The Babble On TOWER

The Ken Bruen-Reed Farrel Coleman collaboration TOWER goes live today, courtesy of the good folk at Busted Flush, and the good word is in from the chattering classes that matter, aka the trade journals. To wit:

Booklist: “It’s a story as old as hard-boiled fiction, but Bruen, the prolific and gifted Irishman, and Coleman, his new partner in crime, have given it new life ... Bruen’s prose is some of the leanest, meanest writing crime fans will find, and Coleman’s more discursive style amplifies and explicates the story, in the same way that John Coltrane’s lyrical saxophone built on the clipped trumpet ideas of Miles Davis. The result is more than the sum of its parts, and it brings to mind Dennis Lehane’s brilliant MYSTIC RIVER. Readers who like their streets mean, and their criminals and cops meaner, will love TOWER.”

Library Journal: “Plot plays second fiddle to the specifics of sharply etched characters relayed in a prose style that frequently lands a punch to the gut. VERDICT: These two writers have amassed a mantle full of prizes and bevies of fans; much of the fun they must have had playing off each other comes across in this successful collaboration.”

Shelf Awareness: “Busted Flush Press has just released its first original novel... billed as a crime tale, and what a tale it is ... TOWER is a brutal, and sometimes tender, noir novel that careens through Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston and Philadelphia, leaving you breathless and stunned.”

Publishers Weekly: “Brutally poetic... Bruen and Coleman shine... displaying all the literary chops that have made their novels such cult favourites among mystery fans.”

  Nice, nice, nice.
  In other news, here’s where aspiring Irish writers can pay €3,000 to become a novelist, or possibly avail of the service for free, courtesy of Faber; and Philip Pullman’s contribution to the Myth series, THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST, gets my vote for next year’s Booker Prize. You can only imagine the outrage were the central character Muhammad. By contrast, the official Christian response runs, “It is important that people should be free to express themselves …” and “I’m sure [Pullman] will do something interesting with this one.” Like, whatever happened to fire and brimstone, eh?

  UPDATE: Gene Kerrigan’s terrific novel DARK TIMES IN THE CITY is nominated for CWA Gold Dagger. Very, very nice indeed … For a smashing review of same, clickety-click here …

Alan Glynn: In Which Our Discontent Gets WINTERLAND

The worse things get here in Ireland – and the place is disintegrating by the day, with worse (Nama, the Lisbon referendum, the increasingly unfunny Tweedledum ‘n’ Tweedledee act that is the Fianna Fail / Green Party coalition) coming down the pike – the more appropriate becomes the title of Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND. Contemporary and brutally relevant, it is set against a Dublin backdrop in which the worlds of crime, big business and politics collide, with Joe O’Schmoe (and his comely missus, Josephine) bearing the brunt of the fall-out, as always. WINTERLAND isn’t due out until November 5th, but the covers (UK above, US below) have appeared and the big-ups keeping on coming. To wit:

“Timely, topical, and thrilling.” – John Connolly

“A terrific read ... completely involving.” – George Pelecanos

“A dark and terrifying slice of Dublin noir. I loved it.” – RJ Ellory

“This is the colossus of Irish crime fiction. What MYSTIC RIVER did for Dennis Lehane, WINTERLAND should do for Alan Glynn. It is a noir masterpiece, the bar against which all future works will be judged.” – Ken Bruen

  And while we’re on the subject of Ken Bruen, Gerard Brennan has news over at CSNI about a forthcoming TV series based on the Jack Taylor novels. Clickety-click here for the inside skinny …

“I Feel Uneasy If I’m Not Writing Or Thinking About Writing.”

The always welcome Spinetingler Magazine made its latest appearance earlier this week, and features an interview yours truly conducted with Brian McGilloway, an excerpt from which runneth thusly:

Brian McGilloway: “I’ve always loved writing and that in itself has been a compulsion for some time. I feel uneasy if I’m not writing or thinking about writing. My passion for crime fiction came first as a reader. I initially came to crime following my English degree, mistakenly thinking that crime fiction would be light in comparison with the literary texts I’d been studying. Then, as I read more and more crime fiction, I realised how wrong I had been.
  “The novels which appealed to me most strongly – by writers like James Lee Burke, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, John Connolly – were those which contained not only compelling plots and strong central characters, but also a strong sense of place and, I suspect most importantly, a strong sense of humanity. As I wrote myself, I realised that the genre was one in which I could explore my own concerns and develop my own style.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

In Like Glynn

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 2009 is shaping up as a terrific year for Irish crime writing. One of the reasons to get excited is WINTERLAND from Alan Glynn (right), which isn’t due until November but has already attracted quite a glittering array of big-ups. To wit:

“This is the colossus of Irish crime fiction – what MYSTIC RIVER did for Dennis Lehane, WINTERLAND should do for Alan Glynn. It is a noir masterpiece, the bar against which all future works will be judged … It’s as if Flann O’Brien wrote a mystery novel and laced it with speed, smarts and stupendous assurance.” – Ken Bruen

“Both a crime novel and a portrait of contemporary Ireland caught at a moment of profound change, WINTERLAND seems set to mark Alan Glynn as the first literary chronicler of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Timely, topical, and thrilling, this is Ireland as it truly is.” – John Connolly

“A thrilling novel of suspense from a new prose master.” – Adrian McKinty

“WINTERLAND is crime fiction of the highest order – smart, vivid, meticulously crafted, and highly entertaining. Alan Glynn has written a flat-out classic.” – Jason Starr

“WINTERLAND is a powerhouse of a novel whose pacy, character-driven narrative scrutinises Ireland’s underbelly, offering new meaning to the notion of corruption in high places. Glynn’s grasp of the big picture is as immaculate as his attention to detail. This is an exceptional and original crime novel, convincing at every level.” – Allan Guthrie

  Nice, nice and very, very nice. Quoth the blurb elves:

In the vein of films such as Michael Clayton and Syriana, WINTERLAND is a fast-paced, literary thriller set in contemporary Dublin. The worlds of business, politics and crime collide when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night—one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That’s the official version of events. But when a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions, this notion quickly unravels.
  Devastated by her loss, Gina’s grief is tempered, and increasingly fuelled, by anger—because the more she’s told that it was all a coincidence, that gangland violence is commonplace, that people die on our roads every day of the week, the less she’s prepared to accept it. Told repeatedly that she should stop asking questions, Gina becomes more determined than ever to find out the truth, to establish a connection between the two deaths—but in doing so she embarks on a path that will push certain powerful people to their limits ...

  I’ve read it, I love it, and it’s even better than THE DARK FIELDS, which is saying quite a lot. To book your advance copy, shufty on over here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Stephen J. Cannell

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
SILENT JOE by T. Jefferson Parker, or THE CHOIRBOYS by Joseph Wambaugh.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t read for guilty pleasure. I try to read novelists I can learn from.

Most satisfying writing moment?
The start of each day.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I truthfully haven’t read much Irish crime fiction, but I do read and admire, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane – both of Irish American descent.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I thought the film adaptation of Lehane’s MYSTIC RIVER was terrific.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
You get to keep your own hours.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Shane Scully is called upon to be a pallbearer and along with his five rail-mates, ends up proving that the death of their great friend inside the box was not a suicide, but a murder.

Who are you reading right now?
THE GATE HOUSE by Nelson DeMille.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. But if I couldn’t proof-read what I wrote, it might not be too good.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Page turning fiction.

Stephen J. Cannell’s ON THE GRIND is available now

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Gone Baby Gone

Called in by the family of a missing girl to augment the official police investigation, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) use their experience of growing up in the area of Boston where Angela McCready (Madeline O’Brien) went missing to winkle out some leads. Soon they’re working as equals with the detectives assigned to the case by Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), but when one of those detectives is a self-confessed by-any-means-necessary rule-breaker like Detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris), that’s not necessarily a cause for celebration. Drawn deeper and deeper into a web of drug-dealing, abduction and double-cross, at the heart of which lies the missing girl’s mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), Patrick and Angie find themselves compromised at every turn. Postponed on this side of the pond from its original release schedule last year as a result of the disappearance of Madeline McCann, Gone Baby Gone (based on the best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane) is a bleak and hard-hitting tale of moral corruption on the mean streets of Boston. Strong performances from an excellent cast give the story a gritty authenticity that is at times almost too real to bear, particularly in terms of the police department’s pessimistic outlook on the chances of finding young Angela. Casey Affleck, building on his superb turn in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is the star of the show, although Harris – who looks eerily like Dennis Hopper – matches him with a chilling portrayal of slow-burning intensity. Ben Affleck, who also co-adapted the novel, directs with no little style in his debut at the helm, slicing out the fat and leaving us with a lean, taut tale. By the finale the character of Patrick Kenzie is a little too squeaky-clean to ring entirely true, but this is a compelling and disturbing movie nonetheless. **** - Declan Burke

This review first appeared in TV Now! magazine

“You Charm Us To Sorrow.” Irish Crime Fiction: A CrimeSpree Appraisal

Last week we wrote a feature article for the Evening Herald to a pretty tight deadline, which was why Reed Farrel Coleman’s reply to our query, in the wake of the Edgar nominations, about why Irish writers are becoming so popular in the US of A arrived a little late. Ditto the answer from Ruth and Jon Jordan of the indispensable CrimeSpree Magazine (right, clutching the prestigious Anthony Award for ‘Cutest Couple in Crime Fiction’), both of whom have been cheerleading for Irish crime writing since God was a boy. Herewith follows their rather generous two cents on why Irish writing is becoming so popular:

“The economic and political status of Ireland today is much in line with that of the time in which American crime classics were written. A poor-to-affluent generation living in a post-violent but pre-pacific time, remembering the religious ironies and icons with equal resonance and enwrapping them in a story like a taco bell quesadilla. The Irish story is updated with generations more of ennui and religious acceptance behind it, the precarious situation that is refracted by words of today flirted with, exposed and uniquely discovered by a group of writers who embrace the crime novel as the way to tell their story for all the world.
  “The talent for words is remarkable and embraced by a United States at once ahead and behind a continent we’ve pretended to understand for three generations. Our story, told with more history and depth. Yet Ireland is unique, as are the people writing of it in crime form. Different voices tell the story and make it stronger, more complete. You charm us to sorrow and make us examine where we are today.
  “The background of many of today’s Irish crime fiction writers includes not only a reading of ‘literary fiction’ but also almost all have found the literary brilliance within American crime fiction, be it recent greats like Lehane, Pelecanos, Connelly, Lippman, Rozan, Paretsky and James Lee Burke (to name a few), or the classics (Chandler, Hammett, Cain). They elevate their novels’ structure from the debut and almost always add a fresh voice to the genre. They don’t want to emulate as much as pay tribute to this often overlooked genre of fiction. Pay it forward and make it better, to use an American phrase. They see the possibilities of one flawed man/woman trying to solve a unique and usually violent problem. The writing jumps off the page and connects with the American reader because Irish authors use the entire environment of the crime and make it resonate.
  “The first author I fell in love with from Ireland is John Connolly, an Irishman who set his fiction in a relatively remote American locale. John has said he loved the work of James Lee Burke and many others. He grabbed a location he knew and made it his own. Last year’s work is remarkable in any time: THE UNQUIET is a true literary novel and I cannot think of many recent reads who express the joy of reading and the possibility it has to soothe, but THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS is a must-read for anyone who has ever loved a book and lost a loved one.
  “From Connolly I went to L. Welch, who strips bare any pretences in her prose to expose the baldness of story, and Declan Burke, whose approach to EIGHTBALL BOOGIE was as refreshing as THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE in its time. Ken Bruen’s arrival on our shores made everyone take notice. From THE GUARDS forward, Ken has infused admiration and anticipation for a writing style so unique it cannot be compared to anyone else writing today. Full of bon mots and cultural references that put you into the being of his characters, only someone so sharp of pen could get away with it.
  “America came full circle with the words of one Declan Hughes, whose third novel [THE PRICE OF BLOOD] is about to launch in the States. Instead of taking an Irish sensibility and applying it to the American detective, he brought an Irishman home who has been an American P.I.
  “The possibilities are just beginning and yet we’ve already come full circle.”

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 1,413: Steve Mosby

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
That’s an easy one for me, assuming I can get away with a thriller: GREEN RIVER RISING by Tim Willocks. I love everything about that book, from the set-up to the characters and the journey they go on. From about the fifth chapter to the last, it’s almost non-stop action and violence, and yet it also creates a really powerful emotional connection between the reader and the characters involved. It shows the best and worst of people in a setting that rapidly descends into hell, and it’s one of the few books I can read again and again. Superb stuff. Although, like most books I really admire, I tend to think ‘there’s no way on earth I could ever have written that’.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t really have anyone for this, mainly because I’ll read anything I think looks good and I never feel guilty about it. If there’s pleasure from reading, there shouldn’t ever be guilt. The closest I can come is really trashy horror: stuff like Rex Miller’s SLOB, or Edward Lee’s BIGHEAD, or even some of Richard Laymon’s stuff. Books where the violence is almost pornographic, but you keep reading either despite or because of that. I don’t feel guilty about it though.
Most satisfying writing moment?
When I realised I could write full-time. I was working for a research group at Leeds University for several years, but I was temp staff and eventually the funding ran out and I got made redundant. I took a small pay-off and just thought ‘I’ll write for a couple of months, then get something else’, and a week later I sold some foreign rights which meant I could keep going. It won’t last forever but in the meantime it’s changed my life and means I can do what I always dreamed of. Nothing could really be better.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
This is where you have to get the rubber hose out, because I haven’t got a clue. I never pay attention to nationalities of writers. They’re all just books to me. I may have read hundreds of Irish crime novels without even realising. But assuming I can get away with an Irish writer, I guess it would be John Connolly’s EVERY DEAD THING. But, as I just said, it might not be. Actually, stretching the definition to absolute breaking point, it could be Dennis Lehane’s MYSTIC RIVER, but I know I’m pushing my luck there.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Well, I’ve always thought John Connolly’s EVERY DEAD THING would look pretty good on the big screen ... (cough).
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best thing for me is being able to do something I love, especially on the days when it’s all going well. There’s not much that can compare with being paid to do something you’d do anyway, especially when so many people hate their day jobs. In that light, ‘worst’ doesn’t really figure, although I guess you could say writing is sometimes really, really difficult, but not in a way you can complain about. I can’t say to my friends “work is really stressful at the moment”, because they’d just say “you sit at home and imagine stuff – shut up”. Or maybe the answer to both questions is the weird moment when you first see your book in a shop. You think ‘wow!’. And then you see the sixty thousand books crowded around it and think ‘hmmm’...
The pitch for your next novel is …?
The next one is out in May, and it’s called CRY FOR HELP. The book’s about a guy who doesn’t kill people, but ties them up in their homes and leaves them to die of dehydration, then taunts the friends and families who didn’t care enough to check up on them. Beyond that, it’s difficult to say much. But it involves conjuring, drug dealers, psychic debunkers, extreme violence, love, ex-love, mobile phones, guns, more extreme violence, and then the twists start.
Who are you reading right now?
I’m reading John Rickards’ latest, BURIAL GROUND, at the moment (which is great so far), and looking forward to crime novels by Kevin Wignall, R. J. Ellory and John Connor, and also some sci-fi from Richard Morgan and Simon Logan. And I have Ken Bruen’s PRIEST to read, as well, which is one I do know is Irish.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Dark, cruel and emotional. Other people might not be so kind ...

Steve Mosby’s THE 50/50 KILLER has been short-listed for a Spinetingler Award.