Event: The Launch of ‘Murder One’ at Hodges Figgis

To launch the forthcoming Dublin-based crime fiction festival Murder One, Sam Blake (right), Catherine Ryan Howard and Dr Bernice Murphy take part in ‘Serial Thrillers’ at Hodges Figgis on September 20th. To wit:

Join the MURDER ONE team for Serial Thrillers, an evening of criminal conversation at Hodges Figgis Bookshop, Dawson Street, at 6.30pm on Thursday 20th September, 2018.
  In 2017, crime fiction overtook general and literary fiction to officially become the biggest selling genre in the book trade. What is it about serial killings, police investigations and tales of domestic suspense that keep us coming back for more? Ahead of Murder One, bestselling Irish crime writers Catherine Ryan Howard and Sam Blake will be in conversation with Dr Bernice Murphy, co-director of the M.Phil in Popular Literature at Trinity College Dublin, in an event that’s sure to thrill all crime fiction fans.

  For all the details about the Murder One festival, clickety-click here …

Reading: THE WONDER by Emma Donoghue at Trinity College

Following the huge success of her novel Room, Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder tells the story of an eleven-year-old girl who stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a story. Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, The Wonder – inspired by numerous European and North American cases of ‘fasting girls’ between the sixteenth century and the twentieth – is a psychological thriller about a child’s murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes. Pitting all the seductions of fundamentalism against sense and love, it is a searing examination of what nourishes us, body and soul.

Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin and now lives in Canada with her family. She has written several novels including Frog Music, The Sealed Letter, Stir-Fry, and the best-seller and widely acclaimed novel Room, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prize. Emma adapted the novel for the big screen and the movie Room was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture.

Join Emma Donoghue as she reads from and discusses her latest novel The Wonder
In The Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College on Saturday 17th September, 2016 at 2pm.

This is a free event, but booking is essential here.

News: PD James, RIP

As you very probably know, the terribly sad news of PD James’ death came through yesterday afternoon. She died peacefully at home, according to her publishers, aged 94. She had a phenomenal career, a wonderful writer who made an indelible impact on the crime fiction genre; but as I said last night on RTE’s Arena programme, she is one of those writers who transcended the concept of genre to take her place in the realm of world literature.
  I was lucky enough to meet PD James, last year at Trinity College, where she appeared to celebrate the 200th anniversary of her beloved Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. I was as nervous as you tend to be when anticipating the arrival of a living legend, and was entirely ignorant of the protocol of how to address a baroness and so forth, but as soon as she arrived – physically frail, perhaps, at the age of 93, but razor-sharp, radiant of smile and twinkly of eye – she put everyone at their ease, insisting that we all call her Phyllis and asking only one favour: that we dispense with all formality and minimise any fuss to the barest acceptable level. It was a truly wonderful evening, and one that will live long in the memory. PD James will be very sorely missed.

Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival

UPDATE: Ahead of ‘Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival’, which begins today at Trinity College in Dublin, I found myself last night fondly remembering the symposium at NYU in 2011 in the company of some of Irish crime writing’s finest. The details remain hazy, possibly because I found myself caught up in an Alan Glynn novel …

For all the details on the Trinity College festival, clickety-click here …

Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Pemberley Again

I had one of the most enjoyable experiences of my writing life yesterday evening, when interviewing PD James (right) in the Public Theatre at Trinity College. And when I say ‘interviewing’, I mean ‘struggling to get a word in edgeways’. The Right Honourable Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE – or Phyllis, as she insisted we call her – was in sparkling form, and really could not have made my job any easier. She was truly wonderful company, and the tone was set from the very beginning when the packed audience – 600 or thereabouts – gave her a standing ovation when she first appeared.
  The evening took place under the auspices of the UNESCO / Dublin City of Literature, in association with Trinity College, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. PD James has, of course, written a sequel-of-sorts to that book, DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, and most of the conversation was taken up with a chat about Jane Austen and PEMBERLEY. So what was her publisher’s reaction when she suggested rewriting Jane Austen as a murder mystery? “Oh, one never tells one’s publisher anything,” was the gist of the reply.
  Anyway, the very good news to come out of last night’s chat was that PD James has just begun – at the tender age of 93 – another Adam Dalgliesh novel. Here’s hoping the Baroness returns to Dublin to celebrate that particular delight.

Death Comes To Trinity

Dublin UNESCO City of Literature is delighted to announce that renowned crime author PD James will be speaking to novelist Declan Burke about her novel DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY in The Public Theatre, Trinity College on Tuesday 8th October.

DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY is written in the style of Jane Austen as follow-on from Pride and Prejudice, where PD James draws the characters of Jane Austen into a tale of murder, intrigue and emotional mayhem. It is currently being made into a 3 part mini-drama series for the BBC to be aired in December. As this is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, PD James will discuss DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, her love of Jane Austen, as well as her crime novels.

PD James was born in Oxford in 1920. Her first book was published when she was in her late thirties. She is the author of 20 books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast in the United States and other countries. Many of her books, including A Taste for Death, The Murder Room and Devices and Desires, feature Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh.

She spent 30 years working in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office.

In 2000, at the age of 80, she published her autobiography TIME TO BE IN EARNEST. She has won awards for crime writing in several countries including Britain, America and Scandinavia. She was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Date: Tuesday 8th October
Venue: The Public Theatre (known as the Examinations Hall), Front Square, Trinity College
Time: 7pm (doors close at 6.50pm sharp)
Admission: Free.
Booking is essential (maximum of 4 tickets per person).
Book at 01 - 6744862 or email cityofliterature@dublincity.ie

I Dreamt I Dwelt In Hallowed Halls

Off I go this morning to the hallowed halls of Trinity College, Dublin (right), where I’ll be sitting down in the company of some unsuspecting students to chat about ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL in particular and Irish crime writing in general. Which should be fun, not least because the occasion will be hosted by Professor Ian Campbell Ross, who wrote the comprehensive introduction to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY. I thought I knew a thing or two about Irish crime writing before I read Professor Ross’s introduction, and reading it confirmed that, yes, I know a thing or maybe two.
  So that’s today’s excursion accounted for, and if I survive the academic grilling, it’s upward and onward to the no less hallowed environs of the National Library on Thursday evening, for the latest instalment of ‘Thrillers and Chillers’. To wit:

Chillers and Thrillers
Does the female writer of crime fiction have an edge over her male counterparts? This question and more will be discussed on Thursday, December 15th by a panel of writers including Alex Barclay, author of BLOOD RUNS COLD, Arlene Hunt, author of the recently published THE CHOSEN, and Declan Burke, a leading crime fiction writer who has also written on the very topic of how women address the crime narrative in a different way to men, and author of the recently published ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL.

  So there you have it. For all the details on the ‘Thrillers and Chillers’ evening, which takes place at 8pm on Thursday, December 15th at the National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, just clickety-click here …

Note To Self: Insert ‘Wot’s On / Watson’ Header Here

Bastion of all things academic and intellectual, Trinity College Dublin is currently hosting an exhibition titled ‘The Body in the Library – the great detectives 1841 to 1941’. Quoth the TCD website:

The detective novel is a genre which generates great popular interest and also growing academic and critical attention. The library’s collections across the past two centuries reflect the development of this form of imaginative writing. This exhibition will illustrate the origins of the detective story in the mid-19th century, the growth in popularity of fictional heroes such as Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Hercule Poirot. There will be a focus on the first golden age of crime writing in the 1920s and 1930s.

  The exhibition opened on Thursday, and runs until June 15. There’s no details as to a specific Irish crime / mystery dimension, but hey – Trinners doing detective fiction? It’s a start.
  I’m also hearing persistent rumours that NYU is planning a symposium on Irish crime fiction later this year. I’ll keep you posted.