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.

“No, I’M Declan Hughes.”

It’s not so long ago that I received an email from Val McDermid saying very nice things about my latest book, and offering a few choice words that I might want to use as a blurb on any forthcoming books, if I saw fit. I was more than prepared to overlook the fact that I didn’t actually have a ‘latest’ book, never mind any hint of any ‘forthcoming’ offerings, and just run with the praise, preferably by tattooing it on my forehead. Except I couldn’t shush the nagging voice at the back of my head that kept whispering, “Don’t be a bloody moron, man, she’s confused you with Declan Hughes.”
  It happens regularly. Most recently, Ev was kind enough to leave a comment on the post below, congratulating me on the excellent review my latest novel received in the Tribune, and promising to rush out and buy said book on foot of it. Which is nice to know, even if she has confused me with Squire Hughes (the broth of a boy pictured above right, with Ruth Dudley Edwards and, y’know, The Other Declan), whose CITY OF LOST GIRLS is garnering wonderful reviews from all over the map. Now, it’s an easy mistake to make: Declan Hughes is a handsome chap, a gregarious and charismatic bon viveur with five critically acclaimed and occasionally prize-winning novels under his belt. Declan Burke is a little less handsome, perhaps, and doesn’t actually like people, or talking to them, who co-published his last novel and only last week invested in a special high-pitched whistle in the hope that it may encourage a dog to bark at him in the street. Other than that, though, we could be twins.
  Anyway, two more fine reviews of CITY OF LOST GIRLS popped up this weekend just gone, the first from Kevin Power in the Irish Times, with the gist running thusly:

IN FEBRUARY this year the novelist and songwriter Julian Gough posted on his blog what he called “an intemperate rant” about the state of Irish fiction. “I don’t get the impression many Irish writers have played Grand Theft Auto , or bought an X-Box, or watched YouPorn,” he wrote. “Irish literary writers have become a priestly caste, scribbling by candlelight, cut off from the electric current of the culture.”
  We’ve heard all this before. Why aren’t Irish writers writing about what’s happening now? Where are our novels about the Celtic Tiger? Well, various people – including the estimable Declan Burke, who blogs at Crime Always Pays – have been patiently pointing out the truth all along: some of the best – and truest – novels about the boom period (and its tawdry conclusion) have tended to get themselves dismissed as crime fiction …
  Crime fiction it may be, but CITY OF LOST GIRLS is, as well as being an excellent thriller, also a pitch-perfect evocation of “Dublin, the former goldrush town”. Julian Gough should take note.

  For the full review, which is well worth reading, clickety-click here. Meanwhile, over at the Irish Independent, they’re singing from the same hymn sheet. To wit:

In brief, this is a compelling thriller that also manages to be a wry social critique -- not so much THE WAY WE LIVE NOW by Anthony Trollope as THE WAY WE DIE NOW by Charles Willeford. Hughes, though, remains his own man.

  In short, then: Declan Hughes is the writer-guy, and Declan Burke is the blogger-guy. And CITY OF LOST GIRLS is ‘excellent’. You know what to do, people …

“The Squat Pen Rests; As Snug As A Gun.”

I interviewed Declan Hughes for today’s Sunday Independent, with the cunning ulterior motive that some of his pixie-dust might rub off when we shook hands. So far there’s been no joy, but it’s early days yet. Herewith be the interview:

“The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun,” wrote Seamus Heaney in ‘Digging’, and he could have written the words for crime novelist Declan Hughes, who has been digging with a pen for a quarter of a century.
  Formerly a playwright and theatre director (this year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Rough Magic, which Hughes co-founded with Lynne Parker), currently a novelist, Hughes is enjoying something of an annus mirabilis. His fourth novel, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, was published in June. His previous novel THE DYING BREED has just been nominated for a Shamus award, as well as a 2009 Edgar Award, the American crime-writing equivalent of the Oscar.
  “It’s terrific to be nominated,” says a beaming Hughes. “I particularly treasure the Shamus nominations, because private-eye fiction is such a quintessentially American sub-genre. It’s a thrill to write Irish private-eye fiction and make the American grade.”
  There can no more appropriate writer to open next week’s crime fiction strand of the Books ’09 Festival, when Hughes presents the crime-writing workshop, ‘Bloodwork’.
  “Write every day,” he says, when I ask for advice, “and, as Lawrence Block says, find a way of putting writing first, if possible, literally, by getting up early and getting it done before the official day begins.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, Adrian McKinty, currently domiciled in Oz, had himself interviewed on a radio station in New Zealand last week, the point of the exercise being to promote the rather excellent FIFTY GRAND. Those of you craving Presbyterian blarney in a fey Irish brogue could do worse than clickety-click here …
  Also meanwhile, the crime writing strand of Books 2009 takes place next Saturday, September 12th, at Independent Colleges, Dawson Street, Dublin, with yours truly MC-ing the day’s events and making a hames of it entirely, no doubt. The line-up runs as follows:

12 Noon: Bloodwork: A Crime Writing Workshop
Shamus Award-winning author Declan Hughes (‘All the Dead Voices’) hosts a crime writing workshop designed to hone your killer writing instincts.

2.30pm: Bright Young Things
Cormac Millar, a former ‘Penguin Most Wanted’ author, hosts a panel with four of the hottest new crime writing talents: Ava McCarthy (‘The Insider’), Stuart Neville (‘The Twelve’), Alan Glynn (‘Winterland’) and John McFetridge (‘Let It Ride’).

4pm: In Cold Blood – The Art of True Crime Writing
Ruth Dudley Edwards (‘Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing’) hosts a debate between Paul Williams (‘The Untouchables’), Emer Connolly (‘Lying Eyes’), and Niamh O’Connor (‘Blood Ties’) on the nature of Irish crime journalism and true crime writing.

5.30pm: Real Guts, No Glory
Critically acclaimed author Brian McGilloway (‘Bleed a River Deep’) hosts a panel with Alex Barclay (‘Blood Runs Cold’), Gene Kerrigan (‘Dark Times in the City’), Arlene Hunt (‘The Outsider’) and Mandasue Heller (‘Two-Faced’) on the shocking truth behind crime fiction.

7pm: It’s A Dirty Job …
Declan Hughes interviews Colin Bateman (‘Mystery Man’), John Connolly (‘The Lovers’) and Eoin McNamee (‘12:23’) on genre-bending, genre-blending, and best-selling the hard way.

Lost Girls And Golden Boys

It’s long past time to declare a moratorium on the serial killer in crime fiction. Yes, the serial killer is our contemporary bogeyman, and a McGuffin for our most primeval fears, Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf relocated from forest to urban nightmare - but enough already. For one, you’re far more likely to become the victim of an inept politician running the Department of Health than you are to fall into the hands of a serial killer. For two, the killer created by Anthony Zuiker for DARK ORIGINS is so barkingly implausible as to render the serial killer sub-genre beyond parody and pastiche for at least a generation to come.
  Marilyn Stasio and Hallie Ephron, reviewing Declan Hughes’s THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS last weekend in the New York Times and the Boston Globe respectively, lamented the fact that Hughes has his private eye Ed Loy pursuing a serial killer in his latest outing. As it happens, I think Hughes has created one of the very few believable serial killers I’ve read about in recent times, a character who is not simply a two-dimensional cipher for evil but who is fascinating in his own right. That caveat aside, both ladies, along with Laura Wilson in The Guardian, were generous in their praise of THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS. To wit:

Declan Hughes isn’t just an other gruff voice in the barking crowd of noir crime writers. His characters have depth, his scenes have drama, and his sentences have grace.” - Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

“No one writes crime fiction quite like Declan Hughes … The storytelling is lean but always with poetic force and attention paid to word choice and to the rhythm of the prose.” - Hallie Ephron, Boston Globe

“Irish writer Hughes’s fifth book is a welcome addition to a series which has given the tired private-eye sub-genre a much-needed shot in the arm … The plot is taut and pacy, the prose is gorgeous, and there are plenty of twists and turns: a page-turner and a treat.” - Laura Wilson, The Guardian

  For what they’re worth, my own three cents are that Hughes has raised the bar with THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS, both for the PI novel in general and for Irish crime fiction in general. And given the year we had last year, that’s saying something.
  Meanwhile, and while we’re on the subject of raising the bar, belated congratulations to Stuart Neville, who last weekend won the LA Times Best Mystery / Thriller Novel of the Year for his debut, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (aka THE TWELVE).
  By happy coincidence, Neville’s novel features a protagonist who is not just a serial killer who goes about the business of killing a baker’s dozen of victims with some aplomb, but a man who is a serial killer twice over - first as a paramilitary hitman, then as a guilt-ridden ex-paramilitary driven to clear his conscience - who nevertheless gains and holds the reader’s sympathy as he cuts a bloody swathe through post-Peace Process Northern Ireland. Which suggests, as does Declan Hughes’s contribution, that it’s not the serial killer sub-genre that’s moribund per se, it’s the lazy writers who depend too heavily, and too luridly, on what the serial killer does rather than who the serial killer is. It’s the difference, I think, between pointing up the grotesque in humanity rather than illuminating the humanity in the grotesque. And that makes for a world of difference.

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

Who Reviews The Reviewers? # 2,012: Piss-Poor Journalism, Oz-Style

All three regular readers of CAP will know that I think Squire Declan Hughes is a rather tasty writer, a man who’s doing very fine things with the private eye story, not least of which is the fact that Ed Loy is a believable and compelling means by which Hughes, a man with interesting things to say about Ireland, gets to say interesting things about Ireland.
  Teri Louise Kelly at Australia’s Independent Weekly doesn’t agree. Her review of ALL THE DEAD VOICES runs thusly:

It seems to me that when it comes to the current crop of crime/thriller writers, there might just be a tendency to pen with a television series forefront in the author’s mind. Understandable, I guess, but writing in a way that is easily transferable to the small screen somehow detracts from the hardcopy novel itself.
  All the Dead Voices is a case in point. Declan Hughes' latest foray into investigation for his character, Ed Loy, is set in modern Dublin, but, haunted by ghosts of an IRA kind, it never really catches into the kind of fire one would hope, given the setting and all of its obvious intricacies.
  It’s a murky world of old meets new for Loy, but not quite murky enough for a seasoned reader. Looking into a 15-year-old cold case, which the newly established police cold case unit has dismissed as solved, Loy begins to unravel a not-so-tangled web of old grudges, scores and affiliations, all dog-eared by abundant locale and landmark topography.
  In many ways, Hughes has written a standard story, topically contrived, with sufficient “past” to perhaps interest those from that era, but unfortunately, not for those interested, but lacking adequate knowledge. This is what I meant when I referred to writing for serialisation on the giggle-box, where, a la Taggart, Rebus and every other small-screen crime-fighter, the plot is simple enough to retain short-term attention, but rarely over-complex.
  In the end, I would probably prefer watching the Ed Loy stories on television – so maybe Declan Hughes is right. Or maybe we are just saturated with crime fighters and their stereotypical foibles?

  Leaving aside the piss-poor journalism of the first paragraph, which blends generalisations, lousy opinion, erroneous supposition and Homeric ignorance (not to mention an implied affinity with the genre Ms Kelly patently lacks), the review misses the point by a distance roughly that of the distance between Oz and Ireland. What Ms Kelly fails to realise is that ‘the ghosts of an IRA kind’ haven’t gone away, you know, if I can paraphrase Gerry Adams for a moment, and that ALL THE DEAD VOICES has for one of its subplots the rather important theme, and not just for Ireland, of what happens to paramilitary organisations when their criminality is finally shorn of its political fig-leaf. Ironically enough, given Ms Kelly’s verdict that Squire Hughes has ‘written a standard story, topically contrived, with sufficient “past” to perhaps interest those from that era,’ a number of serious incidents, some of them fatal, were perpetrated by dissident Republicans in weeks before ALL THE DEAD VOICES was published a month or so ago, which suggests that the novel is certainly topical, although no more contrived than the best fiction tends to be.
  I could go on, and get bitchy about lines like ‘it never really catches into the kind of fire one would hope’, but, being (almost) a gentleman, I won’t.
  I could also point out that Declan Hughes spent almost two decades writing plays for the stage before he started writing novels, something that Ms Kelly could have discovered with the bare minimum of research, which is perhaps why she believed she detected a desire to write for TV between the lines – presuming, of course, she didn’t come to write the review with that prejudice already in place.
  It would be incredibly annoying if this was (yet) another case of lazy journalism dismissing a genre / writer / novel on the basis of prejudice and / or stupidity. What makes this one worse is that Teri Louise Kelly is an author. “As a chef,” claims the blurb for her book, “Teri Louise Kelly strutted the line in big kitchens with a cocky impudence and girlish hips; as a writer, she brings to the page a furnace-like blast of candidness coupled with an eye for detail sharp as a sniper’s.”
  And good for her. Maybe next time she’s reviewing someone else’s work, she’ll bring along that sniper’s eye for detail and leave the supposition, guesswork, half-baked opinions and crass generalisations at home.

Welcome To Decland

A Grand Vizier writes: “The ever-radiant Janet Rudolph (right) at the Mystery Readers Journal announces the publication of the ‘Irish mysteries’ issue of the MRJ, the gist of her editorial running thusly:

“Fill your glasses with Guinness or Bailey’s Irish Cream and toast another great issue of Mystery Readers Journal. Irish Breakfast tea, my favorite, will work, too. Irish mysteries proved to be a very popular topic, as you can see by the length of this issue. Although I first conceived of this issue as focusing on mysteries set in Ireland, I expanded the topic to include Irish detectives and characters living and operating in other countries.
  “I want to especially thank Declan Hughes for spreading the word to his Irish author friends. Declan has a great blog that you shouldn’t miss: Crime Always Pays. Thanks, too, to all the Irish small presses that contacted their authors for me. The Author! Author! section is such a unique part of the Mystery Readers Journal, and I know you’ll enjoy reading the Irish mystery authors’ essays. It’s almost like being in the bar with your favorite writers.”

“Erm, Declan Hughes? Blummin’ typical – the Grand Viz does all the hard work, yon bowsy Hughes (right) gets all the credit. For the last time, people – Declan Hughes is the good-looking, successful one who writes the Ross Macdonald-styled Ed Loy series of private eye novels, while Declan Burke is the other Declan, who may or may not be a tad-less-than-crafty pseudonym for Declan Hughes. Are we clear on this now? No? Buggery.
  “Here’s a thought – maybe Declan Burke should think about getting himself a psuedonym. Right now we’re leaning towards ‘Stryker Ramoré’. Peace, out.”

Declan Hughes: Must He Throw This Filth At His Kids?

Rachel Petzold was kind enough to review Declan Hughes’ latest offering, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, over at The Feminist Review. She didn’t like the book, which is fair enough, because we’re all entitled to an opinion, especially feminists. The review concludes thusly:

“Declan Hughes is a Shamus Award-winning author, a husband, and a father of two girls. I hope he never lets them read his work.”

  Now, the ‘Shamus Award-winning author’ bit I get, but I’m not entirely sure what Declan Hughes’ marital status, or his being a dad to two girls, has to do with the quality or otherwise of the novel. Besides, given that the two young ladies in question will very probably grow up to become exemplary feminists, how the hell is Declan Hughes supposed to stop them from doing whatever they want to do, reading his very fine novels included?
  Ladies, I know you’re out there. I’d very much appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

All The Led Voices

Y’know, in a way it’s kind of disappointing that crime fiction is starting to rear its sordid little head at Irish literary festivals. Last year’s ‘Books 2008’ had a whole programme of crime fiction, as will ‘Books 2009’, while the Flat Lakes Festival in Monaghan is including a crime fic panel for the first time this year. Cuirt in Galway went bonkers entirely this year and invited The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman and Gene Kerrigan, while the 2009 Listowel Writers’ Festival didn’t just embrace the genre, it got Squire Declan Hughes (right) in to teach a crime fic workshop. All of which represents progress, of course, but I can’t help feeling that you’re better off outside the tent pissing in, particularly if you’re engaged in the kind of writing that’s pointing up the flaws in the establishment, which crime fiction is, theoretically at least, or used to be.
  Anyway, Seamus Scanlon was in Listowel for the week that was in it, and was kind enough to ask if I’d like to take a report on Squire Hughes’ workshop. To wit:

This year’s Listowel Writers’ Week, May 27- May 31st, included a very accomplished workshop on crime fiction run by Declan Hughes.   Declan traced the origin of crime fiction (noir version) from the writing of Dashiell Hammett (1896-1961) and Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) to Ross Macdonald (1915- 1983) and beyond. Macdonald is regarded as a near perfect stylist by many including Declan Hughes who lists him as his biggest influence. Other noir crime fiction authors discussed included Richard Stark, George V. Higgins and David Peace. Many other crime novelists were mentioned for various reasons including John Buchan, John Connolly, Elmore Leonard, Cornell Woolrich and Lawrence Block.
  We discussed the police procedural novel versus the PI novel, the criminal as the protagonist versus the orthodox police/PI investigator, point of view, research, whether back-stories are necessary, the concept of series versus one off novels, finding your authentic voice, sense of place and prologues.
  Declan, although a relatively recent arrival to writing crime fiction, has made a big impact to date with his Ed Loy series, winning a Shamus award for his first novel THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD and a 2009 Edgar nomination for THE PRICE OF BLOOD. THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is currently on the shortlist for the 2009 Crime Novel of the Year at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, July 23rd-26th. His current offering is ALL THE DEAD VOICES.
  Declan was an intense reader and analyst of crime fiction since his teens and this long term immersion shone through during the workshop. As an accomplished playwright, producer and director since he founded Rough Magic Theatre Company 20 years ago, perhaps his writing ability is not a surprise. This theatrical tradition may also explain his strong regard for dialogue in crime fiction which he demonstrated to us from selected readings of various authors.
  Apart from his knowledge and writing he has a more subtle skill which lies in hosting and directing a workshop – this involves the ability to build rapport with the participants, lead the discussion and impart knowledge. He listened closely to the crime writing exercises he assigned us (we read them aloud), provided direction and encouragement and did it with a great sense of humour.
  Many of the ideas from the workshop participants were innovative and arresting. The crime fiction plots they developed were well thought out and good enough to be commercial successes.
  Declan’s spontaneous high energy laughter and genuine interest in our attempts to shape our sometimes macabre stories convinced us all he was a natural born teacher. At the end of the workshop he was surrounded by almost every participant getting books signed – the ultimate accolade for any writer!
  Kudos are due to the fifteen workshop participants who are essential for the success of any workshop. Thanks also to the Listowel Writers’ Festival for including a crime fiction workshop along with the more traditional workshops on memoir, short stories, drama, the novel and song writing. The prose of Chandler and Hammett is now recognized as work of great literary merit (published by the Library of America for example). In time, other crime fiction writers will join that category.
  Special thanks also to Eilish Wren and her team for coordinating the workshop schedules. – Seamus Scanlon

Crime And Publishment

A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: “The Sunday Independent carried a feature on Irish crime fiction yesterday, in which Anne-Marie Scanlon investigated the reasons for ‘the emergence and rapid growth of home-grown Irish crime fiction’. Being bloody-minded about such things, the Grand Viz would have it known that the piece – which highlights the authenticity of Irish crime writing, and the black humour inherent therein – does not mention Gene Kerrigan, purveyor of the most grittily realistic Irish crime fiction, nor Ruth Dudley Edwards (right), recent winner of the Last Laugh Award at Bristol’s Crime Fest, two very fine authors who are also exceptional journos who happen to write for the Sunday Indo. A self-deprecating Sindo? Shurely shome mishtake. Anyhoo, on with the show …”

Plenty Of Loot In Crime And Publishing

As George Gordon Liddy once said, “obviously crime pays, or there’d be no crime,” and as an ex-Nixon aide, he’d know. In the past decade, Ireland has experienced a wave of unprecedented affluence and, with that, a major explosion in crime. Aside from the obvious side effect of an increase in criminality, Ireland has, in the past 10 years, experienced another – the emergence and rapid growth of home grown Irish crime fiction.
  Declan Hughes, whose first book, THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, appeared in 2004, sees a definite correlation between prosperity and the emergence of Irish crime fiction, but thinks the genre goes beyond the mere detailing of a society in catharsis.
  “Crime novels provide a flexible format to deal with society as it is and the way we live now. Crime novelists can tackle how society works, as well as what occurs in the human heart,” he says.
  Hughes’ sentiments are echoed by Tana French whose first novel, IN THE WOODS, published last year won the highly prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar for best first novel.
  “Crime and crime fiction are two of the best barometers of any society,” French says. “A crime novel will give you a clear snapshot of the priorities and deepest fears of a society at that given moment.”
  French cites the glut of serial killer novels published on the opposite side of the Atlantic during the late-Eighties and Nineties as an example of how crime fiction mirrors the real world.
  “American society at that time was becoming more and more anonymous,” she explains, “people were frightened by the anonymity of modern life, of not knowing who the person beside you really is. During that same period in Ireland, the murder rate was pretty low, and when a murder did occur, it was generally pretty obvious who the culprit was.”
  Paradoxically most crime fiction is extremely moral, and while (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde) the good might not always end happily, the bad usually finish unhappily. It is these themes that drew international bestseller and Godfather of Irish crime fiction, John Connolly, to the genre in the first place.
  “I wanted to write about justice, morality and redemption, themes which run through crime fiction like writing through a stick of rock,” he says.
  All three writers agree that the phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger and the subsequent transformation of Irish society has contributed greatly to the corresponding output of crime fiction. “The Celtic Tiger smashed into this country at 100mph,” French says, “we still haven’t assimilated it; we’re still trying to reconcile the past and present.”   The sins of the past feature prominently in French’s first book and are a consistent theme in all three of Declan Hughes’ novels.
  “Ireland used to be a place where ‘whatever you say, say nothing’.” Hughes explains. People didn’t ask questions and “there were plenty of skeletons in the closet, but in the past 10 years, those skeletons have started walking.”
  Hughes’ third novel, THE DYING BREED, which came out in May of this year, explores these themes, as well as examining the clash between “New Ireland” and the past.
  In THE LIKENESS, the second novel by Tana French, the young inhabitants of the “Big House” are shunned by the local community because of things that happened almost a century earlier. In MISSING PRESUMED DEAD, by Arlene Hunt, the past returns in the shape of a woman who was abducted 26 years earlier (and presumed dead.) The theme of the past and present struggling to coexist is also at work in Andrew Nugent‘s SECOND BURIAL, which deals with the murder of a young Nigerian immigrant and the effect this has on his community.
  “Logically,” Nugent says, “you would think an increase in affluence would lead to a decrease in crime, whereas the reverse is true.”
  Money, while both funding the boom and the parallel rise in crime is also, Hughes thinks, the catalyst that enabled people to speak out and enquire about things covered up in the past.
  Although he gives the ongoing tribunals, the Magdalene laundries and the industrial school system as examples of the “murkier secrets” of pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland, he makes the point that the emergence of secrets and confronting the past are universal themes and not wholly unique to Ireland, which no doubt contributes to the increasing sales of Irish crime fiction abroad.
  Hughes goes on to say that the poor economy and lack of money in society was only one aspect inhibiting Irish writers from tackling crime fiction.
  “The Troubles were a contributing factor in hindering the development of the genre,” he says, adding that, in a violent society where there is a lot of killing (as opposed to individual murders) crime fiction is not much of a diversion. John Connolly shares this opinion. “What was happening then (terrorism) was so appalling nobody wanted to write about it.”
  Connolly sees a bright future ahead for Irish crime fiction, saying that, while a lot of modern crime fiction adheres to conventional formats and constructs, this isn’t the case with Irish crime writing, where “interesting things are happening. The great hunt in British publishing is to find the Irish Ian Rankin,” he says, referring to the highly successful Scottish author who created the best-selling Inspector Rebus series.
  Rankin was at the forefront of the boom in Scottish crime writing (known as Tartan Noir) which began in the late-Eighties. Connolly thinks there is a definite similarity between Tartan Noir and what began in Ireland a decade ago.
  “Social changes were occurring in Scotland at that time and society was being transformed,” he says, adding that the Scots are “grittier.”
  Arlene Hunt thinks part of the appeal of Irish crime writing is its realism. “People can relate to the characters,” Hunt says. “It’s not just about escapism; they like to hear the spoken word and the different accents and not just read about glamorous characters gambling in casinos in the south of France.”
  There is almost always an underlying thread of humour in Irish crime novels. In Declan Hughes’ THE DYING BREED, “Tommy Owens greeted me with a shake of the head and a look of appalled fascination, as if to say he’d seen some gobshites in his time, but I could be their king”. And a character in Tana French’s THE LIKENESS says of his stepmother, “she’s a dreadful woman, you know ... Everything about her is pure faultless middle-class -- the accent, the clothes, the hair, the china patterns -- it’s as if she ordered herself from a catalogue”. Like the other authors, Arlene Hunt sees the consequences of the Celtic Tiger boom reflected in current crime writing. Neither does Hunt desire to turn back the clock. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that we’re a more aware, fast-moving, youthful sort of nation,” she says. “I remember the Eighties, when people had to emigrate because there was no work and no money.”
  John Connolly agrees. “People forget how grim Dublin was in the Seventies and Eighties,” he says. “There’s a lot of false nostalgia. I’m happier to see people working than not working.” Given the increasing popularity of Irish crime fiction, there’s certainly more than enough work for the authors who are busy making crime pay. – Anne Marie Scanlon

This article was first published in the Sunday Independent

Book Reviewing 101: Don’t Mention The War (#7)

There are bad reviewers, atrocious reviewers, and then there are reviewers who should be strapped to the mast and flogged with a cat o’ nine tails woven from their own entrails. Consider Geoffrey Vine’s (‘Dunedin journalist and Presbyterian minister’) take on Declan Hughes’ ALL THE DEAD VOICES at the Otago Daily Times:

“All three seem to have links with warring factions of the IRA and Loy discovers there are matching factions within the police and security forces, all just as much at war, as the collection of wounds Loy accumulates testify.
  “Most of us outside Ireland may wonder why it is so necessary to again rake over the coals of an awful civil war.
  “Both the fact (that Hughes has written a book which alternately glorifies the Troubles and condemns them) and the fiction (the book’s plot) stir up tensions we might think best left alone.”

  A couple of things need to be said here. First off, “Don’t mention the war” is a Basil Fawlty joke, not an acceptable argument in a book review. Secondly, dissident Republicans murdered two people in Ireland shortly before the publication of ALL THE DEAD VOICES, which at the very least suggests that Declan Hughes is not the only man in Ireland capable of ‘stirring up tensions’ amongst Irish paramilitaries. Thirdly, I’ve just bore a small hole in my skull scratching my head at how Vine managed to take from the novel the notion that Hughes was ‘glorifying’ the Troubles, when one of the main themes of the novel is the extent to which former murderous paramilitaries have infiltrated modern Irish business and political life.
  Yes, yes, I know it’s the Otago Daily Times, and maybe we shouldn’t expect too much. But at the very least Declan Hughes is entitled to have his book reviewed by someone who can understand basic English. Like here, for instance ...
  As for Geoff’s abhorrence of stirring up tensions – God help him if anyone gives him a copy of Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE to review …

A 51st State of Mind

When I was putting together DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, I thought Declan Hughes would be a shoo-in for an essay on the history of the crime narrative in Irish theatre. Dec Hughes was, of course, a critically acclaimed playwright before he turned to writing the Ed Loy series of novels, and there are many - yours truly among them - who hope that he might yet be persuaded to return to the craft, just so long as it doesn’t interfere with his writing novels.
  Anyway, Dec Hughes declined to write about the Irish theatre and crime, preferring instead to pen an essay on the American influence - and particularly the troika of Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald - on the contemporary Irish crime novel, and fascinating reading it makes too. The essay is up on Scribd, with the opening running a lot like this:

Irish Hard-boiled Crime: A 51st State of Mind
By Declan Hughes

Irish people can be especially prone to magical thinking, to put it at its kindest. We seem extremely reluctant to relinquish our belief in phenomena that neither experience nor reason will justify. The most notable and poignant example of this is our relentless credulity regarding the existence and quality of the Irish Summer.
  Although year after year, a solitary sunny day is followed by unending weeks of overcast skies and squally rain, hope springs infernal. In my case, this belief, or “superstition”, took root when I was thirteen, during the (genuinely) long hot summer of 1976. Every morning I would assemble a lunch and spend the day on Whiterock beach in Dalkey, alone or with friends. I swam and read and looked longingly at girls in bikinis and wondered how that, and everything else, was going to go. And that’s pretty much how I spent my subsequent teenage summers, often in delusional defiance of the weather. I never got a job, because I didn’t drink back then, could get all the books I needed from the library, experienced a certain amount of success in finding out more about those mysterious bikini-wearing creatures, and didn’t want anything else money could buy as much as I wanted to be on the beach and in the sea, even if the rain fell and an east wind tested your faith in the Irish summer to the limit.
  There was music in the air during that time, of course, and for all that punk rock had happened and post punk followed in its wake, and for all that I had developed a ferociously puritanical line in rock snobbery which permitted me to like virtually nobody except the Clash and Bruce Springsteen (which was convenient, since I could barely afford their records, let alone anyone else’s), the soundtrack I still associate with Whiterock during those years was the Eagles’ Hotel California. (You didn’t have to buy Hotel California: in the late ’70s in South Dublin, it played for free from every shop doorway and bedroom window). Cowboy boots and flared Levis and plaid and cheesecloth shirts and droopy moustaches and long hair were the order of the day for the half-generation ahead of me, and their musk of patchouli oil and dope smoke seemed like an intoxicating promise, a hazy benediction from alluring adepts of a laid-back cult I longed to join. The cult did not just dream of America, and more specifically, California; it seemed to believe it was already living there. And as I gazed out to sea on whichever blue sky day I could find or recall, I knew I was worthy of confirmation in their faith, for that was where I believed I was living too. The Ireland that presented itself to us day-to-day in the ’70s was still run by priests and nuns and decrepit old bogmen in tweed suits, and claimed by murderous bigots intent on shooting and bombing everyone who disagreed with them into a fantasy vision of the glorious republican past; nobody who dreamt of truth, beauty, youth and love could tolerate either as a reality ...

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, those of you who missed the podcast of Declan Hughes and your humble scribe shooting the breeze about GREEN STREETS on RTE’s Arena programme should clickety-click here …

UPDATE: Richard L. Pangburn reviews DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS over at Little Known Gems, suggesting that the book is, “An anthology … filled with brilliant ideas and surprising points of view, an examination of Irish crime literature by those who now write it, packed with verve and humour that sparkles, a treasure chest of emerald noir.” With which we are very well pleased. We thank you kindly, sir …
  For the rest, clickety-click here …

“And The Award For The Most Award Nominations Goes To … Declan Hughes!”

Another week, another awards nomination for Squire Declan Hughes (right). Yes indeedy, it’s the ‘Theakston’s Old Peculier Novel of the Year 2009’, the winner of which will be announced at the Harrogate Festival. Squire Hughes has been nominated for THE COLOUR OF BLOOD (the award is for books that were published in paperback in 2008), and he’s got some stiff competition – Ian Rankin, Lee Child, John Harvey, Peter James, Val McDermid … it’s cutthroat stuff, people.
  Anyway, the thing is, see, you – yes, YOU! – can vote on the award, and decide who you think should scoop ye olde ‘Theako’. I’m not saying who you should vote for or anything, but if Squire Hughes doesn’t get a minimum of 1,000 votes emanating from Crime Always Pays, he says he’ll come over and beat me like a red-headed step-child.
  You know what to do, folks – clickety-click here, and vote early and often for Declan Hughes …

The Sun Comes Up On Galway Bay: Or, Jack Taylor Hits The Silver Screen

‘Jack Taylor’, the pilot for the movies based on Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS, screened last night on TV3, and I have to say - reluctantly - that I don’t buy Iain Glen (above, left) in the lead. It doesn’t help that his faux-Irish accent wanders all over the map, but that’s not the biggest problem.
  The script, and particularly in the voice-overs, makes something whimsical of Jack Taylor’s fatalism. In the movie, Jack Taylor is a broth of a boy, prone to the odd eye-twinkle, a tough man to deal with if you push him too hard.
  In the novels, or in my reading of them at least, Jack Taylor is a dangerous bastard to know, a man fuelled on anger and Jameson, a man who is as hard as only the truly brittle can be, who know that just one more shove or punch or insult could shatter the façade.
  It also doesn’t help that the movie, being a movie, needed to make of THE GUARDS a straightforward narrative of investigation, whereas the novel, and all the Taylor novels, are a post-modern take on the detective story, for the most part philosophical ruminations occasionally linked by the need to have some investigative narrative.
  I suppose the difference is that, in the movie, Jack Taylor was investigating a series of crimes, rather than investigating Galway itself as a microcosm of the new Ireland.
  There was a lot to like, it has to be said, not least of which was the depiction of Galway city, and there were some good performances in the minor roles. And hey, maybe Iain Glen has the chops to convince an audience that isn’t familiar with the Bruen novels. Fans, though, will be disappointed, I think. For some promo vids, and to make up your own mind, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, it’s been a busy week for Irish crime fiction. Staying with TV3, the ever-radiant Alex Barclay was on the Ireland AM couch, talking up her latest offering, TIME OF DEATH. The conversation includes a very nice shout-out to John Connolly and Declan Hughes - clickety-click here for more …
  Staying with Declan Hughes … I don’t know if you could call Emma Donoghue’s new novel, ROOM, a crime novel, even though it concerns itself with some rather despicable criminal activity, but Squire Hughes was suitably impressed when reviewing it for the Irish Times. All the details are here …
  Staying with reviews: the eagle-eyed Maxine Clarke has organised her reviews by country over at the Petrona blog, and her introduction to her Irish reviews cites Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway, Alan Glynn and, erm, yours truly. But don’t let that put you off - there’s some really good stuff just about here …
  Elsewhere, Peter Rozovsky reviews Declan Hughes’ latest, CITY OF LOST GIRLS, while the good word has already started to tumble in for Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION …
  Finally, and veering off the straight-and-narrow of crime fiction, congrats to all who were responsible for having Dublin declared a UNESCO City of Literature last week; and congrats too to Irish scribes Emma Donoghue and Paul Murray, both of whom were long-listed for the Booker Prize, for ROOM and SKIPPY DIES respectively.
  Nice work, folks. Very nice indeed …

Festival: Festival du Polar Irlandais Noire Emeraude

It’s off with a host of Irish crime writers to Paris and the Irish Cultural Centre for the weekend, and the Festival du Polar Irlandais Noire Emeraude, which loosely translates as the ‘Emerald Black Irish Crime Festival’. To wit:

Wednesday 19 September, 7.30 pm
OPENING EVENING
Benjamin Black (John Banville) in conversation with Clíona Ní Ríordáin
Born in Ireland in 1945, John Banville lives in Dublin. Since its inception, the work of this "goldsmith of words" has been rewarded with numerous literary prizes. Passionate about police literature of the 50s, he also wrote black novels under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, the last appeared Vengeance (2017); their recurring hero, coroner Quirke, was portrayed by Gabriel Byrne in a television series aired in 2014 on the BBC.

Thursday, September 20th, 7:30 pm
DETECTIVES AND CRIMINALS FROM PAGE TO SCREEN
Jo Spain in conversation with director Conor Horgan
The Irish novelist of crime fiction, Jo Spain, recently commissioned to write her first TV drama for RTÉ, will tell us about the difficulties of moving from writing novels to that of scenarios. Produced this summer by the directors of the hit Irish series Love / Hate, her Taken Down series is released on screen in November 2018.

Friday, September 21, 7:30 pm
SCENE OF THE CRIME
Alex Barclay and Declan Hughes in conversation with Declan Burke
Scene of the Crime will focus on Ireland as a backdrop for crime fiction and what is so revealed about contemporary society. Alex Barclay and Declan Hughes will also tell us about their experience when locating a plot in a foreign country, their motivations, the constraints that entails and the strengths that this narrative choice represents.

Saturday, September 22nd, 5pm
WHYDUNIT
Liz Nugent, Jane Casey and Declan Burke in conversation with Declan Hughes
Whydunit will examine the alternatives to the traditional black novel focusing in particular on the psychological drama as well as on the band police officer.
Liz Nugent, Jane Casey and Declan Burke will give us keys to understanding this form of crime novel that focuses more on the motivations of the character who committed a crime than on the murderer.

Saturday, September 22, 7:30 pm
TRUE CRIME
Eoin McNamee, Niamh O'Connor, Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde in conversation with Wesley Hutchinson
Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde are the creators of West Cork, a podcast produced by Audible, dealing with the murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan de Plantier in the West Cork area. With Niamh O'Connor and Eoin McNamee, they will discuss the ethics of novel based on a real news story.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival

The full line-up for November’s ‘Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival’ in Trinity College (see below) has been released, and it looks very much like this:

Friday 22 November (free tickets)

7.00pm-8.30pm: ‘A Short Introduction to Crime Fiction: Why We Write It, How We Write It, and Why We Read It’.
Panellists: Jane Casey, John Connolly, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, and Eoin McNamee.

Saturday 23 November (free tickets for daytime events)

10.00am-11.15am: ‘Historical Crime Fiction’.
Panelists: Kevin McCarthy, Eoin McNamee (chair), Stuart Neville, Peter Quinn, and Michael Russell.

11.30am-12.45am: ‘Irish Crime Fiction Abroad’.
Panelists: Declan Burke (chair), Jane Casey, John Connolly, Conor Fitzgerald, Alan Glynn, Arlene Hunt.

12.45pm-1.30pm: lunch

1.30-3.30pm: Surprise Film Screening

3.45pm-5pm: ‘Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland’.
Panelists: Paul Charles, Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway (chair), Niamh O’Connor, Louise Phillips.

Saturday 23 November, Closing Event

6pm (doors open 5.30), Exam Hall, Trinity College (€6 tickets)
‘An Evening With Michael Connelly’.
John Connolly will be interviewing Michael, who will be signing books, including his newest novel The Gods of Guilt, which will have its Irish launch at this event.

Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival

I’m very much looking forward to ‘Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival’, which takes place at Trinity College Dublin over the weekend of November 22nd / 23rd. It should be a terrific event, blending as it does some new voices with established international best-sellers, although the highlight will undoubtedly be John Connolly in conversation with Michael Connelly (I believe Michael slips in under FIFA’s ‘grandparent rule’; his Irish roots are to be found in north Cork, I think).
  The blurb:

Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival
Trinity College Dublin and New York University are holding a festival devoted to Irish crime fiction, featuring more than a dozen of the most exciting Irish crime novelists. This will be a memorable event, devoted to a key genre of contemporary Irish writing, with a wide events, so please make plans to join us.
  Among the confirmed participants are Declan Burke, Jane Casey, Paul Charles, John Connolly, Conor Fitzgerald, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Kevin McCarthy, Brian McGilloway, Eoin McNamee, Niamh O’Connor, Louise Phillips, Peter Quinn, Michael Russell and Stuart Neville.
  We’re particularly pleased to announce that our weekend will conclude with a major event: for the Irish launch of his newest novel, The Gods of Guilt (Orion Books, November 2013), Michael Connelly will be interviewed by John Connolly.

  For all the details, including how to book tickets for the Michael Connelly event, clickety-click here …

A Heist Of Crime Writers II: The Line-Up

As promised, and only a week or so late, the full list of writers attending the Books 2008 Crime Writing Series has now been posted on-line. Three cheers, two stools and a resounding huzzah, etc. The series takes place over the first weekend in September in Dun Laoghaire, and the main draw, I’d expect, will be a centre-piece interview of John Connolly (right) by Declan Hughes on Saturday, with John also reading excerpts from his 2009 release, THE LOVERS. Mmmmm, exclusive.
  Other than that, there’s three multiple-author panels. On Friday, September 5, Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan, Tana French, Alex Barclay and Ruth Dudley Edwards discuss ‘Heroes and Villains: What We Love and Hate about Crime Fiction’, with Paul Johnston moderating.
  Kicking off Saturday’s panels are Gene Kerrigan, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Brian McGilloway, Arlene Hunt and Declan Burke yakking it up about ‘Forty Shades of Grey: Real Fiction, Real Ireland’, with Mick Halpin asking the questions. Following the John Connolly interview, the series wraps up with ‘Sex & Violence: How Far is Too Far?’, with Declan Hughes quizzing John Connolly, Alex Barclay, Declan Burke, Arlene Hunt and Brian McGilloway about sex and violence, presumably in the context of crime fiction.
  For all the details, jump on over here …

All Decs On Hand

There has been, over the years, an occasional confusion between (or conflation of) Declan Hughes and Declan Burke, which will surely only be worsened by the fact that our current offerings – ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE and CRIME ALWAYS PAYS, respectively – are both published by Severn House as part of the ‘Celtic Crime’ imprint. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’m quite pleased about this, because it means that I’m occasionally mistaken for a very good writer indeed.
  Anyway, in the interests of adding to the confusion, I’ll be appearing with Declan Hughes at the Dalkey Book Festival next month. The gist, according to the good people at the DBF, runs thusly:

There has never been so much interest in Irish crime writing and we are thrilled to have two of the best here for you this year.
  In an event called ‘Emerald Noir’, two of Ireland’s best crime writers, Declan Hughes and Declan Burke, take you through their favourite writers and discuss their own books in the context of current Irish crime fiction.

  The event takes place at The Masonic Hall at 12.30pm, Saturday 21st June. For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here …

And JC Arose And Spoke To Many

Off with yours truly to the launch of John Connolly’s THE WHISPERERS last Wednesday evening, which was held in the very pleasant environs of the Gutter Bookshop in Dublin’s Temple Bar. Being a perverse kind of Dark Lord, JC refused to read from THE WHISPERERS (clickety-click here for the prologue), instead offering a snippet of his current project, which appears to be a follow-up to THE GATES, which is all sorts of good news. The snippet in question featured four of the seven dwarves (that’ll be the recession, then), some of whom were in mortal danger of being tossed due to their unnecessary aggressiveness, plus a boy-band, a crumbling castle and a pop video shoot, and suggests that the book will be a very funny one indeed.
  As always, JC was besieged by fans afterwards in an impromptu signing session; as always, and because the man seems incapable of signing a book without engaging in banter, the signing session took at least an hour. It’s hard to judge these things qualitatively, but from the sounds of it, JC was in even better form by the end of it all than he was at the start, and he was plenty lively at the start.
  (By the way - for those unfortunates still yet to escape from Direland, John Connolly features on The Late, Late Show tonight (Friday). If you miss it, the RTE iPlayer can be found here …)
  Meanwhile, lurking with intent in the vicinity were Arlene Hunt and Declan Hughes, and Kevin McCarthy and Ed O’Loughlin. Bob Burke was there too, apparently, but I managed to miss him. Boo. Bob Johnstone, the owner of the Gutter Bookshop, seems to be a nice bloke, and we can only wish him well with the new venture. Opening a bookshop in these straitened times, in Ireland, is either a case of counter-intuitive genius or noble lunacy. Either way, Bob gets our vote. Apparently he gets the thumbs up from The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman too, for lo, Bateman is due to do an event at the Gutter Bookshop next month. When I know more, you’ll know more …
  In other updates - Kevin McCarthy publishes his debut, PEELER, next month, a potentially fascinating tale of a murder investigation set in Ireland in the 1920s, in which the IRA and the Black-and-Tans chase the same killer. It’s on my bookshelf and due a reading in the immediate future. Meanwhile, Ed O’Loughlin, who got himself a Booker long-list nomination for his debut, NOT UNTRUE & NOT UNKIND, had the news that his second novel, a dystopian sci-fi, will be published next year. Nice. Elsewhere, Arlene Hunt’s latest, BLOOD MONEY, you should know all about, while Declan Hughes’ new offering, THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS, is an absolutely tremendous read, even by his standards, and a whole new gear for one of the best crime writers around. Truly, it’s a terrific novel. Hughes fans are in for a real treat. He should be launching said tome next month too. Apparently there’s a review in Sunday’s New York Times …
  While outside for a crafty smoke, I also met Helen, who confessed - in public! - to having read THE BIG O. She also said very nice things about the Princess Lilyput, thus making herself a new friend for life, whether she wants one or not. I thank you kindly, ma’am.
  And as if all that wasn’t nice enough, the lovely Margaret Ward and the equally lovely people from Hodder Stoughton were good enough to promise me some tasty titles in the near future, one being the new Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE, the other being David Mitchell’s eagerly anticipated THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET. Woot, etc.
  Finally, I decamped to the nearby Porterhouse in the company of Kevin McCarthy and Ed O’Loughlin for a very pleasant couple of hours chat about books ‘n’ suchlike over a few dry Pimms. Unfortunately, I was on the non-alcoholic Pimms, having been to the dentist on Tuesday in the throes of man-agony, there to discover I was suffering from an infection of an abscess. Picking up some super-strong antibiotics from the chemist (I’m immune to Penicillin, for some bizarre reason), the chemist warned me not to drink booze on top of the pills, which is something I usually do for the extra buzz, even if I hadn’t planned on drinking. ‘Of course I won’t,’ says I. ‘No,’ says she sternly, having caught a glint in my eye, ‘I’m serious - you’ll end up in hospital if you drink alcohol even two days after the course finishes.’ Now, staying off the booze shouldn’t be a huge problem, except my brother’s stag weekend takes place in Galway this weekend. And now I’m curious. Like, seriously - how strong can gum-healing antibiotics really be?
  There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?

  Lately I have mostly been reading: THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS by Declan Hughes, 61 HOURS by Lee Child, and THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST by Philip Pullman.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE LOVERS, THE TWELVE and ALL THE DEAD VOICES

The supernatural has always been a consistent element in John Connolly’s novels and short stories. This is particularly true of the Charlie Parker novels, in which Parker, a private investigator, finds himself drawn to manifestations of evil that luridly and unabashedly tap into the world’s folk narratives to prod at readers’ primal fears. It’s a clever piece of marketing, to blend two of literature’s best-selling genres, in crime fiction and horror, but it takes even cleverer writing to splice the genres convincingly. Connolly is by now the acknowledged master of the gothic noir.
  In recent years, the supernatural has become less and less a presence in Connolly’s novels, to the extent that last year’s The Reapers was a revenge tale with no supernatural aspects at all. The demons are back with a vengeance in his latest offering, however, as Charlie Parker investigates the circumstances of how his father, Will Parker, a well-respected and responsible policeman, came to shoot to death two teenagers in an apparently unprovoked attack, before turning his gun on himself and committing suicide.
  Charlie Parker is plagued by two kinds of demons in The Lovers. The first, the supernatural and more literal kind, have been sent to eliminate Parker at all costs, for fear of what, or whom, his investigations might eventually lead him to. The pair of demons, male and female, are eternal lovers who return to earth time and again, always finding one another, always engaged in their lethal trade.
  The second kind of demons are the metaphorical kind, as Parker comes to realise that he cannot outrun the horrors he has witnessed. The murder of his wife and daughter, Susan and Jennifer, has always been an integral part of the Parker psyche, but the tragedy plays a more powerful part in the backstory to The Lovers than usual, as Parker finds himself haunted by their shades. As rendered by Connolly, the characters are not ghosts, nor angels, nor undead, but creatures that seem to be entirely new in the realms of the supernatural. Without recourse to cliché or sentimentality, Connolly creates vivid characters in ‘Susan’ and ‘Jennifer’, in the process adding a layer of profundity to a page-turning thriller.
  But then The Lovers, for all that it appears to be an unconventional but genre-friendly take on the classic private eye story, eventually reveals itself to be a rather complex novel, and one that is deliciously ambitious in its exploration of the meanings behind big small words such as love, family, duty and blood. As all the classic literary private eyes eventually come to do, Charlie Parker spends the bulk of the novel investigating himself, in dogged pursuit of his own identity, as he tries to untangle decades of lies, half-truths and the well-meant obfuscations of his father’s former partners and friends. Connolly has penned some very fine novels over the last decade or so, but this is arguably his finest to date.
  Stuart Neville’s debut novel The Twelve also features supernatural elements. As it opens, we find ex-IRA killer Gerry Fegan plagued by the ghosts of those he murdered during ‘the Troubles’. The ghosts are demanding blood vengeance, but it’s not Fegan’s blood they want: it’s the blood of those who ordered the killings, those who used Fegan as a tool – albeit a willing tool – to achieve their sordid aims.
  Last year, in The Truth Commissioner, David Park introduced a fictional ‘truth and reconciliation’ process to the landscape of Northern Ireland’s post-Troubles fiction. That novel, and The Twelve, are attempts to deal with the consequences of the Peace Process, and particularly those elements of the Peace Process that attempt to gloss over the ugly truth of three decades of cold-blooded, sectarian murder. Neville’s novel posits Gerry Fegan as judge, jury and executioner of the men who orchestrated killing campaigns for personal gain, and gives a fictional voice to something crucial that has been sadly lacking in reality – a heartfelt, profound apology from the killers for all the agony inflicted on ordinary people.
  Gerry Fegan is an utterly compelling character, as chillingly ruthless as Richard Stark’s protagonist Parker, but driven by conscience and a desire to absolve himself of his sins by putting right his own small corner of the world, even if that means making the ultimate sacrifice. Stuart Neville’s novel deals in a very pragmatic way with contemporary issues, but he isn’t afraid to introduce some very old-fashioned concepts, not least of which are guilt, redemption and – potentially, at least – a spiritual salvation.
  The ghosts that haunt Fegan are another old-fashioned touch, but, as with John Connolly, Neville has the talent to believably blend the tropes of the crime novel and those of a horror, in the process creating a page-turning thriller akin to a collaboration between John Connolly and Stephen King. For all that the shadows of Fegan’s world are populated by ghosts, however, Neville never explicitly states that the supernatural is a reality. Fegan is the only character to see the ghosts, and as the novel progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that the ‘ghosts’ are in fact manifestations of Fegan’s guilt, a consequence of his internalising his conflicts.
  Whether or not Fegan and his ghosts come in time to be seen as a metaphor for Northern Ireland itself, as it internalises and represses its response to its sundering conflicts, remains to be seen. For now, The Twelve is a superb thriller, and one of the first great post-Troubles novels to emerge from Northern Ireland.
  The dead also play their part in Declan Hughes’s latest novel, All the Dead Voices. The fourth outing for Hughes’s Dublin-based private investigator Ed Loy, the novel peels back the skin of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland to reveal the festering corpse beneath.
  In terms of the great fictional private eyes, Ross Macdonald took up the baton from Raymond Chandler. Where Chandler deployed Philip Marlowe to investigate the culture and society of 1940’s California, Macdonald used Lew Archer as a means of investigating the family as the microcosmic society. Declan Hughes employs the Macdonald model to get at the truth of contemporary Ireland, as Ed Loy infiltrates families and uncovers their secrets, excavating skeletons and unravelling histories.
  In All the Dead Voices, Hughes’s most ambitious novel to date, the personal becomes political. When a fifteen-year-old murder case is re-opened, Loy is employed by the victim’s daughter to investigate the former suspects for the killing, a list that includes an ex-paramilitary, a property developer, and a psychotic gangland kingpin.
  There’s a wonderful immediacy to Hughes’s depiction of recession-hit Ireland, and not least because the novel feels at times as if it has been ripped from yesterday’s breathless newspaper headlines. Journalism, it is said, is the first draft of history, but the crime novel can often function as its second draft, given its obsession with diagnosing the world’s ills and exploring its taboos. Where Hughes excels, however, is his ability to position the reader at the nexus where crime meets civilised society.
  While Hughes appreciates the private eye’s heritage, and acknowledges the romantic notion of the cynical PI as a tarnished knight, he is also aware that the intimacy of the Dublin setting is paramount. Thus, when Loy meets with a former paramilitary, or a gangland boss, the detective is not descending into some kind of Dantaesque inferno, or tentatively engaging with criminality for the sake of a greater good. Loy, if not already on first-name terms with the criminal fraternity, generally knows a man who is, the implication being that Irish society at large has a familiarity with crime that doesn’t always manifest itself as contempt. As with Gene Kerrigan’s recent Dark Times in the City, and Alan Glynn’s forthcoming Winterland, Hughes’s novel subtly explores the extent to which, in Ireland, the supposedly exclusive worlds of crime, business and politics can very often be fluid concepts capable of overlap and lucrative cross-pollination, a place where the fingers that once fumbled in greasy tills are now twitching on triggers.
  Written in the laconic and staccato rhythms of the classic hard-boiled private eye novel, and featuring a cast of vividly drawn ne’er-do-wells and no little amount of pitch-black humour, All the Dead Voices is crucial reading for anyone who wishes to understand how modern Ireland works. – Declan Burke

  This review first appeared in the Sunday Independent