Ouch! How hardboiled can you get? EIGHTBALL BOOGIE by Declan Burke bounced me straight across the Atlantic and back again. If there hadn’t been the odd reference to things Irish, I wouldn’t have believed it could be anything but American.You heard the Book Witch, people – fly, my pretties! Fly!
For two days now I’ve had an Irish Humphrey Bogart swanning around inside my head, double-crossing and getting double-crossed. I’m exhausted by the beatings and the gunshot wounds, to the extent that I believe I’ve been at the receiving end of them myself. And I’ve felt the cold, and I’ve panicked slightly over being late for Father Christmas.
By the way, what exactly is it that’s hardboiled in hardboiled fiction? Eggs? I’ve only just started wondering about this, and realised my ignorance.
Declan is very good with language. I’d be more concerned about him overdoing it, if I hadn’t been a regular reader of his blog, which has accustomed me to his clever and witty way of expressing more or less everything. “One eye tied behind his back,” indeed!
The plot is pure Mills & Boon, if you know what I mean. It’s a case of you get what you want and expect, and it’s perfect. It’s an intricate web of drugs and politics and, as previously mentioned, lots of double-crossing. In fact, I completely lost the plot, amongst all the turns here and there.
Daughter walked past and pointed out the f-word at the bottom of page 211, as it caught her eye, but I replied that it pops up around twenty times per page, so was nothing to get excited about.
This is a great first book, which has been out a few years now. Declan’s second book, THE BIG O, was published last year. So, some lucky readers have both to look forward to. Go out and buy. - Book Witch
“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.” – Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Yessir, We Can Boogie: The Mills & Boon Years
Friday, February 15, 2008
Funky Friday’s Freaky Deak
Thursday, February 14, 2008
In It For The Money
Best Specialist Blog, Sponsored by iQ Content:Our money is on Eoin Purcell, although to be fair we can’t imagine a more specialist site than Wood Pellet Ireland. Oh, and please visit the sponsor’s site or they’ll realise there’s no money in this blogging malarkey.
• The Voyage
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• Eoin Purcell’s Blog
• Piaras Kelly PR
• Wood Pellet Ireland
• Cearta
• Paddy Anglican
• Oliver Moore
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In Siobhan We Trust
A trust has been set up to manage all the proceeds from [Siobhan’s] literary work. The aim of the trust will be to help disadvantaged children improve their reading skills and experience the joy of reading. It will offer financial support to: public libraries; state school libraries (especially in economically challenged areas); children in care; asylum seekers; young offenders and children with special needs. Cheques to be made payable to The Siobhan Dowd Trust and addressed to The Siobhan Dowd Trust, c/o Polly Nolan, Flat 10 Hendred House, Hendred Street, Oxford OX4 2ED, United Kingdom.To give you some idea of the potential talent that was lost, Siobhan has in the last week or so been picked by The Independent as one of the authors of their ‘Ten Best Books for Teenagers’, for BOG CHILD, while she’s also been nominated, for THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, in the Red House Children’s Books Awards. It’d break your heart, wouldn’t it?
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,097: D.B. Shan
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
I love James Ellroy, so probably one of his. Maybe LA CONFIDENTIAL or THE BLACK DAHLIA. Though it would have been special to write THE MALTESE FALCON too ...
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t believe in guilt when it comes to reading. Read what you like and have no shame about it!!! Having said that, if you’re talking about books that other people might look down their noses at, I guess Mickey Spillane would probably rank high on my list. He might be down ‘n’ dirty, and his so-called heroines all turn out to be nasty, stab-ya-in-the-back vixens, but he’s lots of fun!!
Most satisfying writing moment?
Finishing my first novel at the tender age of 17 was probably my most satisfying personal moment. It was no bloody good (nor were the next 6 or 7!), but I’d proven to myself that I could take a story all the way to the end. All that was left after that was working hard enough to be able to tell a good story!
The best Irish crime novel is?
One of John Connolly’s. I have all of his books, but I only came to him recently, and I’ve only read a few so far, so I’m not in a position to pick a favourite at the moment – but I’m getting through them quite quickly, so I will be soon!
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Again, I’d have to go with Connolly. I think there’s great movie potential in his books – they’re crying out to get the A-grade treatment.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing is the isolation. You have to spend large chunks of your time by yourself, no company, no one to gossip with or discuss last night’s TV with. I miss being able to go to an office every day! The best thing is bringing stories to life which would otherwise never be told. The harder you work at writing, the more you develop, and you find yourself capable of writing stories that you never even dreamt you could tackle when you were younger.
The pitch for your next novel is?
HELL’S HORIZON (out in March 2009) is more of a straightforward crime tale than PROCESSION OF THE DEAD. A woman is murdered in a hotel. Her boyfriend is ordered by his boss (a crime kingpin) to investigate. He’s soon in over his head, and finds suspects everywhere he looks. He also comes to realise that the case ties in with his past and the death of his father. Someone’s playing with him, moving him around like a pawn piece, and it becomes much more than a case of just finding out who murdered his girlfriend. His entire life is under threat, as are the lives of those close to him ...
Who are you reading right now?
I’m currently reading THE KITE RUNNER. But I’m also working my way through the works of John Connolly and I recently began reading Meg Gardiner.
The three best words to describe your own writing are?
Twisted, twisting fun!!!
D.B. Shan’s PROCESSION OF THE DEAD will be published on March 3rd
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: WHAT WAS LOST by Catherine O’Flynn
The book opens with a section told by ten-year-old Kate Meaney, a budding private investigator with her trusty stitched monkey toy as her assistant. Kate is very bright and spends a lot of time watching for crime at the Green Oaks shopping centre, a huge complex near Birmingham. She also spends time at the sweetshop next door to her home, discussing music with Adrian, the 22-year-old son of the owner. An orphan, she’s looked after (loosely speaking, it seems) by her grandmother, who wants Kate to attend a boarding school. Reluctantly Kate agrees to take the entrance exam. Adrian accompanies her to the school and that is the last anyone sees of Kate Meaney. She vanishes into thin air. Police suspicion falls on the strange relationship between Kate and Adrian and after all the gossip, Adrian leaves home, not to be seen again for 20 years.
Jump forward 20 years to the Green Oaks Centre where we meet Lisa, a duty manager at Your Music, and Kurt, a security guard on the night shift. One night, Kurt sees a little girl on one of the CCTV monitors, a girl clutching a toy monkey. He is unable to find her though, and, later crossing paths with Lisa, she agrees to help him find her. Through their developing relationship, information long suppressed comes to the fore and helps solve the mystery of Kate Meaney.
I couldn’t put WHAT WAS LOST down. As well as the Kate Meaney mystery, there’s a fascination to what goes on behind the scenes at a huge shopping mall; the poorly lit unpainted miles of corridors; what it sounds like when there’s no musak. The book also explores what Green Oaks meant to the local community, having been built on old factory sites and the men being forced to take menial (aka women’s) jobs, and also the current obsession with shopping. Green Oaks is as much a character as Lisa, Kurt and Kate, if not so likeable, and much of the action seems to take place in its gloomy depths. There’s also quite a lot of humour, unintentionally by Kate in her detective notebook and more obviously in Kurt’s dealings with his Green Oaks statistician security guard partner, and his attempts to avoid his eye and subsequent monologues.
Reminiscent of Suzanne Berne’s A CRIME IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, I much preferred WHAT WAS LOST, not least for the fact that you do get a resolution. A bonus pleasure was the references to places I’m familiar with, e.g. Sutton Park, that I rarely come across in fiction.
An amazing debut novel. Catherine O’Flynn will be hard pushed to top the outstanding critical reception it has deservedly received. – Karen Meek
This review is republished with the kind permission of Euro Crime
Bring Us The Heart of Hernan GarcÃa
Neurologist Durcan dissects the ethics involved when politics, medicine and violence collide in this finely wrought novel about a neurologist turned biotech entrepreneur who travels to The Hague to witness his mentor’s war crimes trial. Patrick Lazerenko is a punk teen in Montreal when he first meets Hernan GarcÃa, the Spanish immigrant owner of a neighbourhood grocery store. Caught trying to vandalize Hernan’s store, Patrick is roped into working off the damages and soon finds himself attached to the GarcÃa family. When Patrick sees Hernan’s backroom medical consultations with local immigrants, he is inspired to become a doctor himself. Years later, a journalist exposes Hernan—dubbed the Angel of Lepaterique—as having been mixed up in the CIA-backed torture of subversive citizens in Honduras in the 1980s. Parallels to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are acute (and even overtly identified) as Hernan is accused of witnessing and aiding in detainee torture. Subplots involving a devious political think-tank, the long-expired romance between Patrick and Hernan’s daughter and the goings-on at Patrick’s company, provide a rich backdrop to the trial, but the centrepiece is the mélange of complex feelings that arise within Patrick, who finds himself simultaneously condemning and rooting for Hernan. – Publishers WeeklyFor much, much more of the same, jump on over to Liam Durcan’s interweb yokeybus. Just don’t mention Mursheen and / or pickin’ praties.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
There Will Be Bloodstorm
Karl Kane is a private investigator with a dark past. As a child, he witnessed the brutal rape and murder of his mother. The same man sexually molested Karl, leaving him for dead with horrific knife wounds covering his body. Years later, Karl has a chance to avenge his mother’s murder by killing the man responsible. The opportunity arises on one unforgettable Good Friday night. For reasons he later regards as cowardice, Karl allows the opportunity to slip through his hands, only to be shattered when, two days later, two young girls are sexually molested and then brutally murdered by the killer on Easter Sunday morning. Karl now holds himself responsible for their deaths.Blimey. We know it’s grim oop North, but that’s darker than Ken Bruen’s waistcoat. And with that title looming over proceedings, it’s highly unlikely it’ll all finish up with a trip to Itchycoo Park. Sam? We’re starting a fund right now to send you to Disneyland. We’ll be in touch to let you know how it’s going once we rake off our 15% …
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sins Of Commission
“Once the four different perspectives are fully initiated the novel’s pace quickens, increasing the suspense as the danger in the plot grows too … the final chapter of THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER re-establishes the perfect nuance between personal and political landscapes that shapes Park’s honest, and at times bleak, view of [Northern Ireland] in the present day.” – Sara Keating, Sunday Business PostSo wot’s it all about, then? Quoth the Bloomsbury blurb elves:
“A terrible beauty, but a powerful one for that, this is a magnificent and important book.” – Joseph O’Connor, The Guardian
“As David Park’s thoughtful and humane new novel makes clear, truth and loyalty are not easy bedfellows.” – Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph
Henry Stanfield, the newly arrived Truth Commissioner, is troubled by his estrangement from his daughter, and struggling with the consequences of his infidelities. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican and recently appointed government minister, risks losing what feels tantalisingly close to his grasp. In America, Danny and his partner plan for the arrival of their first child, happily oblivious to what is about to pull him back to Belfast and rupture the life they have started together. Retired detective James Fenton, on his way to an orphanage in Romania with a van full of supplies, will soon be forced to confront what he has come to think of as his betrayal, years before, of a teenage boy. In a society trying to heal the scars of the past with the salve of truth and reconciliation, four men’s lives become linked in a way they could never have imagined. In a community where truth is often tribal and partial, the secret they share threatens to destroy what they have each built in the present. David Park pieces together these individual stories to create a powerful tale that transcends both time and place. Moving, insightful and utterly involving, THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER is an important novel from one of Ireland’s greatest writers.Hmmmm ... Anyone else get the feeling the Bloomsbury elves would rather be reviewing novels than blurbing them?
The Monday Review
Mi Casa, Su Casa: KT McCaffrey on Literary Snobbery
Several years ago, I attended a literary gathering in the Hume Street HQ of Marino Books, my publishers at the time. Being new to the game and greener than spring cabbage, I experienced what I’ve now come to call Literary Snobbery. I should explain that Marino Books – an imprint of Mercier Press – tended to specialise in literary writing with a special emphasis on poetry. As an experiment, Marino, under the astute guidance of Jo O’Donaghue, decided to dip its toe in the mass market segment of the book trade. As I recall, myself and Terry Prone were the first to be taken on board to test this new strategy. Did it work? Well, I was never given sight of the actual sales figures so it’s hard to tell. I do know, however, that given the size of the print run, the exercise appeared to be relatively successful.
And so it happened that all the Marino authors, staff and associates, were invited to a pre-Christmas get-together to celebrate the success of the year’s output. That particular year, my second crime fiction paperback, KILLING TIME, had notched up impressive sales, edging its way into the bottom half of the Top 10 Irish best-sellers and attracting a handful of laudatory reviews. Damn it, I had arrived. There I was, chin up, back straight, chest out, vol-au-vent in one hand, glass of red in the other, holding my own with the best of them ... or so I thought.
Three glasses in, I was giving it large with the verbals when a tall female author, well known in literary circles (though I didn’t know that at the time) asked me if I was happy with my publisher. I said yes, in general I was happy, but annoyed that a few typos and spelling mistakes had made it on to the printed page. She seemed surprised at this and asked what kind of books I wrote.
“Crime fiction,” I replied, my confidence boosted by the intake of wine.
She looked at me as though I’d just farted in her face and said, “Oh, crime fiction, well of course it doesn’t really matter in that case.”
For me, this represented the beginning of a steep learning curve in regard to the differing attitudes I’ve since encountered on planet Literati.
I think it was about this time that playwright, Hugh Leonard, in his Sunday Independent column, bestowed his ‘Gobshite of the Year’ award to all those readers who’d bought copies of Robert James Waller’s THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, consigning them to the status of Philistine. Never mind the fact that Clint Eastwood, who may or may not be as bright as Mr Leonard, read the book and liked it enough to turn it into an award-winning film. More recently, in similar vein, game show host Henry Kelly penned an article in which he took issue with all readers who had the audacity to read and ‘enjoy’ Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE.
I accept that there are good books and bad books, same as there’s good art and bad art, good music and bad music. Few would argue with that. What gets me is the sheer arrogance and snobbery of those who would presume to chastise the rest of us who succumb to popular culture. I like to think I belong to the Melvyn Bragg ‘broad cultural church’ when it comes to the arts; I love the South Bank Show’s habit of showcasing such various disciplines and artistic divergence as, say, Ian Rankin and J.K. Rowling alongside Mohsin Hamid and Adam Thorp. Unlike some of his contemporary arts commentators, Bragg does not relegate crime writers to the second-division or reject a book simply because it is ‘popular’, ‘a page turner’ or God forbid, ‘plot driven’.
Is it too much to ask for a little humility, respect and understanding from those who should know better? Yes, of course it is, and besides, what the hell would I have to gripe about if that were to happen? Sorry, did I mention John Banville? – KT McCaffrey
KT McCaffrey’s THE CAT TRAP is published on February 29