Monday’s Lynx

In which Jinx the Lynx (right) presents some stuff ‘n’ such that tickled his tufty little ears during last week’s prowl around the interweb, to wit:

Maxine at Petrona has an ‘In Praise of Crime Fiction’ thingy going on …

… and are we still defending crime fiction? Really?

Every writer should have read this by now …

Tony Black on RILKE ON BLACK …

Julie Parsons on the allure of rubber boots …

… and finally, a belated report on the Crime Writers Series from Books 2008 …

Around The Web In 80 Seconds*

Confused? You might well be … Ken Bruen has just released the latest Jack Taylor novel, SANCTUARY, and yet ye olde google search for ‘Ken Bruen Sanctuary’ throws up the news, courtesy of Crime Spree Cinema, that ‘John Stockwell has signed on to direct Sanctuary, a film that is based on Irish novelist John Connelly’s book BAD MEN.’ Quoth MysterLynch:

“For those of you that are not familiar with Connolly’s work, he manages to show both the darkest aspects of man as well as the finest points of humanity in a style that is graphic yet often poetic. I can honestly say I think he is one of the finest fiction writers alive today and should be read by all.”

  No arguments here. Claire Coughlan, on the other hand, is in combative form – a stalwart reviewer for Crime Always Pays, she gets in touch to vent about Tana French’s THE LIKENESS thusly:

“Is it my imagination, or do American reviewers seem to give an awful lot of the plot away? Sheesh, leave something for the readers to find out themselves. Check out this review in the NY Times ... I have a problem with reviewers in general going into the minutiae of the plot – it kinda ruins elements of the story.”

  Certainly there’s a fine line between offering the reader enough plot to intrigue, and blatant plot-spoilers. My own issue with Janet Maslin’s review of THE LIKENESS is that it compares the novel – approvingly – with Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY, which was The Most Boring Novel I’ve Ever Read, Ever. But that’s just me …
  Elsewhere, Charles Fernyhough reviewed Irvine Welsh’s CRIME for the Sunday Independent, and had this to say:

“Welsh’s readers will recognise his trademark melange of registers, from high-flown lyricism, through foul-mouthed demotic to bland therapy-speak: the taut dialogue buzzes with snappy ventriloquism. Welsh is one of our most interesting writers on the minutiae of human consciousness, and little happens here that the reader does not end up feeling vividly for himself.”

  Over at The Scotsman, CAP’s Man of the Week, Tony Black, waxes lyrical about why Edinburgh is the perfect city for a crime fiction setting, to wit:

“If you were putting together a template for what might be the best city for a crime novel, I think Edinburgh might fit the bill. It’s got that schizophrenic heart. There is rich Edinburgh and poor Edinburgh, there are ornate buildings and sink estates. Inevitably these two worlds must collide, which creates perfect conflict for the crime novelist. It’s the city of TRAINSPOTTING, but it’s also the city of MISS JEAN BRODIE.”

  Finally, the harsh-but-fair dominatrix known to her adoring public as Maxine Clarke reports from Harrogate, and sounds a little peeved at the excessive analysis of what constitutes crime fiction:

“The more I read and hear people trying to shoehorn “crime fiction” into various psychological and sociological analyses, the more irrelevant the genre-definition game seems to be. Good books are good books, and don’t need to be discussed in a certain context, which could end up turning into a straightjacket.”

  Well said, ma’am. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, there’s only two kinds of writing – good writing and bad writing. The rest is marketing. Peace, out.

* Providing you don’t click any of the links, obviously.

One Of These Kids Is Doing His Own Thing …

There’s no good reason for republishing this pic from Bristol Crime Fest (l-r: Maxine, Rhian, Karen, El Cheesalero – with Ms Witch lurking with intent, no doubt, just out of picture) except to say that three of the four crime fiction bloggers are superb exponents of what they do, which is to let the world at large know about quality crime fiction writing for no reward but the joy of doing so, while the fourth is only in it for the money. If you’re in the market for insightful, illuminating conversations about contemporary crime writing, click on Petrona, It’s A Crime! and Euro Crime. Oh, and while you’re about it, click on Crime Scraps, whose host – the inimitable Norm – was behind the camera for this epoch-defining snap. He reckons he’s shy, but your secret is safe with us, Salman. Now, the Big Question: can we persuade Peter Rozovsky and Gerard Brennan to make it to Crime Fest 2009? Only time, that notorious tittle-tattler, will tell …

Maybe The People Would Be The Times*

It’s people power, folks. Maxine at Petrona brings us the news that lunatics with impeccable taste have taken over at the reading asylum known as The Times’ book group. Quoth Maxine:

Tana French’s IN THE WOODS will be the next title to be read by the Times book group. Alyson Rudd, editor of the group, writes: “This is a real treat for Christmas. IN THE WOODS is a classic murder mystery with plenty of twists and macabre detail.” She continues: “This is Tana French’s debut and is startlingly accomplished. Many detective stories are described as “superior” to differentiate them from the many lazy and predictable thrillers out there — but this really is. French writes beautifully and is far from lazy when it comes to sprinkling clues and red herrings and developing the characters.”

In other words, IN THE WOODS is a Ruddy good read. That lazy enough for ya?

* A free copy of IN THE WOODS to the first person to get in touch and let us know the album this header comes from. Ray Banks? You’re barred.

Books Of The Year # 2: THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR by Gene Kerrigan

Being the continuing stooooooory of our ‘2007 Round-Up Of Books Wot My Friends Wrote’ compilation to fill a gap between some interesting stuff. To wit:

THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR, by Gene Kerrigan.
This is a wonderful book, superbly well written. The promise of Kerrigan’s previous book, LITTLE CRIMINALS, is more than fulfilled in this elegiac novel of corruption in Ireland. The book begins by describing various apparently unconnected events; one in Galway, where Garda Joe Mills is called on to try to stop a desperate man jumping from a pub roof; and a couple of others in Dublin, where Detective Inspector Harry Synnott investigates a rape accusation made against the son of a rich local lawyer, where a desperate woman threatens to stab a tourist with a syringe full of blood for cash, and where businessman Joshua Boyce is planning a raid on a jeweller’s shop. As these stories play out, weaving in and out of each other, corruption small and large is all-pervasive. Whether trapped in poverty, addicted to drugs, desperate to keep a family together or wanting to preserve a pleasant lifestyle, everyone is on the take, selling each other out, hiding unsavoury truths or aiming to stay on top of the organised crime heap. Almost the only character with integrity is Harry, who has been moved from several police stations previously because he has blown the whistle on past cases of police “stitch-ups”, much to the disgust of many of his erstwhile and present colleagues. But is all what it seems? Is Harry really a hero, or is he part of the tapestry of deceit that threads through the narrative? The answers to these questions become clearer after he meets up with John Grace, a main character in Kerrigan’s previous book, LITTLE CRIMINALS. Grace is taking early retirement and goes through his files of old cases with Harry. In this scene, we begin to get the true picture of Harry’s moral perspective. Remembering his old friend, a priest, one night, “Synnott listened to the city sounds, the chugging noise of traffic mixed in with occasional catcalls and burst of laughter. As he drifted towards sleep, individual voices, each with its own energy and purpose, blended into a muffled chorus, a refrain both solemn and threatening.” I loved everything about this book. THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR is truly bleak, at times violent and disturbing, but always brilliant. The way in which the plots overlap and sometimes merge in a horridly inevitable cause and effect is masterly. Although I applaud the lack of sentimentality, I was glad that the reader is left with a spark of optimism in the shape of at least two police officers who know how to do the right thing.- Maxine Clarke

This review was first published on Euro Crime. Maxine Clarke blogs at Petrona.

All The Fun Of The Fayre: Yep, ’Tis Ye Olde Crime Carnivale!

“Ta-ra-ra-boo-ki-yay / Ta-ra-ra- boo-ki-yay …” Yessiree Sideshow Bob, it’s the latest leg of the Crime Carnival, and sincere apologies if our calliope music sounds a little wonky, not to mention nothing like any music you’ve heard before at any carnival. Here at Crime Always Pays Towers, however, wonkiness is the new black, courtesy of the elves’ patented Elf-Wonking Juice. Stick around, you just might get used to it …

Before we plunge down the dark alleyway that is the crime writing blogosphere, however, we’d like to doff our caps / pay our dues / offer you a little history. Ye Olde Crime Carnivale is the brainchild of criminal mastermind Barbara Fister, who thought that it might be a rather spiffing idea for like-minded people to share their favourite blogs, websites, writers and all things crime-‘n’-interweb-related. Karen Chisholm at AustCrimeFiction took up the poisoned chalice in her beautifully manicured hand, before passing it on to the strong and silent (but deadly) J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet. Sadly, he got himself hooked up with a load of Femmes Fatales (left), and brother, that was all she (or they, for that matter) wrote.

Anyhoo, moving swiftly along … First, a brief history of Crime Always Pays. Last April, the Grand Vizier, Declan Burke, co-published THE BIG O with the tiny but perfectly formed Irish publishing house Hag’s Head Press on a 50-50 costs and profits deal. There being zip, zilch and nada in the promotion budget, and Declan Burke having a yen to start telling the world at large about the thriving Irish crime fiction scene, a blog was born. Naturally, the first thing we discovered was that someone else had got there before us. Critical Mick – for lo! It is he! – is a veritable Golden Cornflake of Irish crime fiction blogging, being the original and the best. Irascible, spicily opinionated, never less than original and mad as a box of frogs, Critical Mick should be the first port of call for anyone looking for updates on Irish crime writing or confirmation that they are, in fact, the second-biggest loony on the planet. Ah, and an honourable mention in terms of an Irish crime fiction resource goes to author Cormac Millar, who compensates for his irregular updates with a comprehensive database of all things Irish crime writing.

Coming as we do from an independent publishing viewpoint, we generally like to support the kind of lone wolves who pretty much march to their own drum, and so – trumpet parp please, maestro – it’s off to Philly to drop in on Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders. Given that he’s likely to celebrate anything from Eoin Colfer’s young adult fiction to crime tropes in Shakespeare, we like to imagine that yon Rozovsky has a brain like the Mekon from the old Dan Dare comics, albeit with Dan Dare’s square chin and dreamy eyes. Or is that just us? Hmmmm …

Anyway, off we go again with hop, a skip and a jump across the blogosphere to the man we believe is either Rozovsky’s evil twin / alter ego or his dastardly nemesis, Glenn Harper at International Noir. Glenn doesn’t like Michael Dibdin, but don’t hold that against him – in the last fortnight alone he’s been bigging up fiction from Australia, Iceland, the UK and Italy, and should really be put on a retainer by International Publishers Inc., if and when such a corporation comes into being.

Meanwhile, Nathan Cain over at Independent Crime gets a well-deserved plug for (a) his resolute support for independent crime and (b) his ‘Wednesday Paperback Cover’ slot (left), the less said about which the better lest the elves start drooling into the keyboard again. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of drooling, two words: Jen Jordan. Hell, her profile even describes her as ‘friend to all elves’. If we weren’t currently stalking Ruth Dudley Edwards, Jen Jordan would be reaching for the barring order as you read. Logging on to Human Under Construction is a mini-Crime Carnival every time, a veritable cornucopia of generalised weirdness that even includes crime fiction-related material once in a while …

Out with the inflatable rubber raft, then, and it’s high-ho back across the Atlantic to the UK, and Petrona, an indispensable resource run by the ubiquitous Maxine Clarke, without whose perpetual motion the entire interweb would very probably collapse in on itself in a black hole. The great fear, of course, is that one day Maxine will stop for a snooze, and then we’ll all be scuppered. In the meantime, she’s hosting an exhaustive list of blogs and websites pertaining to a bewildering variety of crime fiction and science-related topics …

Maxine regularly reviews (said he with a barely perceptible segue) for Euro Crime, hosted by Karen Meek, a site that offers a treasure trove of info on all things (yep!) Euro + Crime, not least of which is the weekly update (usually on a Sunday evening) of a slew of new reviews. In fact, Karen is very probably the evil twin sister / dastardly nemesis of the chaps at Detectives Beyond Borders and International Noir, and for all we know they’re plotting to subvert democracy and are sending messages in code via their reviews. Still, it can’t be Mills & Boon (right) all the time, right?

One last UK resource, this being one Welsh, which is reason enough for celebration – Crimefic at It’s A Crime! Or A Mystery! is currently hosting a series in which writers chose their favourite books of the year for a ‘Christmas Books’ selection, and most of her blogspace is taken up by that project at the moment. At quieter times of the year, however, you can catch all sorts of thoughtful and incisive pieces on the book industry from the perspective of a dedicated crime fiction fan. Unfortunately, as regular readers will be aware, Crimefic has recently suffered a bereavement. Our sincere condolences go out to one of the leading ladies of the crime fiction blogosphere ...

Finally, we’re going to mention International Crime, a German outpost of all things skulduggerish and hardboiled, run by Bernd Kochanowski. The gist of his manifesto runneth thusly: Gedanken über Krimis, insbesondere aus den USA, Großbritannien und Irland. As you’ve probably guessed, the site is in German, and given that our command of German is only marginally worse than our command of English, we haven’t a buggery’s idea as to what’s going on over there except to say the man’s working hard to keep the crime fiction flame a-burning bright, which is the whole point of Ye Olde Crime Carnivale. Right? All together now: Unten müssen jene Mittelstraßen ein Mann gehen...

By the way – the next Carnival? It’s Material Witness, people. And they’re serious about crime fiction. Don’t say you weren’t warned …

Put The Bleme On Meme, Boys

Hmmmm. Seems we’ve been designated a ‘schmoozeworthy blog’ by Peter over at Detectives Beyond Borders, and thus the honour / duty of nominating five blogs we consider ‘schmoozeworthy’ falls upon our collective shoulders. Pesky memes, eh? Chain letters with cookies, say we. Oh well, here goes:

Critical Mick
It’s A Crime! Or A Mystery!
The Rap Sheet
Petrona
After Dark My Sweet

As for the all-important definition of ‘schmoozeworthy’, quoth Peter:

“I’m not quite sure the creator of the award used schmooze quite correctly. To schmooze, or to schmooze someone, means to engage (someone) in a warm, pleasant conversation. Later, it came to mean to talk to with the purpose of gaining advantage for one’s self – to suck up to, in other words. In any case, I assume that the creator of the prestigious Schmoozeworthy Blog award meant to honour blogs worthy of being talked, or schmoozed, about, which does not quite meet either meaning of schmooze. Yiddish words often get used more for their sound than their sense.”

Over to you, folks …

Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: How Do We Love Thee, Friday? Let Us Count The Ways …

It’s a Ken Bruen mini-mash-up, folks: there’s an interview over at Pulp Pusher, and a short story – Loaded, from the London Noir anthology – available at The Barcelona Review. Meanwhile, Detectives Beyond Borders is delighted Ken is on his way to Philadelphia to receive the David Goodis Award at Noir Con 2008 (scroll down), and there’s fierce excitement entirely, as they might say in Galway, about his upcoming appearance on Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show on July 9. Here’s hoping Ireland’s very own Charlie Bucket crashes through that glass ceiling, Wonkavator-style … In other news, they’re giving away free copies of I Predict A Riot by The Artist Formerly Known as Bateman over at Meet the Author … There’s a smashing interview with Hard Case Crime co-publisher Charles Ardai (right) at Murderati, conducted by Mike MacLean, that kicks off with, “Grifters and pimps. Pushers and killers. Dirty angels and righteous whores …” Sigh. Why can’t all interviews begin that way, eh? … If you’re around the Bath area in England on July 5, you could do worse than toddle along to the Jim Kelly reading at the Long Gallery at The Old Palace, organised by Topping Books … Maxine Clarke is kind enough to let us all know, via her blog Petrona, that she’s looking forward to Ingrid Black’s The Judas Heart and the paperback of Tana French’s In the Woods, due in November … which is nice. On to the world of movies, and the word around the Anton campfire is that there’s a rough draft of three hours just begging to be trimmed down to two hours or thereabouts, and the official trailer is on the way – we’ll have it about two seconds after YouTube, people … A humble thank you kindly, ma’am, to Rhian over at It’s A Crime, for bigging-up Crime Always Pays in no uncertain fashion – despite everything … Finally, what better way to ease into the weekend than via some classic noir? Erm, via a pint of Pimms and a snakebite chaser, say the CAP elves. Nonetheless, here’s Fred ‘n’ Babs in Double Innuendo, sorry, Indemnity, to wit: “I wonder if I know what you mean.” “I wonder if you wonder.” They really don’t write ’em like that any more. Enjoy the weekend folks, and y’all take care to come back now, y’hear?

Captain Kirkus Boldly Goes

By way of Maxine Clarke's very funky Petrona blog comes news of the influential Kirkus Reviews ’07 First Fiction Spotlight, aka ‘Promising Debuts From Important New Voices’. Gene Kerrigan gets the hup-ya for The Midnight Choir, the follow-up to Little Criminals being his debut in the States: “Kerrigan has crafted an incisive portrait of contemporary Ireland through the matter-of-fact perspectives of officers on its legendary police force, the Gardai.” Which is nicer than nice … Meanwhile, two children’s authors get the big bump from Captain Kirkus. Eoin McNamee’s The Navigator is described as “… a crafty first piece of young-adult fiction …” while Derek Landy (see more down below somewhere) is the rave du jour: “Skulduggery Pleasant, his smart, stylish young-adult debut novel, has both substance and velocity, giving the story – a modern-day tale of sorcery, murder and menace, with a couple of sharp-tongued leading characters – a frightful excitement.” Okay – but yon Landy still isn’t dating Nicole Kidman, right?