Declan Hughes: Resistance Is Futile

As befits these recessionary times, Crime Always Pays has gone on a go-slow, paring back all output to a one-day week. But the news that Declan Hughes (right) has been nominated for yet another Shamus is more than enough to get yours truly back at the keyboard, given that this year’s nomination – full list here – is his third Shamus nom on the bounce: he won the debut section in 2007 for THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, was back in harness in 2008 with THE COLOUR OF BLOOD, and has just been nominated for 2009 for THE PRICE OF BLOOD (winner to be announced at the Indiana Bouchercon, October 16th). Now, without having the patience or time to go through the history of the Shamus awards, I’m sure there have been other writers who have been nominated for three awards in a row – but for their first three novels?
  I know that the news itself is a little stale at this stage, given that the nominations were announced last week, but given that a high percentage of this blog’s readers are Irish, and there remains a resistance among Irish readers for Irish-set crime fiction, it’s certainly worth repeating – Declan Hughes is one of the best PI writers in the world.
  Quite why Irish readers are resistant to Irish-set crime fic is a story for another day, but it’ll be interesting to see what kind of turn-out Hughes gets for his crime writing workshop next month, which kicks off the crime fiction element of the Books 2009 Festival (Dublin, September 12th). If there’s any justice in the world, they’ll need cattle-prods to keep the crowds at bay.
  In a not-unrelated digression, I was at the recent Flat Lake Festival in Monaghan, where I was ‘Who’s he?’ guy in a line-up of yours truly, Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway and Eoin McNamee. The conversation largely concerned itself with why literary fiction is generally considered superior to crime fiction, although what bugs me about those kind of conversations is the presumption that people only read one kind of story – crime or literary fiction, or sci-fi, or chick lit, or whatever you’re having yourself. I always feel a bit guilty at times like that, because I’m a complete magpie – I’ll read anything once it’s well written, or has a great plot, or terrific ideas. And if you can give me all three at the same time, I’ll come and be your Filipino house-boy for the rest of your life (I’m being rhetorical, McKinty).
  Anyway, the gig finished up with Dec Hughes reading a passage from his latest novel, the fifth Ed Loy, which Dec Hughes has very recently finished (the name escapes me now). When he was finished, Eoin McNamee said, ‘Well, that’s put to bed the idea that crime writers can’t write literary fiction.’ Or words to that effect.
  Perhaps it’s because Hughes takes for his inspiration Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and – particularly – Ross Macdonald that his prose has a lushly gorgeous style, and perhaps it’s that the PI of crime fiction – that eternally wounded romantic – lends itself to the kind of first-person monologue that allows the writer’s imagination to flourish. Either way – and this is for those resistant Irish readers – Declan Hughes is a wonderful writer. And all of the foregoing doesn’t even take into consideration his best novel, in my opinion his latest, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, which won’t even be nominated for a Shamus until this time next year.
  There’s a bandwagon leaving town, people. Its name is Declan Hughes. My advice to you is to be on it when it pulls out.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE DYING BREED by Declan Hughes

With his first two novels, THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD and THE COLOUR OF BLOOD, Declan Hughes established his series protagonist, Ed Loy, as a private investigator very much in the mould of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer. The novels, set in a fictionalised Dublin, Ireland, are largely concerned with dysfunctional families, and how the sins of the father (and / or mother) are almost inevitably visited on their offspring. There is at times an almost Biblical quality to the way in which Hughes insists that the blood passed on is diseased by deeds which, if not exactly Evil with a capital E, are certainly the venal outworkings of an ambitiously grasping generation infected by the vast sums of newly available cash sloshing around courtesy of Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom.
  Hughes returns to this theme in his third novel, THE DYING BREED (aka THE PRICE OF BLOOD for its U.S. release, through William Morrow). Commissioned by a dying priest, Fr Vincent Tyrell, to find a former jockey who has gone missing, Loy has only a name to go on. But Fr Tyrell’s name is in itself evocative: the priest is the brother of the hugely successful racehorse trainer and breeder FX Tyrell. Soon Loy finds himself immersed in the murky underworld of Irish horse racing, with dead bodies piling up as he inches closer to the dark heart of a family that appears to have much in common with the Medicis and the Borgias.
  Hughes, a former playwright, is a veteran at establishing mood, pace and tone at an early stage, and the Christmas period during which the events swiftly unfold is as much a player in this story as any of its flesh-and-blood characters. He’s also very good at weaving together a number of diverse sub-plots, and here touches on a number of hot-topic issues of recent Irish history: corruption in Irish horseracing; neglect and abuse in Church-run industrial schools; the declining influence of the Church when juxtaposed with the inexorable rise of Mammon; the infiltration of all levels of Irish society by illegally amassed wealth. The style, which is of the tough, hardboiled variety, owes as much to Raymond Chandler as it does Ross Macdonald, with Hughes showcasing a deft hand at leavening the grim tone with flashes of mordant wit: “Neither had been a jockey; the plasterer sounded amused at the suggestion, the solicitor mysteriously outraged, as if I’d accused him of being a sex criminal, or a DJ.”
  The plotting, dense and complex, draws the reader further and further into a web so tangled that it becomes claustrophobic, and while the ambition is laudable, there is a sense that Hughes may well have bitten off more than he can comfortably chew. By the denouement, events have turned so complicated that Loy finds himself unable to be in at the death, and so must hear how the climactic finale occurred second-hand, courtesy of his excitable sidekick, Tommy. In saying that, there is also a palpable sense that Hughes has enough confidence in his ability to bend the rules of the first-person narration out of shape, and ironically comment on the limitations imposed by the genre, and in this he is in the vanguard of a number of Irish writers who are testing the limits of the conventional crime novel, among them Tana French, Ken Bruen, Benjamin Black, Brian McGilloway, Gene Kerrigan and John Connolly.
  In the end, all crime novels should be judged on how well they convey their insights into the environment that caused them to come into being, and on that reckoning Declan Hughes has confirmed the promise he has shown with his first two novels. THE DYING BREED is a complex, labyrinthine, gritty, coarse (and, yes, bloody) novel that exudes a brash confidence and an ambition that lies beyond its grasp – a description, it should be said, that could easily be applied to the nation that spawned the novel. It may not be the Great Irish Crime Novel some of us were hoping for, but as a snapshot of modern Ireland, it is a clearly focused picture of our faults and failings, and perhaps even our virtues too. – Declan Burke

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

The third volume in Declan Hughes’ Ed Loy series, THE DYING BREED (aka THE PRICE OF BLOOD, which follows on from THE COLOUR OF BLOOD and THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD), hits a bookshelf near you on April 3rd, and the ever-lovely people at William Morrow are offering to give away an advance copy to three Crime Always Pays readers (of which, happily, there are only three). Quoth the blurb elves:

Even the best private eye needs more than a name to find a missing person, but that’s all that Father Vincent Tyrrell, the brother of prominent racehorse trainer FX Tyrrell, will offer Loy when he comes to him for help. A dwindling bank account convinces Loy to delve into the deadly underworld of horse racing, but fortune soon smiles on him: while working another case, he discovers a phone number linked to FX on a badly beaten body left at an illegal dump. Loy’s been around long enough to know that there’s more to the Tyrrell family than meets the eye -- and then a third body appears. At Christmastime, on the eve of one of Ireland’s most anticipated racing events, the intrepid investigator bets his life on a long shot: finding answers in a shady network of trading and dealing, gambling and breeding.

To be in with a chance of winning a free copy of THE DYING BREED, just answer the following question:

Is Ed Loy:
(a) distressingly obsessed with blood;
(b) not in the slightest bit obsessed with blood, but it with he;
(c) Lew Archer with a perpetual hangover?

Answers to dbrodb(at)gmail.com, putting ‘One Declan is a coincidence but two is rather unfortunate’ in the subject line, and including your address in the body text, before noon on Tuesday, March 18. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD by Declan Hughes

Declan Hughes has done a great job with this, his debut novel. THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD introduces us to Ed Loy, a PI who has returned from LA to his native Dublin for his mother’s funeral. Although his plan is to bury his mother and get the hell out of Dodge, he gets caught up in a missing person’s investigation that leads to a cluster of brutal murders. Organised crime, dirty politics, drugs, guns, property development; this noir story gets acquainted with the modern Dirty Ol’ Town and shares a bottle of Jameson with it. Then things get ugly.
  Hughes is a great writer who enjoys taking a minute to stop and take in his settings. At times his prose takes on a poetic quality. Take this gem: “We were standing on the terrace of the Bayview Hotel, watching a bloated old moon hoist itself slowly above the sea.” Gorgeous, right? Well, the novel is full of this kind of stuff, which I enjoyed for the most part. But to be completely honest, I’d have trimmed a few of these instances. At times the pacing was a little bogged down by description, and a harsher edit would have helped this.
  Hughes can also be a teensy bit guilty of superfluous writing. Example: “Tommy was sitting in the porch, rolling up a three-skinner, heating a small block of dope with a cigarette lighter and crumbling the edges into the tobacco.” Another writer might have gone with, “Tommy skinned up in the porch.” But I’m being very picky here. You might argue that I had trouble finding something negative to weigh up my review of this book – and I’d concede the point. My defence? Strong work is hard to critique.
  Happily, these instances take nothing away from an impressively well-constructed plot with some clever twists and a very satisfying denouement. I thought Ed Loy’s character was a real good ‘un. Heroic, but with enough flaws to make him interesting and likeable. I’ll be very interested in how his life develops as this series continues. The second Ed Loy mystery, THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is available now, and I plan to revisit Hughes’ dark and brooding work as soon as I can. – Gerard Brennan

Gerard Brennan can be found right here.

The Man Who Put The ‘Huge’ Into ‘Hughes’

Is it just us, or is it starting to look like some kind of Irish crime writing invasion over in the U.S.? Ken Bruen nabbed an impressive haul of awards at the Alaska Bouchercon over the weekend, but he wasn’t the only Irish page-blackener to pilfer a gong. Step up Declan Hughes, who won a Best First Novel Shamus for THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, as reported to us first by The Rap Sheet. Characterised as an Irish Ross Macdonald, Hughes has the follow-up, THE COLOUR OF BLOOD, already published, with a little Declan Hughes-shaped birdie whispering that there’s a third written and ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Our advice? Batten down the hatches for declanhughesmania. And, yes, we’ve just invented that. Just trips off the tongue, don’t it?

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 347: Declan Hughes

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?
It’s a toss-up between The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett and The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald. Hammett’s book, the first crime - as opposed to detective - novel, remains a marvel for its style, its complex, cynical grasp of urban politics and its deft exploration of manners, a crucial area for the hardboiled as much as the cosy side of the house. The Galton Case is The Great Gatsby of crime novels, with its inquiry into the father-son legacy, personal self-reinvention and the limits of the American dream; Macdonald squared the circle of hard-boiled action and social /psychological comment with masterful plotting. I honestly believe he’s still The Master; no-one else has even come close.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Edmund Crispin’s Gervais Fen books. They’re absurdly snobbish, deeply silly, clever-clever Golden Age mysteries (although written in the late forties/ early fifties) laden with literary quotation, facetious humour and pretty much everything I don’t generally enjoy in a crime novel, but there’s something about them I find immensely comforting, particularly when you’ve just delivered a new book and are a) totally wrecked, and b) terrified to read anyone you normally would in case you remind yourself of just how good they are, and thereby of your own inadequacies.
Most satisfying writing moment?
One of them was the opening night of my first play, I Can’t Get Started – based on the life of Dashiell Hammett – at the 1990 Dublin Theatre Festival. The dawning realisation that the audience wasn’t going to walk out in boredom or fury, that they would in fact stay and applaud at the end, that a full house of people who wouldn’t have been at all upset if they’d hated it (Dublin audiences can be tough) apparently enjoyed an evening based on words I’d written ... there was pretty good drinking that night.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
I think I’ll stick with the dead, just to be on the safe side. Raymond Chandler could have played for Ireland in the Jack Charlton years: his mother was from Waterford. But that would be way too cheeky. But we can certainly claim C. Day Lewis, writing as Nicholas Blake – The Private Wound is set in the west of Ireland just before the second world war. Lots of dubious priests and ex-IRA malarkey.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
The Private Wound. It was in the works for a while, because I once had a meeting with the producers. I think Ronan Bennett did a screenplay – he did them all for a few years – but it doesn’t seem to have gone any further.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing is the solitariness, and eventually the hours. But they can be the best things as well, although obviously the hours are a lot nicer when you’re happily starting a book than they are when you’re desperate to finish it. And while you don’t get to meet people at work, or leave the house, it’s nice some January mornings as the traffic backs up on the M50 and the sleet carries in on the wind to know that your commute to work is the arduous trek from the kitchen to the study.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
I wonder if it started as a hat-tip to Richard Stark AKA Donald Westlake, whom he has long admired. It strikes me that Benjamin Black is having a whale of a time writing crime. The question might well, be, will he ever use his John Banville nym again?
Who are you reading right now?
What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman is a stunning piece of work: psychologically complex, laced with shrewd wit, it draws you in delicately, without showing its hand; when the major revelation finally comes, it’s all the more shocking because you haven’t been entirely aware you were reading a thriller. And like everyone else, I’m loving Peter Temple: The Broken Shore is an absolute classic. At the moment, I’m in the middle of the second Jack Irish book, Black Tide. Great stuff. Jack Irish? We can claim him, can’t we?
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
John Connolly tends to have better words than most. Three he used to describe my first book were: Witty, violent and moving. I may blush, but who am I to argue?

Declan Hughes’ The Colour of Blood is available everywhere they appreciate good writing.

Is This A Dagger We See Before Us?

It’s Daggers at dawn, people – not only was Kevin Wignall nominated for a CWA short story Dagger, as reported below via Sarah Weinman’s Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, but Declan Hughes and Brian McGilloway will be schlepping down to their local tux rental emporium too. Both have been nominated for the CWA New Blood Dagger, Hughes (below, left) for The Wrong Kind of Blood (John Murray), McGilloway (above, right) for Borderlands (Macmillan New Writing) … the latter being one of our featured This Week We’re Reading tomes, which is also posted below. Coincidence? We think so, yeah. For a full list of the nominations in all categories, jump over here to the Crime Writers’ Association interweb thingy … The results will be announced on July 5 at the CWA / Duncan Lawrie Dagger Awards during a swankalicious black-tie gig at London’s Four Seasons on Park Lane, so no blagging in on the fly – unless you’re the kind whose blagging threads look very much like a tux. Bon chance, mes amis …