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

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?
Hmm ... I can think of three and can’t pick between them. THE LONG GOODBYE, THE GREAT GATSBY, THE SUN ALSO RISES.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Sam Spade ... is there any other answer?

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Clive Cussler, Eric Ambler, Homer.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Chapter 41 of THE CHICAGO WAY. Not sure if it’s my favourite passage, but I remember writing it and feeling it in my bones.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
RESURRECTION MEN by Ian Rankin. Scottish, but close enough. (BTW, don’t say that too loud in Glasgow.)

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
RESURRECTION MEN by Ian Rankin.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best thing is that it’s just you and your characters. The worst thing is that it’s just you and your characters. Make sense? It’s not supposed to. The bottom line is that writing a novel is one of the purest human endeavours anyone can undertake. It uses up no natural resources and creates something out of nothing. Not magic ... hard work ... but pretty damn cool.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A sequel to THE THIRD RAIL. It starts up a week after THE THIRD RAIL ends and all hell breaks loose.

Who are you reading right now?
Got a few going. Cormac McCarthy, Albert Camus, Aeschylus, Alan Furst and Daniel Silva.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Yikes ... I’m Irish Catholic. We don’t like to tempt fate and we don’t like these questions. If I were still a child, I’d say read. Right now, I guess I’d say write.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Physical, cinematic, honest.

Michael Harvey’s THE THIRD RAIL is published by Knopf.

I Believe In Harvey

Is Michael Harvey Irish enough to qualify as an Irish crime writer? Well, he was born and raised in Boston, graduated from Boston Latin School, is married to Mary Frances and owns a dog called Maggie. He also owns a pub called The Hidden Shamrock. And as if that wasn’t enough, his series protagonist is ‘former Irish cop turned PI, Michael Kelly’. All of which, in our humble opinion, makes Michael Harvey as Irish as a tinkers’ wake. His latest offering is THE THIRD RAIL, about which the blurb elves have been wittering thusly:

This ferocious new novel from the author of THE CHICAGO WAY and THE FIFTH FLOOR finds Michael Harvey at the top of his game in an expertly plotted, impossible to put down thriller set in Chicago’s public transit system. Harvey’s tough talking, Aeschylus-quoting, former Irish cop turned PI, Michael Kelly, is back in another sizzling murder mystery that pits him against a merciless sniper on the loose in Chicago’s public transportation system. After witnessing a shooting on an L platform - and receiving a phone call from the killer himself - Kelly is drawn toward a murderer with an unnerving link to his own past, to a crime he witnessed as a child, and to the consequences it had on his relationship with his father, a subject Kelly would prefer to leave unexamined. But when his girlfriend - the gorgeous Chicago judge Rachel Swenson - is abducted, Kelly has no choice but to find the killer by excavating his own stormy past. Stylish, sophisticated, edge-of-your-seat suspense from a new modern master.

  Impressed? John Grisham is. “A magnificent new voice,” quoth the Grishmeister. “A major new voice,” says Michael Connelly, determined to be outdone. “Gritty and witty … a real winner,” says Kathy Reichs.
  So there you have it. Michael Harvey. THE THIRD RAIL. We’re claiming him for our own …