009 for PRIEST, “one to the best crime novel, and one to the best international crime novel in France. They’ve been awarded since 1948, which suggests the French got onto this international crime fiction thing before many of the rest of us.”
  The post-WWII period being when Cahiers du Cinema dubbed film noir, well, film noir, Mr Rozovsky may have a point. And, of course, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, first published in 1841, is regarded as the ur-text when it comes to crime fiction. Can it be mere (and retrospective) coincidence that the story is set in Paris?
  Erm, yes. But that’s not the point. The point is that, with two novels out this year, including TOWER, the collaboration with Reed Farrel Coleman (and a rumour that the chaps are going to collab on a musical next (!)), two movies of his novels in the pipeline, and a French gong in his back pocket, 2010 will probably be the year in which Ken Bruen ascends into heaven in a flaming chariot.
  All kidding aside, and leaving all else aside, Ken Bruen’s annus mirabilis will please no end of people, but chiefly, I’d imagine, the legion of wannabe aspiring scribes (yours truly included) whom Ken Bruen has so generously and selflessly lent a hand to over the years. I don’t know if I really believe in karma, but if it doesn’t exist, then it’s a beautiful symmetry / coincidence that good fortune has showered Ken so extensively in 2009. Allez, Mr Bruen, et bon chance, mon ami.

The All-Ireland Hurling Final: A Special Post For Peter Rozovsky

RESULT: Kilkenny 2-22 : 0-23 Tipperary

This time last year, I was playing a very poor host to crime fiction’s very own Uncle Travelling Matt Fraggle, aka Peter Rozovsky (right), who was in town for the Books 2008 Festival. As part of his weekend, Peter wandered into town on the Sunday afternoon and discovered that there was some kind of match being played at Croke Park. He bought himself a ticket and toddled along, watched Kilkenny demolish Waterford in the All-Ireland hurling final, and pronounced himself fairly impressed with the experience.
  Now, the thing about last year’s hurling final is that Kilkenny put in a performance that was nigh-on pitch perfect, a display of total hurling that was unexpected even for a team that is regarded as one of the finest hurling outfits of all time, and akin, in football terms, to watching Real Madrid (Di Stefano, Eusebio, et al) beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in the 1960 European Cup Final. So Peter got very lucky, and shouldn’t ever expect to see as fine a display again.
  Peter was also lucky to see Henry Shefflin in his prime. I’m too young to have seen the likes of greats such as Nicky Rackard, Christy Ring, John Doyle or Eddie Keher play, but Henry Shefflin belongs in the pantheon. Certainly he has the gifts, in hurling terms, of a Magic Johnson or a Maradona. Big and strong, brave and honest, he blends brute strength with the delicate touch of a brain surgeon, and has the work ethic of a red ant to boot. He is the complete hurler, and – though it breaks my heart to say it, given that I’m a Wexford man when it comes to hurling – it’s unlikely we’ll see his quality again. Mind you, Joe Canning might have something to say about that …
  Anyway, the pairing for tomorrow’s final – Kilkenny again, vs Tipperary – should make for a much better game, given that Tipp are unlikely to collapse the way Waterford did last year, and in fact should have beaten an admittedly under-strength Kilkenny in the League Final earlier this year. Two good, strong, tough, brave and very skilful teams – I’m already salivating at the prospect. As far as I can make out, the game will be webcast here, although I’m not sure if it’s going to be available worldwide – Peter, you may want to fiddle about with IP addresses and whatnot if you want to see it live.
  For those of you who know nothing about hurling, let me say that it’s similar to ice hockey in speed, skill and aggression, although hurlers play the game in the air as well as on the ground – they lift the ball, catch it in mid-flight, etc. It’s played on grass, on a pitch roughly the size of a gridiron, and it’s not unusual for a man to score from sixty, seventy or even eighty yards out the field. Other than helmets (which not everyone wears), the players wear no protection or armour; and they are amateur players who play the game to a professional standard with no other reward than pride in the jersey. There is for only very rare exceptions a system of transfer. You play for the county where you were born.
  We were watching some golf major on TV a few years ago, and Tiger Woods hit a three-iron to within three feet of the pin, stopping it dead bar the tiniest of back-spins. The crowd went ape. My father, an ex-hurler, said, ‘Aye, now let’s see him do it at full sprint, with some hairy redneck trying to take his head off.’ Which is, in essence, the appeal of hurling in a nutshell.
  In my never-humble opinion, hurling is the greatest game ever played. There is hurling, and there is everything else. The vid below is a decent introduction …

And so to Bristol …

I had a ball last year at Ye Olde CrimeFeste (statue erected in my honour, right) and I’m looking forward to more of the same this year. What’s terrific about these conventions is that you get to stroll around for a couple of days pretending to be a bona fide writer and no small boy points his finger at you and says, “Oi, yon emperor-type ain’t wearing no clothes.” It’s a wonderful thing, pretending to be a writer … but then, pretending is what writers do best.
  The other great thing about conventions and festivals is meeting up with the people you only tend to see at such events. Writing being (in theory, at least) a solitary pursuit, and regarded by something of an anti-social affliction by those nearest and dearest who don’t write, it’s nice to chow down with like-minded folk. As always, it’ll be great to hook up with Irish scribes the likes of Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway and Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards, and also some people I’ve met on my travels over the last couple of years, including Paul Johnston, Martin Edwards, the uber-glam Donna Moore, Ruth Downie, Chris Ewan, and a few more. And then there’s my fellow members of the bloggoratti, being Maxine, Karen, Norm, Ali and – possibly – the Book Witch and Rhian, although I’m not sure they’re going to make it this year. And, of course, we’ll all be in awe of the award-winning blogger, Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders, who’ll be doing his Uncle Travelling Matt impression in Bristol.
  Anyway, it’ll be dry sherries all round, so here’s hoping the old liver holds out. For those of you interested, I’ll drop a line on Monday or Tuesday (depending on the volume of dry sherries) to let you know how the panels went. I’m on two: Friday at 1.30, for ‘I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang: Writing About The Bad Guys’ alongside Chris Ewan, Steve Mosby and Kevin Wignall, with Donna Moore moderating; and Saturday at 3.30, for Natural Born Killers: Maxim’s Picks, alongside Cara Black, Paul Johnston and – hurrah! – Donna Moore, with Maxim Jakubowski moderating.
  All in all, fun times ahead …

  UPDATE: The ‘Who Is The Sexiest Irish Crime Writer?’ poll is now open for business, people, in the top-left corner of the blog … The results will be skewed, naturally, given that Gene Kerrigan has removed himself from consideration, but what can you do?

Only In It For The Money

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 news is that neither yours truly nor THE BIG O have been nominated, although the bad news is that Crime Always Pays has been, in the ‘Special Services to the Industry’ category.
  A couple of things about that. (1) Much as I appreciate the nod, and at the risk of sounding ungracious, I’m not doing the little I do for the industry, and I suspect that very few bloggers and / or webnauts are either. If I win, I’ll have to hand the gong back. (2) Of which happening there being very little chance, given that (a) there’s no actual gong and (b) the other nominees include Ruth and Jon Jordan, J. Kingston Pierce, Barbara Franchi, and the man with the biggest brain in the universe, Peter Rozovsky (pictured, top right). (3) In my not-so-humble opinion, and off the top of my head, I can think of Sarah Weinman, Karen Meek, Maxine Clarke and the Spinetingler crew themselves as more deserving nominees than your humble host (Glenn Harper, Karen Chisholm and Ali Karim are nominated in the ‘Review’ category), mainly because, as far as I can make out, they all do it as a labour of love, whereas I’m only in it for the money. (4) Go Rozovsky!
  Of the other categories, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the ‘Rising Star’, which pits Allan Guthrie against his old nemesis Ray Banks. Anyone else willing to pay to see those two beasts going at it in a cage-fight? And ‘New Voice’ should be interesting too, given that John McFetridge, Declan Hughes and Brian McGilloway are all jostling for position as you read. Fine writers and good blokes to a man, although, on the basis that I’ve spent 10 days sharing bathroom space with the man, and didn’t want to kill him afterwards, McFetridge gets my nod.
  To vote, clickety-click here …

Git Along, Lil’ Dogie: Lawks, ’Tis The Friday Round-Up

It’s Friday, so we’ll have an end-of-week round-up thingy. Any objections? No? Then read on …
  I met the radiant Arlene Hunt (right) for a cwaffee during the week, to have a chat about this project here, during which Arlene came up with an idea for a terrific chapter. During the course of the chat, we talked about ‘Kennedy’ moments in Irish crime, such as the murder of investigative reporter Veronica Guerin in 1996, and the murder of Lord Mountbatten in 1979.
  Another of those moments that had seismic consequences for Ireland, the Omagh bombing, gets the Ruth Dudley-Edwards treatment in AFTERMATH, due this April from Harvill Secker. To wit:

The Omagh bomb was the worst massacre in Northern Ireland’s modern history - yet from it came a most extraordinary tale of human resilience, as families of murdered people channelled their grief into action. As the bombers congratulated themselves on escaping justice, the families determined on a civil case against them and their organisation. No one had ever done this before: many are likely to do it in the future. It was a very domestic atrocity. In Omagh, on Saturday, 15 August, 1998, a 500lb bomb placed by the Real IRA, murdered twenty-nine shoppers - five men, fourteen women and nine children, of whom two were Spanish and one English: the dead included Protestants, Catholics and a Mormon. Although the police believed they knew the identities of the killers, there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. Taking as their motto ‘For evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing’, families of ten of the dead decided to go after these men through the civil courts, where the burden of proof is lower. These were ordinary people who knew little of the world - they included a factory worker, a mechanic and a cleaner; they had no money, no lawyers, and there was no legal precedent for such an action. This is the story of how - with the help of a small group of London sympathisers that included a viscount and two ex-terrorists - these Omagh families surmounted all the obstacles to launch a civil case against RIRA and five named individuals, developed with reference to recent European legislation by one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers. Along the way the families became formidable campaigners who won the backing of Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush as well as of Bob Geldof and Bono. How these relatives turned themselves into the scourge of RIRA is not just an astonishing story in itself. It is also a universal story of David challenging Goliath, as well as an inspiration to ordinary people anywhere devastated by terrorism. RIRA today: ETA tomorrow: the Mafia, perhaps, the day after.

  If there’s any justice, it’ll be a smash best-seller.
  Meanwhile, the boys from Norn Iron are coming on strong. Here’s Stuart Neville on ‘How I got Published’, while Sam Millar (right) has just declared himself open for business over at his shiny new interweb lair, MillarCrime. Drop on over and tell him a joke.
  Elsewhere, a Gallic-shaped birdie tells me that Tana French is working away on her third novel, which currently rejoices in the working title FAITHFUL PLACE, and which will continue the trend of IN THE WOODS and THE LIKENESS in that it features a character from the latter novel as its main protagonist. “Frank Mackey, Cassie Maddox’s old boss from THE LIKENESS, is the narrator this time,” says Tana. “He’s spent his whole adult life thinking that his first love Rosie dumped him and ran off to England, and he hasn’t spoken to his family since that night. Then Rosie’s suitcase shows up, hidden in the wall of a house on their old road ...”
  If we’re all very good, Tana will have it ready for us by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I’m not being at all good over at John McFetridge’s place, although I am becoming cooler by the day, and through no great effort of my own. Fetch’s metafiction Baltimore Bouchercon crime spree continues apace … while Peter Rozovsky, in a Tana French-like twist, has leaped from a minor character in McFetridge’s story to become the author of a parallel tale of murder and mayhem in ‘The Baltimore Drive-By’. I can’t keep up …
  Finally, can it be true that J.D. Salinger (right) has turned 90?

100,000 Not Out

Given that Crime Always Pays came into being to celebrate (mostly) Irish fiction as a platform to promote our humble offering THE BIG O, it’s appropriate that the stats passed the 100,000 mark for page impressions while I was away in the States on a Toronto-Baltimore road-trip designed to mark the publication of said tome in the U.S. Now, 100,000 page impressions in 18 months isn’t exactly the kind of stat to set the interweb aflame, but by the same token – as Twenty Major once pointed out – a blog dedicated to Irish crime fiction is a niche-niche-niche sell, particularly when you’re not actually selling anything.
  Anyhoos, I’m quietly pleased at having reached that mark, not least because many of CAP’s regular visitors have become good mates. I’d been warned by some Bouchercon veterans that the first experience can be overwhelming, given the scale of the operation and the numbers of people there, but when John McFetridge and I finally pulled into Baltimore, the experience was more akin to a reunion.
  Peter Rozovsky I’d met before, during his sojourn to Ireland, and it would have been nice to hook up with him again even if he hadn’t sweated blood organising the Philly leg of John and Dec’s Most Excellent Adventure. Peter? Now that you’re au fait with ‘shite’ and ‘gobshite’, I really must introduce you to ‘shitehawking’ the next time.
  I’d met Donna Moore before too, at Bristol Fest, and it was smashing to meet up with her again, partly because I’d read her terrific GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET in the interim, but mainly because I want her to play Diane Lane when they come to make the movie of my life. There’s nothing like a hug from a flame-haired beauty to make you feel like you belong in Baltimore. Apart from the daily hugs (“Oi, I haven’t had my hug today!”), the best part of seeing the poker maven again was the news that her follow-up novel is currently with her agent, and that she’s mailing me a copy as soon as I sign up for Bristol Fest 2009. Yon Donna Moore, she drives a hard bargain …
  It was nice to meet Jen Jordan, too, my first experience of whom was having my shoulder nuzzled by some random hottie in the convention’s main thoroughfare. But lo! It wasn’t a random hottie, it was Jen Jordan. Nice …
  Sarah Weinman was something of a disappointment, given that I was expecting her to be a matronly ball-breaker of indeterminate age. Dang my britches if she’s not cute as a junebug, and prone to enveloping a man in a hug even before he’s been properly introduced. Nice …
  Back to Bouchercon, which I’ve actually been reluctant to write about this week, on the basis that the experience was something of a bubble I’ve been afraid to puncture. Friendly people willing and eager to talk books all day and all night – sounds like hell, I know, but you get used to anything after a while. Readers, reviewers, bloggers, writers, editors, publicists, publishers and – crucially – booksellers, all mingling freely. Anyone who hasn’t yet grasped how the chaos of minute particles colliding at random at the quantum level can translate into a solid object or force at the macro level should get along to the next Bouchercon in Indianapolis.
  I suppose it helped that I had a foot in a few camps. I was there as a reader, of course, but also as a writer and a blogger / reviewer; and technically speaking, given that THE BIG O was originally a co-publication with Hag’s Head Press, I also had a foot in the publishing / publicity / distribution / selling side of things. So there were a lot of people I was hoping to see.
  Jeff Pierce was one, and it was nice to hang out with him on a couple of occasions. Glenn Harper was another, although we didn’t actually get to sit down and talk books – next time, Glenn, hopefully. I also got to meet Angie Johnson-Schmidt, who was kind enough to help me try to find tobacco in late-night Baltimore, as was Dana King, albeit in vain. It was cool to meet Brian Lindemuth and Sandra Ruttan too – Sandra’s another blogger with a foot in more than one camp. And then there was the effervescent and damn near omniscient Ali Karim, and Clair Lamb, and Janet Rudolph … The inimitable Joe Long came down from New York, to greet me with the words, “So where’s the other prick, Hughes?” And it was terrific to hook up with Jon Jordan and be able to say thanks in person for all the support he’s given me ever since way back when, aka the publication of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. Jon? You’re a gent, squire.
  Greg Gillespie of Philly’s Port Richmond Books came down to Baltimore on the Saturday, and nice it was to make his acquaintance again, given that he’d brought the troops out in force to Wednesday night’s Noir at the Bar at Fergie’s. Greg was supposed to sleep on the floor of our hotel room that night, but with an 8.30am panel on Sunday morning looming, I cracked around 2am and went to bed, and haven’t seen him since. Can anyone confirm that Greg is okay?
  Incidentally, McFetridge was great company on the road-trip, apart from his insistence in talking up the Toronto Blue Leafs, which plays some weird hybrid of hockey, football and baseball. Well, that and the fact that the Y he booked us into in New York had the noisiest bunk-beds ever made, and that one of the three communal showers was festooned with crime scene-style tape. Other than that, though, he was no more boring than you’d imagine a Canadian writer to be. We may even road-trip again, one day.
  As for the rest, well, this post is already too long – suffice to say that Bouchercon 2008 was a tremendous experience. Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik deserve all the credit going, and more.
  It did occur to me at one point that the attendees as a group were heavily skewed towards an older demographic, although that’s easily enough explained when you consider the cost of travelling to a four-day convention that’s a sheer indulgence. And you could also say that crime fiction is a conservative genre, concerned for the most part with upholding the status quo, and that older generations are more likely to be of a conservative bent.
  But here’s the thing – I’ve never had anyone say to me, “Yeah, I got into crime fiction in my fifties.” I was a teenager when the crime bug bit, and I thought I was pretty radical back then, as most teenagers tend to do. Maybe it’s because it’s the most popular kind of writing, and therefore the most accessible, and because the world of gats, molls and grift has a certain surface cool that appeals to the impressionable mind. But once it gets you hooked, it doesn’t let go. It’s odd, especially when you consider that you don’t listen to the same kind of music twenty, thirty or forty years on from your teens, or watch the same kind of movies, or like the same artists, etc. But when I read Ray Chandler today, I enjoy him even more than I did twenty years ago.
  The Big Question: any theories as to why crime fiction takes such a compelling grip as to last you an entire lifetime? Over to you, people ...

The Embiggened O # 3,119: Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You

Given the day that’s in it, with our humble tome THE BIG O being published in hardback in the U.S. by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, I thought I’d take the opportunity to blow my own trumpet so hard that I squish both lungs out through said trumpet in little sausage-y links. Maestro? In your own time, please …
  Actually, no – there’ll be no trumpet-parping today. Today is a day for feeling quietly positive about the human race in general and the crime fiction community in particular. Why so? Well, the way said community has rallied around yours truly in the last week or 10 days has been heartwarming to say the least, and I’m currently basking in the glow of the kind of good vibes Brian Wilson could only dream about while he scratched about in his sandpit. To wit:

Jeff Kingston asked me to deface / guest-blog at The Rap Sheet for the last week;
The Book Witch has updated her review of THE BIG O;
Gerard Brennan at CSNI republished his review, and tossed in a major shout-out to boot;
Stuart Neville gave me a bejasus big-up;
Marshal Zeringue pulled out all the stops at America Reads;
Glenn Harper did me proud over at International Noir;
Barbara Fister was kind enough to invite me to host the Crime Carnival again;
And Peter Rozovsky has been log-rolling THE BIG O to beat the band over at Detectives Beyond Borders.

  If I’ve forgotten anyone, my sincerest apologies – I’m just a bit light-headed from all the good karma. Peace, people – your reward will come in heaven …

No Sex, Please – We’re Irish Crime Writers

The great thing about these writers’ events is that you get to swank around for a few hours pretending that you’re a writer. And all the other writers play along. Which is nice of them, but then crime writers do tend to be a fairly friendly and generous bunch …
  Anyhoos, on Saturday morning – for the ‘Forty Shades of Grey: Real Fiction, Real Ireland’ panel, moderated by Mick Halpin, aka Critical Mick – I got to hang out with Ruth Dudley Edwards (right), Brian McGilloway, Gene Kerrigan and Arlene Hunt. All went well, with the conversation developing into something of a debate on journalism as the first draft of history versus crime fiction as its second, and the notion of social realism and truth / fact being mediated through fiction got a good airing too. And not only that, but Critical Mick did his best to give the gig a bit of added class by reciting some Louis MacNeice poetry relevant to crime fiction. Nice.
  After lunch, Declan Hughes interviewed John Connolly, during which John read from next year’s THE LOVERS, and chatted at length about THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS. Which was pretty cool, because we don’t hear John Connolly – or indeed anyone else – talking enough about THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS. It’s a stone-cold classic, and the good news is that there’s a rumour circulating that he may be gearing up for another non-crime standalone. If we hear anything, you’ll be the first to know …
  The afternoon panel was ‘Sex and Violence: How Far is Too Far?’, with John Connolly stepping in at the last minute to moderate Alex Barclay, Arlene Hunt, Brian McGilloway and yours truly. The content was a bit odd for me, given that I’d tried to write THE BIG O with an absolute minimum of violence, and I generally don’t write about sex at all (in fact, everyone on the panel dealt with violence, which forced John Connolly to read aloud a snippet about Charlie Parker’s trouble with socks and sex, a Homeric effort on his part given that his mother was in the audience). The questions basically centred on the extent to which crime fiction glamorises violence, with the general consensus being that writing violence is the means by which writers and readers strive to understand the kind of mind that will achieve what it wants regardless of others’ discomfort and pain, not an end in itself.
  The hard work (!) out of the way, yours truly headed for the pub for a dry sherry and a 2-0 win for Ireland over Georgia in the first World Cup qualifier, a fine result which set the tone for an evening’s blather about books in the company of fellow scribes Stuart Neville (right) and Shay Bagnall, and blogger extraordinaire Peter Rozovsky, who has just been nominated for a blogging award. Nice. Talking books with a drink in your hand – is there a finer way to waste a Saturday evening? If there is, I’m all ears. Although not just yet … yon hangover is just starting to kick in. Slainté.

The Embiggened O: One Kidney Or Two, Squire?

With the Stateside publication of THE BIG O due on September 22nd, I’ve been kind of steeling myself for the horrible job of asking people who’ve been pretty damn generous with their time and space already for yet another mention of our humble tome. So it’s been hugely gratifying to find that people have been getting in touch during the last few days, asking if I’d be interested in doing some promo on their sites and blogs. Folks? I’m overwhelmed. Really. Yet again the crime fiction community proves itself the antithesis of the dysfunctional, anti-social dystopia it loves to write and read about.
  Anyhoos, there are those who have been good enough to offer, and there are those who have just steamed ahead and plugged the bejaysus out of THE BIG O without so much as a by-your-leave. One such is the inimitable Peter Rozovsky (above, right) of Detectives Beyond Borders, who did us proud by posting up this little belter:

I wrote last year that “the deliciously complicated plotting, the wry dialogue and the sympathy Burke engenders for his cast of characters made this one of the most fun and purely pleasurable reads I’ve had in a while.” I’ve had no reason to repent that opinion. THE BIG O is still one of the two or three funniest crime novels I’ve ever read.

  Nice. Of course, I should also point out that Uncle Travelling Matt Rozovsky is currently abroad in the wilds of Ireland, and plans to overnight at chez Grand Viz next weekend, so the hope of a decent breakfast might well have coloured his opinion. I’d have given him a proper feed regardless, mind you, but this way he’s assured of an extra helping of fried kidney. Mmmm, kidneylicious …

Four Readings And A Christening

It’s a busy time at Chez Grand Viz, folks. Princess Lilyput (right) will be christened this coming Sunday, and has insisted her minions rush about “just, like, doing stuff” between now and then, and loath we are to disobey. We’re looking forward to it, though. I remain unconvinced about the religious / spiritual aspect of the ceremony, but I’m loving the idea of officially introducing the little girl to our extended families, our friends and the community at large. A manly tear may well be shed …
  Before we get to Sunday, however, there’s Saturday’s Electric Picnic gig to be negotiated, during which yours truly will be chairing a panel on Irish crime fiction in the company of Declan Hughes, Julie Parsons and Brian McGilloway. I’ll be doing a follow-up post in the aftermath, so if there’s any questions you ever wanted to ask of any of the trio, now would be a good time to let me know.
  The weekend after that is the crime writing series as part of the Books 2008 festival, where I’ll be participating on two panels in the company of John Connolly, Dec Hughes, Tana French, Gene Kerrigan, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Brian McGilloway, Arlene Hunt, and sundry other ne’er-do-wells from the Irish crime writing scene. It should be a blast, not least because blogger non pareil Peter Rozovsky is travelling to Ireland to take a gander at the Irish crime writer in its native habitat, and may even consent to partake in a ceremonial dry sherry to mark the occasion.
  Once the dust settles on that particular Donnybrook, there’s a two-week run-in to the official publication of THE BIG O in North America, during which I’ll be typing my delicate little fingers down to stumps in a bid to secure as much coverage for our humble tome as is humanly possible. Any and all offers of even a single atom of publicity oxygen will be very gratefully received. Your reward will be in Heaven. Peace, out.

Yep, It’s Another ‘Dear Genre’ Letter

I got in touch with Adrian McKinty (right) earlier in the week, asking, for the purposes of a newspaper feature, why he believes there’s such an explosion in Irish crime fiction right now. Being McKinty, he answered the question asked, and then followed it up with a mini-essay on why crime fiction whups every other genre’s metaphorical ass. To wit:

“Why is crime fiction so much more interesting than romance, horror, sci-fi and increasingly literary fiction? Here’s my attempt at an answer:

Romance
“When I used to work at Barnes and Noble I was punished for minor infractions of the corporate code by being put on the romance fiction information desk. This is a genre written by women of a certain age for women of a certain age. Most of the books resemble that second division musical Brigadoon: dodgy accents, dodgy historicism, dodgy plots. Once you meet the central characters in a romance novel you know how the book is going to finish. A long tease, a few obstacles, happy (or increasingly) unhappy ending.
  “Romance novels are often written by people who don’t understand that what makes Jane Austen good is her story arcs. There are some romanciers who relish wit and ironic humour but these, alas, are the exceptions rather than the rule – you can usually tell the ironic ones by their brilliantly outlandish covers. (Chick-lit is a sub genre of romance novel, with more sex and worse jokes.)

Horror
“I have never read a horror novel because I don’t like to be scared and also because of their daunting size. I’ve seen cinder blocks with less heft than most horror fiction texts. I’ve read some of Stephen King’s non-horror books, though. Apparently he wrote a lot of them while drunk in the early mornings. I hope that’s the case. I remember one sentence that had more clauses than a Kris Kringle convention.

Sci-Fi
“Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein. When I was about 12 I read everything these guys wrote. Asimov alone published 400 books, so that’s no mean feat. Early science fiction wasn’t interested in multi-dimensional characters or exacting prose. The idea was everything. Nothing wrong with that, but sixty years later, pretty much all the ideas have been used or recycled. JG Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, Philip K. Dick and to some extent William Gibson tried to take science fiction on an inward journey but their path has not been followed by the majority of the genre’s novelists. Space opera, time travel, the future and exoticism still dominate. Character, psychology and prose are not as relevant as the hook, the central premise, the pitch. Sci-Fi today leaves me uninvolved and largely unmoved, but I’d be happy to renew my love if anyone has any suggestions.
  “A sub genre of sci-fi is fantasy. I’m not going to dwell on those books. I grew out of fantasy when I was 13 or 14. The best in the field seems to be Stephen Donaldson, who I worshipped as a kid. My students rave about Robert Jordan and maybe he’s good, I don’t know. If you like that sort of thing good ’elf to ya.

Literary Fiction
“Yeah, don’t get all snooty, you’re a genre too. Lit-fic’s problems are social and philosophical. First the social: there’s a clubby atmosphere in the New York and London literary worlds that pushes depressingly unreadable novels down our throats. Lit-fic people review each other a lot and they all seem to have gone to the same schools, live together in Islington or Brooklyn Heights, and have the same upper-class vaguely lefty view point and tax bracket. They’re all basically nice middle-class white people (although they occasionally let in a dishy foreigner) writing / whingeing about the problems of nice middle class white people.
  Philosophically, literary types are ill at ease. The conventional novel is too dull for them but Joyce already did everything you could with the form, so what can they do? Their books try too hard, shouting “Look at me!” instead of focusing on what the reader wants: good stories and good characters. Their prose is a distillation of what Cyril Connolly called the ‘mandarin style,’: either rip off Henry James or rip off Evelyn Waugh. For me Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, David Park, Ronan Bennett and Zadie Smith are exceptions to this sweeping and probably completely incorrect generalisation. In the U.S., Cormac McCarthy has kept his distance from Brooklyn and that’s why he’s the best writer in country (after Kansas-dwelling James Ellroy).

Crime Fiction
“So what makes crime fiction so great? Its diversity for one thing. If Peter Rozovsky’s website Detective Beyond Borders is to be believed, every country in the world seems to have a flourishing crime fiction genre. Do you want Icelandic private eyes? We’ve got ’em. Are you after American wheelchair-bound lesbian detectives? We can do that too. Even within the regions crime writing can be your guide. The thinly populated west of Ireland for example: Want to know about Sligo? Declan Burke’s your man. A few miles down the coast to Galway and you’re in Ken Bruen country.
  But it’s not just the diversity; I think something bigger is going on as well. Nineteenth century Russia, Elizabethan London, Periclean Athens – all produced exemplars of high art because the artists had to work within the boundaries of harsh censorship. Drawing inside the box allowed authors to become more creative and more interesting. Obviously repressive censorship is bad too, but greater freedom doesn’t necessarily lead to greater artistic triumphs. In today’s London, New York, Paris etc., you can say whatever you like but little of it is worth listening to. Crime writers work within certain conventions and are allowed to be social commentators, psychological explorers and innovators as long as they stick to the basic rules of the crime or mystery story. The box helps the writer and the reader. You’re not going to get many crime novels that forget that plot is important or that characters have to be real and that dialogue has to sound authentic.
  “Crime writers don’t worry about the views of literary London or New York, they don’t feel they have to conform to any house style or clichéd way of rebellion. Crime fiction cuts at the edge of prose, story telling and character. It is the genre for exploring contemporary mores and, I think, the best literary mode for understanding our crazy mixed up world.
  “So, to sum up: like the young Cassius Clay, crime fiction is the prettiest, nimblest and deftest of the Olympians, easily overpowering the lumbering horror and sci-fi athletes, dodging that lady with the romance handbag, and knocking cold that weepy young fogey from Kensington whose father never told him he loved him. Except nobody’s father told them they loved them. Get over it mate, stop gurning and go read THE COLD SIX THOUSAND instead.” – Adrian McKinty

On Publishing And Being Damned

I don’t generally run posts responding to comments made on previous posts, but Peter Rozovsky (in typical universe-ruling mode, right) of the venerable institution Detectives Beyond Borders raised a few issues in his comment on the post below that deserve a proper airing. To wit:

“I’m no author, but it looks to me as if the consolidation of book dealing in fewer and fewer hands is a failure of capitalism. If fewer and fewer outlets are selling books, and those outlets are under constant cost pressure, good authors will get shoved aside, and crappy animal books will top bestseller lists.
  “I do think that bloggers can step into the void, notwithstanding criticism from jealous and understandably fearful members of the mainstream media [...] I’ve discovered far more authors through blogs than through the “mainstream” media. This may be why I roll my eyes every few months when some newspaper runs a column about the boom in international crime fiction and announces with breathless excitement authors whom I and other conscientious bloggers have known about for months if not years.
  “Still, as timorous, doddering and slow off the mark as they can be, there is still a place for mainstream media, the old darlings …”

  Firstly, the consolidation of retail outlets as a failure of capitalism (an ideas man, is our Peter). In this I think he’s 100% correct, because markets thrive on competition. Once competition gets stifled, the customer gets offered a seriously limited variety, and unless you’re selling crack cocaine, the customer is going to get bored very quickly.
  You can argue that all the retail outlets are in competition with one another, of course, but the salient fact is that all the major retail outlets are selling the same books and authors, with the only difference often being the size of the discount on offer.
  For example, the two major outlets in Dublin are Waterstone’s and Hodges and Figgis. Not only do they face one another across Dawson Street, and sell pretty much the same stock, they’re owned by the same parent company. In terms of crime fiction, both offer a decent selection, albeit very similar, and heavily skewed towards new and recent releases, and the kind of novels where the author’s name is bigger than the title.
  Further up Dawson Street, towards Stephen’s Green, is a tiny independent outlet called Murder Ink. It’s a specialist outlet, of course, and offers an intoxicating range of titles, from the most recent releases to hard-to-get imports to old classics. Its dedication to the cause of crime fiction, Irish and international, can be gauged by the fact that the owner, Michael Gallagher (right, holding some wastrel’s novel), is on first-name terms with the likes of John Connolly, Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway, et al, not to mention many international authors. While I was in there during the week, Peter Robinson dropped in, just to say hello.
  Given its overheads (Dawson Street is prime Dublin real estate) and its size (no muscle to speak of, by comparison with its competitors, in terms of discounts for bulk buying, etc.), Murder Ink should have gone out of business a long time ago. Happily, it hasn’t. As a specialist outlet, it’s niche enough to secure a loyal customer base.
  But in the long run, even specialising isn’t going to save the retail outlets, regardless of their size. As Peter points out, bloggers tend to be way ahead of the curve of the mainstream media when it comes to discovering new talent and broadcasting about it. The mainstream media might be sniffy about the quality of the reviews, etc., but there’s no denying that the web is the conduit for the all-important word-of-mouth that pushes writers to the forefront of the public’s consciousness.
  For example, I operate a Google alerts system for Irish crime writers. The general trend is for a writer to publish a book and for their profile to ‘spike’ for a month or two, and then return to a more regular level of activity. The exception to that rule has been Tana French. Ever since IN THE WOODS was published, I’ve been receiving two, three and four Google alerts per day about Tana French, most of them referring to reviews from blogs, websites and on-line versions of mainstream media. That level of activity, of course, has only increased since the publication of THE LIKENESS. Yesterday, for example, I received alerts for Tana French-related material for YouTube, Albany Public Library, the Irish Independent, and the San Jose Mercury News. Today her alerts were for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Boston Globe, Jen’s Book Thoughts blog, The Squid List blog, and The Landlocked Pirate blog.
  Now, you – and the sniffier mainstream journalists – might want to quibble with the quality of the reviews on some of those outlets. That’s your entitlement, and you’re also fully entitled to quibble with the quality of review available in the traditional media. But you can’t deny that Tana French’s word-of-mouth penetration is phenomenal. And here’s where the web beats traditional media hands-down: today’s newsprint reviews will be tomorrow’s kitty-box liner, but those on-line reviews will be functioning for years to come. The ‘long tail’, as they call it, is certainly wagging for Tana French.
  What has that to do with the future demise of retail outlets? Well, Amazon is the classic example, but there are others catching up. How many times have you gone into a bookstore and asked for a particular title, only to hear that they don’t have it in stock, but will order it for you? You could’ve just stayed home and ordered it yourself, from any of the web-based retailers. And, with Amazon developing its print-on-demand technology, and the Kindle technology to allow you to download straight to your books version of the iPod, you’ll never have to set foot in a retail outlet again.
  But that’s hardly going to be the end of it. If you can have web-based retail outlets, why not web-based publishers? Why not simply write a book, have it published by an on-line outlet, and have them download it straight to your readers’ hand-held device?
  Of course, the real danger there is that a behemoth like Amazon corners the books market entirely, becoming a vast one-stop-shop of (electronic) printer-cum-publisher-cum-retailer, which brings us back to Peter Rozovsky’s original point about the consolidation of retailers and lack of choice.
  A disaster for readers and writers? That all depends on the readers and writers, and whether they have the ingenuity to use the web pro-actively. What’s to stop writers banding together to form their own on-line co-operative publishing houses, for example? Or to think outside the box and publish directly to the web, forsaking the traditional advance-and-royalties model for – say – banner ads, tips and click-through revenue generators? Or – and this one is so damn crazy it might just work – write for the love of writing, and deliver it directly to an audience that reads for the love of reading?
  No, I’m not insane, and no, I’m not on drugs. Yes, I’m incorrigibly naïve. But I started out writing for the fun of it, for the sheer joy of putting one word after another and watching them weave meaning out of chaos. And if it’s fun you crave in your life, particularly through books, then the web, with all its potential for anarchy, revolution and rewriting the script, is the place to be.
  The modern publishing industry, courtesy of Johannes Gutenberg (right), has been around for roughly 500 years. The internet, especially in its interactive incarnation, is barely a decade old.
  Strap yourselves in, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The Sunday Roast

A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: “A few tasty little interweb Sunday dumplings for your delectation, people. First up is CAP’s good friend Bernd Kochanowski (right), who is currently hosting the latest incarnation of the Crime Carnival over at Krimis Internationale and doing nothing whatsoever to undermine the stereotype of German efficiency and thoroughness. Quoth Bernd:

“Therefore it isn’t easy to present something new. Most of the keepers of blogs work hard to present regularly new topics and new posts. As a result readers are at a certain risk to forget last week’s post, not to mention last month’s post, although these posts had thrilled them so much. Therefore my question to you: Which older post would you like to see in a blog museum?”

  “We’re taking the Fifth. Meanwhile, over at Detectives Beyond Borders, Peter Rozovsky may or may not announce the first outing for Noir at the Bar, a revolutionary new concept that juxtaposes crime fiction readings with music. The bar in question is the Tritone in Philly, and the first writer up to the mike is – trumpet parp there, maestro – Duane Swierczynski. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but we like it, etc.
  “Finally, the one-man lunatic asylum that is Critical Mick has a review of Tana French’s IN THE WOODS, but as always there’s a twist. Firstly, it appears that Critical Mick’s copy of IN THE WOODS was snaffled by a literary-minded burglar, and secondly, the Mickster has provided an mp3 version of the review for all of you funky, teched-up interweb heads out there. Mick also has a request of us, which runneth thusly:

“If you are looking for content for CAP, feel free to mention the Writing Show’s current First Chapter of a Novel Contest. You were good enough to mention it last year: you can call this Bleeding Fingers II. The contest is open for submissions now, and there’s still about three weeks to meet the early deadline. Full details are on The Writing Show’s website. I will be most grateful.”

  “Mickster? We’re not worthy. Although we do represent decent value for money, particularly now that the euro is so strong against sterling and the dollar. Love one another, people. Out.”

The Mekon Shall Inherit The Earth

Peter Rozovsky (right) denies that he has ‘a brain the size of a planet’, but we’re not so sure given the wealth and depth of information he offers on a daily basis over at Detectives Beyond Borders. DBB, if you haven’t come across it before, is a superb window onto international crime fiction, and Peter is this week hosting the Carnival of the Criminal Minds, which is now in its eighth incarnation. Meet you at the Whack-A-Mole stand, people …