The Little Brother

Melissa Hill, over at the Irish Crime Writing Facebook page, tips us off to a rather juicy piece of industry rumour-become-fact, which is that John Banville (right), under his crime writing nom-de-plume Benjamin Black, is to publish a Phillip Marlowe novel next year. All the details are here, but it appears that Banville / Black will be writing a full-length Chandleresque tale, set in Bay City, and featuring Marlowe - a novel in the same vein as Robert B. Parker’s PERCHANCE TO DREAM and POODLE SPRINGS.
  Should be very, very interesting indeed, particularly as (a) Banville took a right good lamping for daring to dabble in the dark arts of crime writing when first he donned his fedora as Benjamin Black; (b) Chandler, these days, tends to be lauded more for his romantic stylings than his plots, which is often a charge levelled at Benjamin Black himself; and (c) John Banville’s older brother, Vincent, was the first to introduce the Chandleresque homage to Irish crime writing, back in the early to mid-1990s, with his John Blaine private eye novels.
  Crikey. Cat? Meet the pigeons …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: John Knoerle

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?
FAREWELL MY LOVELY by Raymond Chandler.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Phillip Marlowe.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Cookbooks, esp. lushly illustrated ones. They’re foodie porn.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Can’t single out one but it’s that moment when you complete a circle you didn’t realize you were making.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
My ignorance of Irish crime novels is encyclopaedic.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
See above.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Writing a good novel is damn near impossible. Writing a great novel, well, I wouldn’t know. But I’m betting it’s difficult.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A behind German lines OSS agent is invited to Berlin to participate in a post-war ‘business venture.’ He thinks it smells fishy but goes anyway. He’s right.

Who are you reading right now?
FLASHMAN by George MacDonald Fraser.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. But then how do I edit?

The three best words to describe your own writing are ...
Bloody damn fantastic.

John Knoerle’s A PURE DOUBLE CROSS is published by Blue Steel Press.