“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Paul D. Brazill

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?
I really wish I could write a well crafted, well written mystery with strong characters. I’ve recently read William Ryan’s splendid novels THE HOLY THIEF and THE BLOODY MEADOW, and if I could do that, I would be a very happy man.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Dorian Grey, before it all went pear-shaped.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
No pleasures make me guilty but I did enjoy Ian McEwan’s SATURDAY, even though the hero is a knob.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Getting a story in one of Maxim Jakubowski’s ‘Mammoth Books of Best British Crime’ made me think I hadn’t wasted people’s time.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Best one so far this year is THE COLD COLD GROUND by Adrian McKinty.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
THE COLD COLD GROUND would make great telly. Gerard Brennan’s THE POINT would be a beaut film.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
I reckon for most people who do it for a living, the worst thing about it is that the lack of dosh. For a dilettante like me, it’s all fun and games. Even when someone loses an eye.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Well, I’ll quote the brilliant Ian Ayris who described my novella GUNS OF BRIXTON as ‘Charlie Williams meets Pulp Fiction.’ Suits me, sir!

Who are you reading right now?
Richard Godwin’s MR GLAMOUR and Tony Black’s MURDER MILE.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. Much less faff.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Ad hoc. Slapdash. Twoddle.

Paul D. Brazill’s Amazon page can be found right here.

Suffrage, Little Children

It’s all about democracy on Crime Always Pays today, as Ireland heads to the polling booths to vote on our next President, and a couple of constitutional amendments, the latter being far more important than the former, in my humble opinion. Far more important than either, of course, is the public vote in the Irish Book Awards, for which ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL has been short-listed, so anyone who isn’t Irish today, but feels like voting for something, or against something, should clickety-click on this link and exercise their suffrage.
  Incidentally, I’ve had a complaint or two - two, to be precise, both of them from Ms Witch - that the voting process isn’t as straightforward as it should be. Anyone else have a problem with the system?
  Anyway, and while I’m on the subject of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, I was very pleased indeed to read the inimitable Charlie Stella’s verdict on said tome during the week. The full piece can be found here, but the gist runneth thusly:

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is an absolutely wonderful read, start to finish. Declan Burke has penned the most original work of cross-genre fiction I’ve read in a long time. Literary, socially conscious, journalistically cynical … an absolute must-read.” - Charlie Stella

  I thank you kindly, Mr Stella. Oh, and if you’re even remotely interested in hearing my witterings on a variety of random subjects, Tony Black hosts a Q&A with yours truly over at Pulp Pusher. Why not drop on over and say hello to Tony? He’s Scottish, after all, and that can get a bit lonely at times.
  Right, that’s me away to vote. See you on the other side …

ZERO Minus One

The Big Day dawns tomorrow, said day being the launch date of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, and yea, verily, I’m bricking it. Hard to say why, really; at this stage, the book is what it is, and no amount of fretting is going to make it a better book. Also, anyone who turns up to the launch is very likely to be there in support mode, and anyway there’s a strict policy of no little boys allowed, lest one of them starts shouting about the emperor and his radical sartorial minimalism.
  No, it’ll all be okay on the night, once I get past the speechifying part. The idea of rambling aloud about AZC in front of a group of peers, friends and family is bowel-loosening enough, but the bit where I’ll be obliged to read some of AZC aloud? The horror, the horror …
  Anyway, there’s been a few nice snippets of promo on the interweb over the last week, quite apart from all the very generous folk who were good enough to plug the book’s publication. First up is The Sligo Champion, my hometown paper of record, who ran a short interview with yours truly, which can be found here. That’s a particularly nice buzz because, apart from having a poem published in a school magazine, my first experience of being published was in the Sligo Champion, for which I wrote up reports of junior football matches from the age of 16 onwards, a task only slightly complicated by the fact that I was generally playing in the games I wrote about.
  Meanwhile, Marshal Zeringue was good enough to ask me to submit ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL to the Page 69 Test, in which an author looks at pg 69 of his or her tome, and asks if it’s representative of the rest of the novel. A nifty notion, and you can find the results here …
  Over at Pulp Pusher, the rather fine Scottish writer and sex god Tony Black was kind enough to ask me to contribute to the ongoing series, ‘Every Day I Write the Book’, in which a writer details his experience of writing over a particular week. Somehow Steven Hawking, the Blue Nile and a serial killer stalking himself across multiple parallel universes got into the mix. You can find the results here …
  Elsewhere, Writing.ie is currently hosting an extract from AZC, said extract comprising what in most books would consist of the first chapter, even if AZC resolutely refuses to conform to such bourgeois concepts as ‘chapters’. If you’d like a flavour of what AZC is all about, feel free to clickety-click here …
  And that’s about it. The launch, by the way, for those of you who aren’t the Three Regular Readers, takes place in the Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin, at 6.30pm on Wednesday, August 10th. All are welcome, and John Connolly has agreed to give the event a scintilla of respectability by saying a few words before AZC is finally unleashed on an unsuspecting public.
  As for the book itself, well, the jacket copy runs thusly:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” – John Banville, author of THE SEA

Who in their right mind would want to blow up a hospital?
  “Close it down, blow it up – what’s the difference?”
  Billy Karlsson needs to get real. Literally. A hospital porter with a sideline in euthanasia, Billy is a character trapped in the purgatory of an abandoned novel. Deranged by logic, driven beyond sanity, Billy makes his final stand: if killing old people won’t cut the mustard, the whole hospital will have to go up in flames.
  Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned . . .

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

Conor Fitzgerald: Start Spreading The News

If you can make it there, you’re going to make it, period. It’s always nice to see the cream rise to the top, and such was the case over the weekend, when Conor Fitzgerald’s very fine novel THE FATAL TOUCH was reviewed in the New York Times. To wit:

Some Americans abroad fantasize about lingering in Paris to paint or jumping ship in Jamaica to become beach bums. Conor Fitzgerald had a better idea in his first novel, THE DOGS OF ROME, when he allowed his ex-pat hero, Alec Blume, to put down roots in Rome as a homicide cop. A free-spirited maverick, Commissario Blume returns in THE FATAL TOUCH (Bloomsbury, $25) to investigate the death of an old tramp, a notorious brawler and a drunk, assumed to have been killed during a mugging. But this routine case takes a tricky turn once Blume, whose parents were art historians, determines that this was no mugging and that the victim was really a skilled forger with clients in high places. Although an organized crime angle injects an element of danger into the investigation, there’s more pleasure to be had from Fitzgerald’s commentary on the victim’s dodgy trade, including fascinating technical instruction for “forgers, interpreters, emulators, admirers and genuine artists.” - Marilyn Stasio

  Very nice indeed. In fact the ‘victim’s dodgy trade’, which Fitzgerald offers courtesy of a memoir written by said victim, the art forger Henry Treacy, could very easily have spun off into a novel itself, and one that wouldn’t be dissimilar in tone and content to John Banville’s THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE, had Freddie Montgomery traded in ripping of famous artists as opposed to murder. I very much liked THE FATAL TOUCH too, with the gist of my review running thusly:

“Beautifully written, the story proceeds at a stately pace which disguises an exquisitely complex plot, as Blume delicately negotiates the labyrinth that is Roman policing. Fitzgerald has an elegant, spare style that straddles both the literary and crime genres, and the style is perfectly pitched to reflect Blume’s own world-weariness.” - Declan Burke

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, I had a hugely enjoyable chat with the very generous Ben LeRoy of Tyrus Books yesterday, which he recorded and has since posted as a podcast. The general thrust of the chat had to do with DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS and my forthcoming ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, but it’s a pretty general chat, and incorporates crime writing of all stripes, with a strong flavour of Irish crime fiction. If you’re interested, clickety-click here …
  Finally, although staying with GREEN STREETS, Tony Black was good enough to post his memories of the launch of said tome over at Pulp Pusher, although by the time the pic at right was taken in the Turk’s Head, it was all over bar the screaming, and plenty of that there was too. Quoth Tony:

“Mr Bruen was on particularly sparkling form, dropping a request for the assembled to reveal their life’s regrets! Don’t think I’m detailing those here: what goes on in the Turk’s Head stays in the Turk’s Head. Particularly nice to see Ken again, though, because the last time we met (the London launch of CROSS) I was an unpublished wannabe and he couldn’t have been more effusive in his encouragement. Hollywood success hasn’t changed him a bit. Luvly fellah.”

  Amen to that. For the rest of Tony’s reminisces, clickety-click here …

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

Tony Black regularly gets raves from the likes of Ken Bruen and Irvine Welsh for his Gus Dury novels, but he’s stepped away from the persecuted Gus for his latest outing, TRUTH LIES BLEEDING. Quoth the blurb elves:

Tony Black moves away from the noir of his Gus Dury novels with this terrific police procedural featuring Detective Inspector Rob Brennan. Four teenagers find the mutilated corpse of a young girl stuffed into a dumpster in an Edinburgh alleyway. Who is she? Where did she come from? Who killed her and why? Above all, where is the baby to which she has obviously recently given birth? Inspector Rob Brennan, recently back from psychiatric leave, is still shocked by the senseless shooting of his only brother. His superiors think that the case of the dumpster girl will be perfect to get him back on track. But Rob Brennan has enemies within the force, stacks of unfinished business and a nose for trouble. What he discovers about the murdered girl blows the case – and his life – wide open.

  The good people at Preface Publishing have been kind enough to offer Crime Always Pays three copies of TRUTH LIES BLEEDING to give away free, gratis and for nuffink, and to be in with a chance of winning a copy, all you have to do is this:

Recommend for the delectation of your fellow readers another novel with a title containing the words ‘Truth’, ‘Lies’ and / or ‘Bleeding’ (bonus points for novel titles that offer combinations of said words).

  Answers in the comment box below, please, leaving a contact email address (using ‘at’ rather than @ to confuse the spam munchkins). All submissions go into my bobbly hat. Closing date is noon on Thursday, January 27th, et bon chance, mes amis.

Norn Irons

Yon Brian McGilloway has more than a few irons in the fire these days. Not only is he going to be yakking and yukking with one Lee Child over in Belfast’s No Alibis on Wednesday evening, the 24th, he’s also releasing THE RISING, the fourth in the Inspector Devlin series. the following week, Wednesday 31st, this time in Derry, at the Verbal Arts Centre. Quoth the blurb elves:

When Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin is summoned to a burning barn, he finds inside the charred remains of a man who is quickly identified as a local drug dealer, Martin Kielty. It soon becomes clear that Kielty’s death was no accident, and suspicion falls on a local vigilante group. Former paramilitaries, the men call themselves The Rising. Meanwhile, a former colleague’s teenage son has gone missing during a seaside camping trip. Devlin is relieved when the boy’s mother, Caroline Williams, receives a text message from her son’s phone, and so when a body is reported, washed up on a nearby beach, the inspector is baffled. When another drug dealer is killed, Devlin realises that the spate of deaths is more complex than mere vigilantism. But just as it seems he is close to understanding the case, a personal crisis will strike at the heart of Ben’s own family, and he will be forced to confront the compromises his career has forced upon him. With his fourth novel, McGilloway announces himself as one of the most exciting crime novelists around: gripping, heartbreaking and always surprising, THE RISING is a tour de force – McGilloway’s most personal novel so far.

  For more details on both gigs, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and staying oop North, the firm-but-fair guardian of Crime Scene Norn Iron, Gerard Brennan, announces the publication of REQUIEMS FOR THE DEPARTED, a rather intriguing collection of crime short stories adapted from Irish mythology. Gerard was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to submit an offering to the anthology, which generosity I was stupid enough to decline, and I’ve already dislocated one hip trying to kick my sorry ass. Anyway, the line-up of contributors includes Ken Bruen, Stuart Neville, Adrian McKinty, Garbhan Downey, Arlene Hunt, Maxim Jakubowski, Sam Millar, Tony Black and – oh yes! – Brian McGilloway, among others. Gerard and Mike Stone are on editing duties, and it sounds like an absolute cracker, chaps. Come the launch party, the dry Pimms are on me …

Git Along Li’l Dogie – Ye Olde Ende of Monthe Round-Up

Being a pick-‘n’-mix of Crime Always Pays posts for the month of June. To wit:

Reviews of John Connolly’s THE LOVERS, Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE, and Declan Hughes’ ALL THE DEAD VOICES.

Tony Black gets interviewed to mark the launch of his second novel, GUTTED.

Some chancer called Declan Burke posts the first chapter of his work-in-progress.

Peter James is remarkably generous with his time …

Debutant Sean Black announces that he’s a fictional character.

John Connolly gets jiggy with ‘conservative critics’ who don’t like genre-bending.

Craig McDonald interviews Ken Bruen over at the Busted Flush interweb malarkeybus.

Euro Crime goes crazy all of a sudden and reviews Brian McGilloway, Paul Charles, Tana French, Declan Hughes, Adrian McKinty and Gene Kerrigan.

Score! Free signed copies of Adrian McKinty’s terrific thriller FIFTY GRAND.

No GUTTED, No Glory

CAP’s good friend Tony Black (right) has a new novel coming your way, GUTTED being the follow-up to PAYING FOR IT, and featuring the reluctant PI Gus Dury. “Maybe the best novel I’ve read all year … A stunning piece of work,” says Allan Guthrie, no slouch himself when it comes to penning stunning novels. And agent-type representing of Declan Burke, for that matter. Anyway, seeing as how he has already filled in the standard Q&A, we fired a few fresh Qs at Tony. To wit:

You’ve a new novel coming, called GUTTED. Tell us a little about it and its protagonist, Gus Dury.
“GUTTED kicks off with Gus staking out badger baiters on Edinburgh’s Corstorphine Hill and after a bit of a pagger with the local young crew, who are torturing a dog, he finds himself tripping over the gutted (see what I did there!) corpse of a known villain. Gus is mad enough to hang about and call plod, who turn up and promptly put him in the frame.
  “The real fun ensues, though, when Gus finds the investigating officer is dating his ex-wife, Debs, and that fifty grand belonging to city ganglord Rab Hart has been snatched from the corpse. Roll on corruption, casual violence and a stack of characters so unsavoury they make the first book look like an episode of Chuckle Vision.”

What was the one thing you learned about writing and publishing PAYING FOR IT that helped most when you came to GUTTED?
  “To try and enjoy it. Seriously I got myself so stressed out with the first one that I forgot about how frickin’ hard I’d tried to get published. I made a conscious decision not to do that this time round, so I’m way more laid back … enjoying the ride. I’ve spoken to a few writers about seeing their first novel published and to a one, none have enjoyed the process first time round - it’s just too nerve wracking.”

What is it about Gus Dury that you, as a writer, find so compelling? And, for the uninitiated reader, what sets him apart as a reluctant PI?
  “Good question. I’ve never really examined it that closely and I’m a bit reluctant to try in case some of the magic rubs off … y’know, like I’ll understand him and lose all fascination. But, to try and answer the question, I guess there’s something in the fact that he’s an escapist figure; he’s a hardcore alky, a man who sorts his problems with his fists, he just doesn’t give a shit.
  “What sets Gus apart is, and again I’m guessing because really it’s not for me to say, but I think he’s a man that’s fallen so low, who’s so completely wrecked himself, that there’s a certain curiosity to see what keeps him putting his boots on in the morning.”

The decision to set the novels in Edinburgh – not taken lightly, I presume, given the shadow cast by Ian Rankin?
  “Well, there was never going to be anywhere else to set them, I’m from Edinburgh and the character of Gus is so closely associated with the city that he wouldn’t be the same man elsewhere.
  “Every writer brings something different to the work so my Edinburgh isn’t going to be Ian Rankin’s or Irvine Welsh’s, or Muriel Spark’s for that matter … but I hear what you’re saying, Dec, and the honest answer is that if I looked at the sheer quantity and unbelievable quality of writing that’s come from this place I’d never open the laptop.”

Ken Bruen has been loud in his praise, and PAYING FOR IT was compared with the work of Ian Rankin, Simon Kernick and Mark Billingham. Did you feel any pressure to match that standard when it came to the ‘difficult second novel’?
  “God, isn’t Guv’nor Bruen a true saint of a man … I can absolutely die happy tomorrow knowing what Ken’s said about my work. As far as I’m concerned he’s the best there is. Bar none. To get his praise, to get any praise, as a new novelist is a surreal experience.
  “The pressure was there alright with GUTTED, from the get-go. I was told that there’d be folk queuing up to give me a kicking if the second book wasn’t as good as the first. Thankfully I’m never satisfied with anything I do so am constantly finding fault and looking to improve on what I‘ve just done. It was another shock when folk started to get excited about GUTTED, but, God, I’ve just delivered the third, called LOSS, and they thought that was better yet … I keep expecting to get a call saying, ‘Hahahaha, we were joking you actually totally suck!’”

Who are the writers who got you writing? Is there one novel you can pinpoint as the novel that exploded the flashbulb above your head, and got you saying, “I can do that!”?
  “The first book I can remember reading and being utterly transported by was Twain’s ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN … I must have been about eight or so, I was really captured by the adventure of it all. Same happened with Stevenson’s TREASURE ISLAND a bit later.
  “The first time I started seriously to think about writing though, was after reading Hemingway’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS, must have been eighteen then and was blown away by what writing could do. In terms of the crime stuff, that was Bruen’s RILKE ON BLACK … the style and the sheer force of the storytelling dazzled me.”

Is Gus Dury going to be around for the long haul? Do you plan and plot books ahead, or how does a character and story unfold for you as you’re writing?
  “Gus is there for a wee while yet, I’ve got a four-book deal and although I might do some standalones in there I do have a fourth episode for Gus all mapped out. I don’t look much further ahead than the next book, I’m in awe of these writers who can envisage a grand arc covering several books. Couldn’t manage that. So, yeah, I take a loose idea and try to add layers as I go along, then rewrite and rewrite again.”

You work as a journalist. Do you find being a journalist a help or a hindrance when it comes to writing fiction?
  “Well, there’s advantages and disadvantages - Hemingway said hackwork was good for a writer as long as they got out soon enough and I think I know what he meant. I still do bits and pieces here and there but I couldn’t still do a full-time reporter’s job and write around it … I did that for about six or seven years before I got a deal and it was too much. But, the discipline of putting down words that journalism teaches you, as you know yourself, is useful. I’ve never heard a hack griping about writer’s block or a lack of inspiration … the muse doesn’t write daily newspapers!”

Why do you think so many journalists take up writing crime fiction?
  “The game’s gone to balls … Christalmighty, when PR starts to look like a better option, journalism has hit the skids. Crime fiction’s a far better gig than Macy Ds, I suppose.”

Finally, what are the future plans? Are there more Gus Dury books in the works?
  “Well, LOSS is out around February 2010, and after that there might be a standalone I’ve been working on, or the other Dury novel which I’ve got planned out … I’m not looking much further ahead than that. To be honest, this whole writing gig’s such a tough nut to crack, and believe me there was years when I thought I’d never get an in, that just to be able to say I’m published is still a bit unreal.”

Tony Black’s GUTTED is available now.

“One Merkin Or Two, Vicar?” Yep, It’s The Allan Guthrie Interview

Allan Guthrie (right) has already filled in a Q&A for CAP, but the bloke has a new book out and he’s my agent, and he says he’ll send Ray Banks around to eat my child if I don’t give him the three molecules of publicity oxegyn CAP provides. Ah, the glamour of it all ...

Q: The new novel is SLAMMER, squire. Tell us a little bit about it.
A: “The book’s about a very young prison officer, Nick Glass, who’s not terribly well equipped, psychologically, to handle the stresses of the job. It’s about his struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile environment.”

Q: What was it about a prison guard that drew you to him as a character?
A: “I was intrigued by the idea of exploring the psychology of someone who chooses to spend a significant chunk of their short time on this planet behind bars.”

Q: You’re obviously a terrific writer. How come you’re wasting your time on that crime fiction trash?
A: “Well, much as I’d love to write something earnest and meaningful that’s about as entertaining as counting grains of sand, I don’t seem to be quite agile enough to stick my head far enough up my own arse. So I’ll just stay with writing crime fiction trash for now. Hoping to come up with some SF or horror one of these days too.”

Q: Who were your big inspirations and / or heroes?
A: “Different at various points of my life -- Agatha Christie, for instance, when I was but a nipper. Currently I’d say I’m besotted by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote the screenplay for ‘Seven’ (among others), and the graphic novelist Garth Ennis.”

Q: If you could assume authorship for one writer’s back catalogue, who would it be?
A: “Tough one. Georges Simenon, I think. Either him or Germaine Greer.”

Q: You’ve won top awards, you’ve had wonderful reviews, and yet it’s only in a parallel universe that they’re calling John Grisham ‘the new Allan Guthrie’. Do you ever despair about the industry?
A: “Yes, indeed, but not because of my place in it. That’s one of them there variables that isn’t within a person’s control. What I despair about is the arse-backwards discounting that’s ripping the industry apart. Breaks my heart to see books that would sell in huge numbers without any price reduction invariably ending up being sold for a fraction of the RRP, thereby ensuring that no one (bookstores/publishers/agents/authors) makes any money. Whereas books that need the support that discounting might provide are usually on sale at full price. It’s a perverse situation. And then everybody complains about profit margins being tiny and the industry being in terminal decline. Um, hello?”

Q: Who’s the sexiest living crime writer?
A: “Easy one. Ray Banks. The man’s smile is legend. As are his testicles.”

Q: Any new novelists you’d like to let us know about?
A: “Besides my own clients (I’m a literary agent, which I’m going to guess you’ll mention in the next question), there are three second novels out soon which I think are outstanding: VERY MERCENARY by Rayo Casablanca, GUTTED by Tony Black and WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn.”

Q: Parallel to your writing career, you’re also an agent. Ever thought about bumping off a particularly good new writer and stealing his or her manuscript?
A: “Psychic, so I am. Yes, actually, that’s a good idea. So good that I’ve done it already. Five times, in fact.”

Q: Finally, are those eyelashes real? Or are there really kittens out there with bald faces?
A: “I breed them specially. The whisker-lashes don’t tend to last very long, so I need a constant supply of kitten-soft kitten. I have a production line going now, so I’m quite well stocked. Just say the word if you’d like a trial package sent your way. I also do a fine line in merkins.”

Allan Guthrie’s SLAMMER is published by Polygon

The Embiggened O # 4,067: Whatever Happened To Hot-Shot Hamish?

It’s self-aggrandizing Sunday, folks, and there’s a rather nice review of our humble tome THE BIG O over at Crime Scene Scotland. Be warned, however – this one is compromised to hell and back, in a handbasket, as Donna Moore would have it, given that I met the very personable author and CSS supremo Russel McLean at the Baltimore Bouchercon, and I’m hoping to feature him in the Q&A section of CAP in the very near future, and that the reviewer, Tony Black, featured heavily on these very pages last year, on the occasion of the arrival of his debut novel, PAYING FOR IT.
  With that in mind, read on, or don’t. The gist of the review runneth thusly:

“THE BIG O is one big-old crazy caper with an eerie hint of Elmore Leonard and a brash, bold, ball-bustin’ tempo … As a stylist, Burke is as kick-ass Irish as the great Ken Bruen … The really big appeal of THE BIG O, however, is that there is simply nothing like it – nothing close – on the bookshelves today.” – Crime Scene Scotland

  For more in a similar vein, clickety-click here …

The Embiggened O # 3,208: In Which Shots Rang Out

It’s Saturday, so it must be the self-aggrandizing plug for yours truly. Tony Black is one of the busiest men in crime fiction, even when he’s not penning his own novels, so it was nice of him to take time out and Q&A your humble host for Shots magazine, an excerpt from which runneth thusly:

TB: “So far as I can tell, the early reviews for THE BIG O in the States have been very kind. Did you always expect the Americans to get you?”

DB: “The reviews have been terrific. I’m stunned, to be honest with you. Kirkus even gave me a star, and I haven’t had one of those since primary school … No, it’s great. And I didn’t ‘expect’ anything, that’s being straight. The way THE BIG O came about, being co-published and all, everything since has been a bonus, just enjoying the ride. So to get good reviews Stateside … I guess it does make sense in one way, because the influences on THE BIG O are all American. The models for the kind of story it is were Elmore Leonard and the movies of the Coen Brothers … that kind of off-beat comedy crime caper they do so brilliantly. So I suppose it’s hardly surprising that American readers might ‘get’ the story, or the way it’s presented. Mind you, I should probably say that the reviews, they’ve been very kind in that some of them have mentioned Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake and Carl Hiassen … but I think that that has more to do with how few reference points reviewers have in the context of comedy crime capers than the quality of the book.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

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 …

He Sells SANCTUARY – Aye, But When? And Where?

Anybody out there know what’s happening with Ken Bruen’s SANCTUARY? I’ve been getting emails asking me if / when the latest (and rumoured last) Jack Taylor story hits the shelves in the US / UK in hardback / paperback, and I haven’t the proverbial baldy. If anyone can help, you know what to do …
  One man who did get his grubby mitts on a copy is Tony Black, he of PAYING FOR IT fame. He has a review of SANCTUARY up at the inimitable Sons of Spade, with the gist running thusly:

“The beauty of the prose can only be described as that of a genius. Bruen applies a finesse to his slickly-crafted sentences that’s unmatched. It’s a Salinger-esque trip told with the kind of insight you’d expect from an author with his own unique, cultural X-ray vision. And, in SANCTUARY, the new Ireland, in all its complexities, is never far from his field of view.”

  Nice. Meanwhile, one book that is definitely published in the US this week is Brian McGilloway’s BORDERLANDS, and we know this because his fellow scribe David Isaak has the pics to prove it over at the Macmillan New Writers blog. Quoth David:

“This is more than a selfless interest in seeing Brian’s book reach a wider audience; this is also an historic, but little-noted occasion. This is the first time a Macmillan New Writing book has jumped the Atlantic and been printed in an American edition …
  “McGilloway’s prose is flawless, his characters pop off the page, the plot is engrossing, and the setting unique. The book received deservedly great reviews in Ireland and the UK, and sold enough copies to turn most writers Elphaba-coloured with envy.”

  Erm, David? What the blummin’ hell is Elphaba when it’s at home?

TB Or Not TB, That Is The Question

It’s been, oh, almost a whole week now since we’ve had any TB-related material on Crime Always Pays, and some people have been in touch alleging withdrawal symptoms. Sorry, folks. Herewith, and without further ado, be Damien Seaman’s interview with part-time Scottish sex god Tony Black (right) …

NONE MORE BLACK

If it’s debut novels you’d be looking for, then how’s about giving PAYING FOR IT a gander? Tipped as ‘One To Watch For 2008’ by the Edinburgh Evening News, author Tony Black has also garnered praise from a Galway resident by the name of Bruen ...

DAMIEN SEAMAN: You’re a part-Lithuanian Scotsman with a chubby for Australia: what gives you the cojones to be interviewed for an Irish crime fiction blog?

TONY BLACK: The Grand Vizier has specifically invoked the FIFA grandparent ruling to have me here and I’m not gonna disappoint. And I grew up in Galway! Went to the same primary school as Ken Bruen and everything ... Am I in front yet? God, I have a hurley signed by Joe Connolly, there, that’s got to swing it.

DS: Your first novel, PAYING FOR IT has been released this month. How would you pitch the novel to readers in a few words?

TB: Jeez, I hate those hundred- word blurbs: How’s this? ... It’s a murder mystery, told in a thriller style, in which a father has lost his only son, tortured to death by people-smuggling gangsters with a sideline in prostitution, and he’s seeking answers. There’s a fairly significant father-son element. Thug-Lit said it was about the ‘pains of being a father and the pains of being a son’, which I really liked.

DS: The novel features a couple of memorable Irish characters. Is there anything significant in this?

TB: Scotland has always had a huge Irish population; mostly it’s associated with the west coast (Glasgow) but not exclusively. Edinburgh is Scotland’s most multicultural city and is sometimes actually described as its least Scottish as a result ... so there should be Irish characters cropping up in a representation of the city.
  As I say, I did some of my growing up in Ireland and I absolutely love the place, in fact, when I was living in Australia I was hugely homesick for Galway – it’s actually the place I feel most at home in the world -- I think it imprinted on me at that crucial age of about nine or ten. I had a really strong Irish accent when I left Galway and I can still hear all the voices from my childhood and I tap into them when I write.
  Al Guthrie -- God, I’m a dreadful name dropper -- told me he was really convinced by my Irish voices and that pleased me no end. I love my Irish characters; I actually wrote a whole (as yet unpublished) novel set in Ireland.
  In fact, when I think about it, Milo, one of the Irish characters in PAYING FOR IT, attracts the most praise from readers after my protagonist Gus.

DS: Given that PAYING FOR IT features an alcoholic ex-hack PI type, how do you aim to keep your series fresh in the next instalments?

TB: I’d like to think Gus is pretty rounded, his alcoholism and his accidental PI work isn’t the sum of him. He has quite a bit of damage in his life and he’s a conflicted character. I’m interested in him -- and the cast of characters he’s surrounded himself with -- so as long as I maintain that interest, and want to write about him, I can see the series barrelling along.

DS: Who are your favourite Irish writers and why?

TB: It’s kind of impossible not to start with Joyce. I really got into THE PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST and DUBLINERS when I was younger, and the heavier stuff later. Beckett too, all the big guns, there’s too many to list. Latterly, though, it’s been Bruen I’m massively impressed by. He’s the Hemingway of the crime genre, a real innovator and in my humble opinion a true genius. Nobody writes like Bruen.

DS: Favourite Irish crime novel?

TB: Well, it has to be by Ken Bruen (right), doesn’t it. THE GUARDS is a frickin masterpiece. I read it when I was living in Australia and every time I picked it up it was as if I was being transported back to Ireland. There’s a scene when Jack’s got some glasses he’s bought from Roche’s Stores and I was like, I know where he got them! It’s a fantastic achievement to render a city so alive.

DS: Favourite Irish character in crime fiction (doesn’t have to be written by an Irish author)?

TB: Got to be the incredible Francie Brady from THE BUTCHER BOY.

DS: Ken Bruen says that PAYING FOR IT ‘blasts off the page like a triple malt’. How do you feel to get this kind of praise from Bruen?

TB: Impossible to explain. I’d been stalking Ken for a wee while and persuaded him to read it so he took the ms on the weekend and got back to me that same evening saying he’d started it and had to shove the Sunday papers aside till he finished it. I just couldn’t get my head around that. Still can’t.
  If I’d been asked in advance who is the one person you’d want to adore your book it would have been Guv’nor Bruen. For him to be so blown away by it and so generous with his praise was very moving. He is a very generous man, though. If only the world had more like him ...

DS: From Ian Rankin and Stuart MacBride to Al Guthrie, Ray Banks, Russel McLean and your good self, do you have any theories as to why there’s such a glut of quality Scottish crime writing at the moment?

TB: I just picked up the [Scottish] Daily Record and there’s a Murder Map of Scotland on page one. Inside it says Glasgow has a higher murder rate than London. We’ve got worse knife crime stats than NY; there’s the alcoholism, the drugs, the gangs, the lot ... am I painting a picture here?

DS: You see any major differences or similarities between the work of Scottish and Irish crime writers?

TB: On the whole I think the Irish and the Scots are being more experimental and innovative of late. Writers like Al Guthrie and Ray Banks are pushing things in much the same way as Ken Bruen and Adrian McKinty are. It’s a great time for the Celts.

DS: How important is it to you that a crime novel comes packing a sense of humour?

TB: The Scots have a great reputation for ‘The Patter’, so it should be in there. It’s a tricky one to pull off though, it can backfire drastically if it’s utilised in the wrong situation -- it’s almost like a guarantee of a work descending into farce if it’s not used appropriately.

DS: You’ve been a journo for some years now. You find that a help or a hindrance to your crime writing career?

TB: Latterly more of a hindrance than a help; getting up and going out to sit in front of a PC all day and then coming home to do it again all night isn’t something I’d choose to do. Believe me, if I had the knackers, I’d chuck it and wouldn’t go back.
  There’s also the confusion my journalism adds to the way my fiction writing is viewed too. Y’know, it’s a real easy line ‘the hack that wrote a book about a hack’ for journos to dive on. So, on balance, more of a hindrance. If I’d been a road sweeper to pay the bills I don’t think anyone would have given two shits about my day job.

DS: What’s the next Gus Dury novel about?

TB: GUTTED sees Gus Dury up to his neck in the seedy underside of Scotland’s ‘genteel’ capital once again. There’s a gangland murder and it all seems to be connected to the city’s booming dog-fighting trade and a well-heeled family who lost a child in a savage pit-bull attack. All the characters from PAYING FOR IT are back ... and Gus gets a rescue dog.

Damien Seaman’s crime-related tosh has graced the web pages of Pulp Pusher, Noir Originals, Spinetingler Magazine and Shots. He is not Irish, nor has he ever lived in Ireland, but he’s got some Irish friends and likes the occasional pint of Guinness. Angry emails more than welcome: damien.seaman@web.de

On Log-Rolling And Blog-Rolling

One of the truly great things about blogging – the greatest, actually – is that it lets you be Holden Caulfield once in a while. In THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, Holden muses on how great it would be to be able to ring up an author whose book you’d just finished, just to shoot the breeze – so long as the guy wasn’t a phoney, of course.
  A few months back I read the first page of John McFetridge’s EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE and closed the book, went downstairs and told my wife that this guy McFetridge is the real deal. I didn’t know at the time that Elmore Leonard liked his stuff, or that Sarah Weinman had compared him to ‘Elmore Leonard meets James Ellroy’. I just knew.
  So I read the book and dropped him a line. He’s published in the U.S. by Harcourt, as THE BIG O will be come September. We got on well by email, so well that we’re doing a road-trip from Toronto to Baltimore for this year’s Bouchercon. So the danger is that we’re getting into log-rolling territory when I tell you that his debut, DIRTY SWEET, and his as-yet-unpublished GO ROUND, are some of the best crime novels I’ve ever read.
  I finished GO ROUND last night, and for those of you who’ve read McFetridge, the good news is that it’s the best of his first two novels condensed and streamlined into a stunning piece of fiction that put me in mind of George Pelecanos’ early Washington DC novels.
  Do I care about the log-rolling? Nope. My conscience is clear in that I read the guy’s book before I knew him. And what am I going to say – that his books aren’t great, just because I know him and someone might think I’m biased?
  Bullshit. John McFetridge is a star ascending and a terrific writer. End of story.
  The same applies to Adrian McKinty, who must have missed out on the Mystery Readers’ Journal ‘Irish Mysteries’ issue because he was relocating from Denver to Oz. His is a glaring absence from what’s virtually a Who’s Who of Irish crime fiction, because he offers a rare blend, that of a literary style with a convincingly brutal thuggishness.
  As with John McFetridge, I contacted Adrian McKinty after reading DEAD I WELL MAY BE, which seemed to me to represent a new departure for Irish crime fiction. Apart from being a brilliant writer, he’s a sound bloke with a good attitude, and his subsequent novels have delivered on the promise of his debut. He’s also written a number of excellent posts for Crime Always Pays.
  Should I pretend I don’t like McKinty’s novels because he is, at this stage, a mate? Should I refrain from telling you that his upcoming FIFTY GRAND is his most challenging, ambitious novel yet? No. And even if I should, I won’t. What’s the point in having a blog about books and writing if you can’t tell the world about great books and great writers?
  Mind you, with McKinty, it’s fairly common knowledge that he’s the good stuff. His newest fan is Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders, who offers this pithy summation of DEAD I WELL MAY BE: “Michael’s grim, sometimes hellish journey through the last two thirds of the book may evoke for the literary-minded any number of the world’s great epics. Think of the book as Dirty Harry meets Dante if you must.”
  ‘Dirty Harry meets Dante’. Beautiful. We said Parker written by Cormac McCarthy, but what do we know?
  Finally, it’s a swift jaunt to Scotland for our latest Tony Black extravaganza. Tony doesn’t fit into the mould here, because we haven’t read his debut PAYING FOR IT yet, although it’s due a perusal in the next week or so. On the other hand, Tony Black seems to be a sound bloke who was unusually generous with his time and effort when I was trying to get some web oxygen for THE BIG O. And it’d be disgracefully churlish not to return the favour, to wit:

“Assuming (and hoping) that this is the first of many featuring the tortured Gus Dury, we’ve NEVER seen a series character so richly and honestly drawn from the get-go. The emotional punches connect solidly … as the pains of being a father and the pains of being a son are laid bare. The debut of the year.” – Thug Lit

“Tony Black’s first novel hits the ground running, combining a sympathetic ear for the surreal dialogue of the dispossessed with a portrait of a city painted in the blackest of humour.” – Cathi Unsworth, The Observer

  Nice. The vid below, you won’t be surprised to learn, is Tony Black’s book-trailer for PAYING FOR IT, and it’s a rather attractive example of said form. If the book was written with the same quality of care, craft and love that went into the promo, we’re very probably going to love it. Roll it there, Collette …

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.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Ken Bruen on PAYING FOR IT

Galway’s adopted son and sometime sex-god Tony Black (right) drops us a line to give us a sneaky and ultra-exclusive peek at the Emperor of Galway Ken Bruen’s full review of PAYING FOR IT, the entirety of which runneth thusly:

PAYING FOR IT might just be the most aptly titled novel of the year.
  Rarely has a title worked on so many levels.
  Gus lives in an Edinburgh far from any tourist brochure of this genteel city.
  Nothing gentle here.
  Gus is fucked, in every way which hurts, bumped from his job as a reporter, losing his beloved wife to divorce and a more-than-lethal obsession with a whisky bottle.
  He agrees to investigate the death of the son of his surrogate father-figure, his own father and Gus being embroiled in a very love / hate battle.
  And phew, does he ever buy into trouble – his previous blunders, smacking politicians in the mouth, are about to pale when he begins to dig into this case.
  East European gangsters will be breathing down his neck in a very forceful way.
  And nothing is quite as it seems.
  The last fifty pages contain shock on shock.
  The writing is a joy, in your face, with that wondrous dead-pan humour that only the Celts really grasp.
  The narrative blasts off the page like a triple malt.
  We can only pray that Gus is already preparing his next outing.
  This is one adrenalin-pumped novel that is as moving and compassionate as it is stylishly written. – Ken Bruen

Nice. Meanwhile, it’s still not too late to enter our freebie giveaway competition this week (see below), featuring – yep, you guessed it – Tony Black’s PAYING FOR IT, in which, ironically enough, you get the book … without paying for it!!! Oh, how we laughed. And then we stopped.

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

Tony Black has his hotly anticipated debut novel PAYING FOR IT published tomorrow (jump here for a first chapter sample), and the good folk at Preface, out of Random House UK, have been kind enough to give us three copies to give to you. Yes, YOU! First, the blurb elves:

Gus Dury once had a high-flying career as a journalist and a wife he adored. But now he is living on the edge, a drink away from Edinburgh’s down-and-outs, drifting from bar to bar, trying not to sign divorce papers. But the road takes an unexpected turn when a friend asks him to investigate the brutal torture and killing of his son, and Gus becomes embroiled in a much bigger story of political corruption and illegal people-trafficking. Seedy doss-houses, bleak wastelands and sudden violence contrast with the cobbled streets and cool bistros of fashionable Edinburgh, as the puzzle unravels to a truly shocking ending.

Lovely. To be in with a chance of winning a copy, just answer the following question. Is Tony Black:

(a) Benjamin Black’s son;
(b) Ingrid Black’s brother;
(c) A third cousin, twice removed, to that guy Black who sang Wonderful Life;
(d) Not related to anyone in the world anywhere – he’s actually an orphan who needs to sell all the books he can in order to scrape together the cash to find his long-lost family. Sob.

Answers via the comment box, please, leaving an email contact address, using (at) rather than @ to confuse the spam-munchkins, by noon on Wednesday, July 23. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Once You Go Black You’ll Never Go Back

Scottish scribe and sultry sex-god Tony Black (right) has his debut novel PAYING FOR IT published on July 17, and has kindly offered us the first chapter for your delectation in a kind of literary version of ye olde scratch-‘n’-sniff / suck-it-‘n’-see. But be warned, ladies: we’ve met the honey-toned, silver-tongued Tony Black and it’s true what they say – once you go Black, you’ll never go back.
  Now read on …

PAYING FOR IT by Tony Black

Chapter One

FUNERALS MAKE MY EYES WATER. Don’t get me wrong, not in the ‘Oh, he was a lovely fellah taken from us too soon’ sense. That stuff, I can handle. Old ladies with waterbag legs shoving egg-mayonnaise sandwiches at you, I can just about manage. Slipping them in the pocket beside the scoosh bottle is no problem for me. That type, they never listen to a word you say anyway. Fire out ‘Is that right?’, or ‘Really? No, really?’, and they’re happy as Larry. Just don’t stray into the ‘And how’s your Finlay doing in New Zealand?’ minefield. Uh-uh. That can spell catastrophe.
  It’s details like cause of death that have me filling up. Send me reaching for the twelve-year-old Macallan they roll out for such occasions. And hitting it hard. Not just because that’s what drinkers do. But because I know that, in my racket, it doesn’t look good to be moved by things like funerals and death.
  It’s when death comes so close to home, stamps on your doorstep, then invites itself in that I wince. Really wince. I mean, who wouldn’t wince at something like this?
  ‘Gus. Gusgo. Gusie boy . . .’
  The skill of the man, pure piss-artistry, to make poetry with my name
like that.
  ‘Gus, did you hear what happened before the . . . you know . . . ?’
  Malky Conroy, one of Edinburgh’s widest gobshites, weighed his hands out in the air like he had hold of a mortar launcher.
  ‘Booka-booka,’ it was a pathetic attempt at gangster patter.
  I tried to keep my tone serious. I mean, we were talking about a man’s death here. A man I barely knew, granted. I had met him twice, tops. But out of respect to his father I wasn’t going to mess about at Billy Boy’s funeral.
  ‘It’s the noise a shotgun makes,’ said Malky, ‘when it goes off, like.’
  I gave him a nod, straightened my back. ‘Got ya.’ I tipped back the last of my Red Eye laced coffee, crushed the Styrofoam cup.
  For reasons best kept between Billy and the grave, the poor lad found himself on the wrong end of a sawn-off shotgun one evening. One evening, sounds so civilised, doesn’t it? Not in the least. Unless you call finding a lad, barely into his twenties, with both barrels emptied in his face, civilised.
  That’s the sight that greeted some old biddie walking her Westie at the foot of Arthur’s Seat one morning. The official verdict was suicide, but nobody was buying that.
  ‘Like I was saying,’ Malky crouched over, leaned into my lapels, ‘before they, like . . .’ He tried to whisper but in his pissed state it came out too loud. I moved my face away from the gobs of spit he flung from his mouth. ‘Well, you know what they did in the end. But before that, there was . . .’
  Malky straightened himself and shuffled back a few steps. His Hush Puppies squeaked on the church hall’s laminate flooring. And then he did it. I couldn’t believe he did it, but he did . . . he touched the side of his nose and gave me a little wink.
  It seemed a moment like no other. Make this a movie – that’s your Oscar clip right there. He felt on form, in his own mind. This was the juiciest slice of gossip he’d had in years and he itched to serve it up.
  He shuffled again, got right up close. God, he looked rough, like Johnny Cash circa 2008. A white ring of dried spit sat around Malky’s mouth, catching in the corners, like the Mekong Delta . . . Jeez, you could have stripped the Forth Bridge with this guy’s breath.
  ‘Now, Gus, you never heard it from me,’ he said, ‘but I know for a fact there was . . .’ he looked over his shoulder, and then, he did it again, winked, ‘there was torture, his father told me so.’
  ‘Spill it, Malky,’ I said. Immediately, I regretted this, he belched up a wet sliver of lager-perfumed bile onto my tie. ‘Man, be careful there,’ I yelled, loosening the knot and tugging the wet loop of cloth over my head. ‘It’s ruined, Malky!’
  ‘Sorry, it’s the emotion.’
  Emotion my arse, unless they’re selling emotion in six packs these days.
  ‘That poor boy . . . that poor bloody boy,’ he said.
  ‘What?’ Steering a drunk to his point, without having taken a good bucket yourself, is a task and a half. I felt ready to give up, try the sausage rolls. Then he hit me with it.
  ‘His fingernails, and his toenails – they were pulled out,’ said Malky. ‘Blood everywhere.’
  ‘Christ!’
  ‘Can you imagine the pain of that, Gus? Hell, it’s sore as buggery just catching one of those wee hangnails.’
  I didn’t need convincing.
  ‘Plod said it was suicide, Malky.’
  ‘My arse! He moved in some shady circles, our young Billy.’
  I felt loath to admit it, but Malky had my attention now. ‘Was that it, just the nails?’
  ‘If only it was, Gus. God, I hear they did his teeth as well.’
  ‘Pulled them?’
  ‘Think so. They say there wasn’t much to go on after the gun went off in his face. Must have pissed off some serious people.’
  ‘Have the filth any . . .’ I needed to use the word – no other came to mind – but it stung my lips as it passed, made me sound like a character from The Bill, ‘leads?’
  ‘They could give a tinker’s toss. He was mixing it with gangsters, man. I kid you not, he was into all sorts. One less for them to worry about now, though.’
  ‘What was he into?’ I couldn’t believe Billy had the marbles to . . . Hang on, it was precisely because he didn’t have any nous that Billy would get involved with this kind of thing.
  Malky shrugged. He remembered who he was talking to. The shoulder movement wasn’t welcome and his frame looked fit to collapse before me. I felt glad, really. I’d no desire to hear any more. It sounded like a tragedy of the type to make you want to pack up and leave this troubled city.
  As if I needed to look for reasons.

© Tony Black, 2008

“You Dropped Something, Sir. It Appears To Be A Name.”

“It’s always nice to step outside your life for a few days, and Bristol Crime Fest 2008 brought together your humble host’s (right) idea of a perfect storm of good people, strong drink and books. Highlights included:

Peter Guttridge playing The Who’s Substitute during his interview of Ian Rankin, which was fascinating not for Rankin’s insights on Rebus, particularly, but for his willingness to explore the narrative form in opera, comic book, novella, along with an upcoming standalone non-Rebus novel;
  Meeting – all too briefly, sadly – Tony Black, Nick Stone and Martyn Waites in the same fifteen-minute period as they hailed taxis while your humble host was lurking outside the Royal Marriott. Three cheers for the smoking ban, eh?
  Losing out to Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Last Laugh Award during the gala dinner, if only because it allowed us to see the erstwhile Iron Woman of Irish journalism moist-eyed in the aftermath;
  Talking faith and reason with The Hardest Working Man in Crime Fiction™, aka Ali Karim, over a couple of smokes on the banqueting hall’s terrace. Three cheers for the smoking ban, eh?
  Being regaled with entirely inappropriate Celtic FC football songs by Declan Hughes in the ‘Champagne Cocktail Lounge’ at 2am;
  Meeting the effortlessly suave and self-effacing Martin Edwards via the good works of Maxine Clarke, only to discover days later that the modest bugger had a book being launched this week, WATERLOO SUNSET;
  Discovering I was at the same table, during the gala dinner, with the radiant Ruth Downie, who appeared to be on a one-woman mission to rehabilitate the little black number cocktail dress, and succeeding handsomely;
  Receiving, at some blurred point in Saturday’s proceedings, an email via text message that began, “Dear Declan Hughes, I read and enjoyed your PI novel THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD …”
  Sharing a panel, moderated by Peter Guttridge, with Len Tyler, Ruth Dudley Edwards and Allan Guthrie in which the topic under discussion was comedy in crime fiction (seriously, people: comedy on a Sunday morning with the mother-in-law of all hangovers?) in which your humble host managed to insult the Irish ex-taoiseach, Ian Rankin and right-thinking people of good taste everywhere. Like, how’s a man supposed to concentrate with Donna Moore sitting in the third row?
  Scoffing Sunday morning champagne in the company of Ruth Dudley Edwards and Declan Hughes (right, pic courtesy of Rhian), Ms ‘It’s A Crime!’ herself, the lovely Pat and Ruth’s equally lovely agent, who listened very politely, but with the kind of expression you might wear gazing upon a chimp juggling chainsaws, at the story behind THE BIG O’s co-publication with Hag’s Head Press.

  “There were many other brief encounters over the weekend but really Bristol Crime Fest wasn’t about names or particular conversations or panels or insights into the craft and skill of blackening pages. Rather it was the easy ambience, the taking for granted that what you did required no justification or explanation, and knowing that you were highly unlikely to hear the dreaded question, “So – have you any plans to write a proper novel?” It was the delicious indulgence of being able to step sideways out of your life for two or three days and allow yourself to believe that you’re a real writer, not some chancing wastrel who – when lucky – manages to scrape together a couple of hours of words that take so long to hack into some kind of readability that you might as well be using chisel and stone. It was the camaraderie of fellow story-tellers, very few of whom were overly concerned with telling you how wonderful they were, mainly because everyone seemed to think everyone else was pretty wonderful. And if all that sounds a little sickly-sweet and sentimental, then so be it – life just ain’t that way for most writers, and who can blame anyone for wanting to live the dream for one paltry weekend?
  “In fact, the only downside to the entire weekend was being away from Mrs Girl, aka Lilyput (right, with her new best friend, Taff, courtesy of the good works of Rhian), and wondering all the while whether she’d remember her dad when he got back from gallivanting around Bristol. But even that, in hindsight, proved the most positive thing about the entire exercise – one, that I can survive without her for short periods if required, and she me; and two, as of last weekend, that that ‘if’ is a very, very big ‘if’ indeed. Books are wonderful things, as you already know; but they’re no Lilyput. Peace, out.”