Toronto’s Lone Ranger; and OLD DOGS For A Hard Road

It’s over a year now since I read John McFetridge’s SWAP, the third in his oeuvre after the Toronto-set DIRTY SWEET and EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE. As with the previous two, SWAP sent me into a sweaty, teeth-grinding frenzy of green-eyed monsterdom, which is always a good sign. Ken Bruen likes it too. Quoth Ken’s blurb:

“SWAP is a stunning leap forward from an already fine author. This is John channelling Elmore Leonard at the height of his game and with dialogue Tarantino would kill for. A plot that moves like Pulp Fiction but with a nice Canadian slant that keeps it fresh and different. John’s creation of the African-American characters is like Sallis at his finest. With a wicked sense of humour that is irresistible, SWAP moves Canadian mystery right to the top.”

  SWAP is published today in Canada, although it won’t hit U.S. stores – as LET IT RIDE – until next February. For what it’s worth, and bearing in mind that yon McFetridge is a good mate of mine, my advice is not to wait: SWAP is as good as the noir novel gets.
  Meanwhile, and while we’re on the subject of Ken Bruen, I’m hearing a rumour that yet another of his novels, the Busted Flush TOWER collaboration with Reed Farrel Coleman, has been optioned for the big screen, this time by the team behind the Tom Cruise flick Valkyrie. Can anyone confirm?
  Meanwhile meanwhile, and while we’re on the subject of Busted Flush and bigging-up good mates, here’s the cover for Donna Moore’s forthcoming OLD DOGS. Is it just me, or is that cover a work of art?

Move Along, Please, Nothing To See Here …

Apologies to all three regular readers, but Crime Always Pays is going off-line for the foreseeable future. The main reason is time, or the lack thereof, and the fact that yours truly, aka Some Chancer, Esq., has to choose between blogging and writing, and that’s a foregone conclusion. If any Irish writer wants to avail of the space here, and is prepared to upload their own news, reviews, updates etc., then he or she is more than welcome to do so – log-in passwords et al available on request. In the meantime, thanks a million to everyone who made the last couple of years such an enjoyable experience – you all know who you are.

UPDATE (Slight Return): Many thanks for all the kind words, folks, whether delivered by comment or privately – really, you’re being far too generous. I have a few regrets about parking the blog, not least of which is that it was a decent spot to let people know about new Irish crime writers – myself included, of course. On that score, the various blogs on the left-hand side, a goodly chunk of which are recent additions by new Irish writers, will continue to update. There’s also, although it hardly needs to be said, Gerard Brennan’s excellent Crime Scene Northern Ireland.
  I’ll miss it for myself too, and not just for self-promotion, which was always a vital component of the quid pro quo. Blogging has become like a stroll through the neighbourhood. Some days you’ll stop and chat with the neighbours, other days you’ll nod and go by. Either way, it’s always nice to know you have good neighbours.
  There have been some ideas put forward in the last day or so about how to keep the blog running with a minimum input from me, some of which have been interesting. And I repeat – if anyone fancies updating the blog themselves, with news and views, etc., then they’re more than welcome. Although, as I say, updating your own blog means that the news will pop up on the left-hand side of Crime Always Pays anyway.
  Now, the essence of successful blogging is regular and interesting content. Despite that, and given that I know I’ll miss it (or, more precisely, the people it puts me in contact with), and as a result of being prodded with a big stick by my good lady wife, I’m very tempted to blog on a reduced basis – perhaps, as Donna Moore suggested, once a week. That would allow me to post links to writers’ latest news and releases, etc., while also indulging in a little self-promotion, and also have some fun with whatever rant happens to be occupying me at the time. Business as usual, in other words, albeit on a weekly rather than daily basis. So long as it doesn’t impact on my new writing schedule, that would be ideal.
  I don’t kid myself that it would be blogging per se, but it would, crucially, allow me to stay in touch with people, and give people a reason to stay in touch with me. Given the loneliness of the long-distance writer, that’s not to be underestimated.
  Lastly, thanks again for all the big-ups. I guess there’s a few more than three regular readers after all …
  Cheers, Dec

Bristol 2009: Natural Born Shillers?

I was a bit ambivalent about the Bristol Crime Fest this year, I have to say. On the one hand, it’s always terrific to meet up with people you only see once or twice a year, if you’re lucky, some of whom dandered out for a bite to eat on Friday night (L to R: award-winning blogger Peter Rozovsky (sans beard), Vincent Holland-Keen, Donna Moore, Ewan (aka Donna Moore’s other half), Cara Black, Chris Ewan, Rafe McGregor, and Your Humble Host). A good night was had by all, although some appetites were rather ruined by Ewan’s mention of Donna’s party piece, which she was gracious enough not to showcase …
  On the other hand, events / conventions aren’t really about the business of writing, but much more about the business of marketing. I shouldn’t really grouse about that fact, given that I was privileged enough to be asked to sit on two panels, one of which took place on Friday and was moderated by Donna Moore, alongside Chris Ewan, Steve Mosby and Kevin Wignall. The panel went well enough, in that none of the panellists were chucked out any windows for boring the audience to tears, although I did find myself explaining why, exactly, I’d hijacked a mini-bus at the age of 15. Gosh, you get a bad rap and The Man never lets you forget it …
  But I only attended one panel I wasn’t involved with all weekend, and that for about 20 minutes, and that only because I got caught up in Ali Karim’s gravitational pull and he was already headed that way. The panellists were all interesting people, and two of them had published novels set in Greece (Paul Johnston and Anne Zouroudi), which is something I have a personal interest in, given that I’ve been working on-and-off on a novel set on Crete for the last five or six years, but … well, I don’t know. It’s hard to feel that you’re not really discovering anything you wouldn’t from reading between the lines of a back-page biog, I suppose … which isn’t to criticise the writers, because all the panellists I saw were pro-active and engaging. Maybe it’s just the case that writers talking about writing just isn’t very interesting, much in the same way as porn stars talking about sex isn’t very interesting. Or so I imagine …
  By the same token, and maybe it’s just that the dry sherries were in, the various conversations on Friday night were much more fun.
I had a particularly good one with Steve Mosby and Ali Karim (right) about a whole range of subjects – which is to say, of course, that Ali talked while Steve and I nodded occasionally. Still, there was a couple of fascinating topics, not least of which is the new demand in the US for companies which will maintain your on-line persona after your death, updating your Facebook, emailing your buddies, and even keeping your game-playing avatar hale and hearty while you sleep the big sleep. Perverse? Yes. Pointless? Yes. Chunky material for a Phil Dick-style book? Most certainly.
  Anyway, Friday was a good day, given that I bumped into Karen Meek and Norm Rushdie, and Dec Hughes and Brian McGilloway, and Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Maxim Jakubowski and Paul Johnston, and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours bitching about the publishing industry with Rafe McGregor, gentleman that he is. All of which went some way to off-setting the embarrassment I should have been feeling at attending Crime Fest with no book other than THE BIG O to promote, which was first published two years ago, and – technically speaking – has never been published in the UK. For shame, etc …
  Which brings me back to the whole being-marketed-at issue. Would I have been happier with the weekend if I’d had a book to market? Not really. And I should say that I’m not dissing Crime Fest here, because I think it’s a terrific experience, and brilliantly run, and I’ll be back again next year to hook up with like-minded folk. But, to be honest – and I’m probably shooting myself in the foot here – the whole issue of selling / marketing books is simply a necessary evil that follows on from the privilege of being published in the first place. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d imagine most writers would much prefer to live in splendid isolation, tossing a manuscript over the wall of their mansion every year or so to a waiting editor, leaving the whole business of promotion and generalised shilling to people who are trained and / or have a vocation for the selling side of things.
  Hey, maybe there’s a market for a company that could maintain an electronic avatar-style version of writers, 3-D simulations who go on the circuit and promote the books, while the real writer stays home and writes. Any takers?

And so to Bristol …

I had a ball last year at Ye Olde CrimeFeste (statue erected in my honour, right) and I’m looking forward to more of the same this year. What’s terrific about these conventions is that you get to stroll around for a couple of days pretending to be a bona fide writer and no small boy points his finger at you and says, “Oi, yon emperor-type ain’t wearing no clothes.” It’s a wonderful thing, pretending to be a writer … but then, pretending is what writers do best.
  The other great thing about conventions and festivals is meeting up with the people you only tend to see at such events. Writing being (in theory, at least) a solitary pursuit, and regarded by something of an anti-social affliction by those nearest and dearest who don’t write, it’s nice to chow down with like-minded folk. As always, it’ll be great to hook up with Irish scribes the likes of Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway and Ruth ‘Cuddly’ Dudley Edwards, and also some people I’ve met on my travels over the last couple of years, including Paul Johnston, Martin Edwards, the uber-glam Donna Moore, Ruth Downie, Chris Ewan, and a few more. And then there’s my fellow members of the bloggoratti, being Maxine, Karen, Norm, Ali and – possibly – the Book Witch and Rhian, although I’m not sure they’re going to make it this year. And, of course, we’ll all be in awe of the award-winning blogger, Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders, who’ll be doing his Uncle Travelling Matt impression in Bristol.
  Anyway, it’ll be dry sherries all round, so here’s hoping the old liver holds out. For those of you interested, I’ll drop a line on Monday or Tuesday (depending on the volume of dry sherries) to let you know how the panels went. I’m on two: Friday at 1.30, for ‘I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang: Writing About The Bad Guys’ alongside Chris Ewan, Steve Mosby and Kevin Wignall, with Donna Moore moderating; and Saturday at 3.30, for Natural Born Killers: Maxim’s Picks, alongside Cara Black, Paul Johnston and – hurrah! – Donna Moore, with Maxim Jakubowski moderating.
  All in all, fun times ahead …

  UPDATE: The ‘Who Is The Sexiest Irish Crime Writer?’ poll is now open for business, people, in the top-left corner of the blog … The results will be skewed, naturally, given that Gene Kerrigan has removed himself from consideration, but what can you do?

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

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

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

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

This Month I Was Mostly Reading …

Ye olde reading time was at a premium this month, for a variety of reasons, but while the quantity was low, the quality was pretty good. I gave up on Stieg Larsson’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO after something like 120 pages, not because the preamble was so tortured, but because I didn’t believe in what appeared to be the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. It just didn’t make sense to me that a wealthy industrialist, who wanted his family’s history explored with discretion and could afford the finest private investigation talents available, would turn to a journalist who had been recently disgraced in a high-profile court case in which he was found to be guilty of a serious error of judgement. The Lisbeth character, meanwhile, came on like a goth Modesty Blaise who was simply too good to be true. It’s a pity, because the overwhelming verdict seems to be that TGWTGT is a modern classic, and Ali Karim reckons it’s sequel is even better. Maybe I’ll come back to it in a few years’ time and try again.
  For some reason I re-read Alistair MacLean’s WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL immediately afterwards, and I should point out here that WEBT is one of my blind spots – I must have read it about six times by now. I’m not a MacLean fan, though. I know I read more of his novels in my misspent youth, but none of them stand up the way WEBT does. If you haven’t read it, it’s set amid the Scottish islands and features Philip Calvert as a British Secret Service agent investigating piracy on the high seas, which makes it kind of topical. The ‘Philip’ is a nod to Marlowe, presumably, as the style is a Chandleresque take on the typical Bond story, albeit one grounded in the kind of self-deprecation where Calvert describes himself as a civil servant. Pithy, funny and pacy, it’s a darling read, and I’ve only semi-plagiarised the style with third-rate knock-offs twice to date.
  I went straight from that to MacLean’s THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, because I’m working on something right now that involves WWII shenanigans in the Greek islands. I made it as far as page 17 or thereabouts, which was when MacLean has one of his characters tell how an island in the Dodecanese was invaded by German forces, some of whom were parachuted in. As far as I could tell, the story is set midway through WWII, but to the best of my knowledge the German parachute regiment – the Fallschirmjager – was downgraded to infantry after the debacle that was the airborne invasion of Crete, in 1941, and never went a-parachuting again. I hope I didn’t put away the book on the basis of my getting the timing wrong, but that kind of detail should be important. I can only presume the Allied commandos succeeded in their mission, given that FORCE TEN FROM NAVARONE was a subsequent best-seller, but I’ve never seen the movie and I probably won’t be reading the book again.
  I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I don’t read a lot of women writers. I don’t think it’s a sexist thing, but more to do with the fact that men tend to write the kind of stories I’m interested in. Anyhoos, Mary Renault is one of the rare exceptions, and THE KING MUST DIE was the latest of her novels, most of which are set in classical Greece. It’s a fictionalised version of the Theseus myth, or the first half of it, covering the hero’s journey on the Greek mainland and his coming to recognition as the son and heir of the King of Athens, Aigeus, before he volunteers to be one of the victims sacrificed to the minotaur of King Minos and sails off to Crete to become a bull-dancer. Renault strips away the mythical elements, while remaining true to the quasi-spiritual aspects of the myth, and presents a fascinating tale of the clash of civilisations between the crude barbarians of the mainland Achaeans and the sophisticated culture of Minoa, which would eventually be undone by a combination of indolence, earthquake and ravening hordes from the north. Again, there’s a topical resonance, and Renault is a beautiful writer. Mind you, for a woman she tends to write quite a lot on the quintessentially male topics of war, conquest and glory – Alexander the Great was an obsession of hers – so maybe she’s not really an exception. I think she was a lesbian too, although I’m open to contradiction.
  Speaking of women with a male mind-set, I dipped into Alex Barclay’s latest, BLOOD RUNS COLD, and found myself fascinated by her creation Ren Bryce, a hard-drinking, no-bullshit FBI agent who seems to have more balls than most male characters. So I’ll be reading that next month. I’ll also be reading Donna Moore’s latest, on manuscript, because GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET was screamingly funny, and the first couple of chapters I dipped into there were just as hilarious. Staying with the manuscripts, I was sent an m/s of Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND, which is due out next year and already claiming all kinds of wondrous big-ups. The first chapter seems to bear them out, so that’s another cracker lined up for next month.
  Back to this month and another female writer, Deborah Lawrenson, whose THE ART OF FALLING was a terrific read. Set in the present day, but driven by a parallel narrative from WWII (Italy this time, rather than Greece), it’s the story of a woman on a quest to lay some ghosts to rest in order to gift herself the peace of mind she needs to be happy. Lawrenson published TAOF herself, before Random House picked it up and gave it the Big House treatment, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as SONGS OF BLUE AND GOLD, which employs a similarly dual narrative, this time steeped in the fictionalised life of a writer who bears a very strong resemblance to Lawrence Durrell, and which I’ve already recommended in these here pages.
  Finally, and for research purposes, I’m about to finish THE RASH ADVENTURER: A LIFE OF JOHN PENDLEBURY by Imogen Grundon, which features a foreword from Patrick Leigh Fermor. Pendlebury was a renowned archaeologist in the period between the wars, a specialist on Egyptian and Minoan culture. His life came to a premature end on Crete in 1941, when he was shot by German forces as a spy while working with the Cretan resistance while operating under the guise of the island’s ‘honorary consul’. His was a life lived to the full, and he seems to have been the classic kind of post-Edwardian renaissance man, and a superb writer in his own right who played a huge part in making the esoteric science of archaeology accessible to the masses. Grundon is also a beautiful writer, her own descriptive work no less evocative than the liberal sprinklings of excerpts taken from Pendlebury’s letters. All in all, it makes for stirring stuff.

100,000 Not Out

Given that Crime Always Pays came into being to celebrate (mostly) Irish fiction as a platform to promote our humble offering THE BIG O, it’s appropriate that the stats passed the 100,000 mark for page impressions while I was away in the States on a Toronto-Baltimore road-trip designed to mark the publication of said tome in the U.S. Now, 100,000 page impressions in 18 months isn’t exactly the kind of stat to set the interweb aflame, but by the same token – as Twenty Major once pointed out – a blog dedicated to Irish crime fiction is a niche-niche-niche sell, particularly when you’re not actually selling anything.
  Anyhoos, I’m quietly pleased at having reached that mark, not least because many of CAP’s regular visitors have become good mates. I’d been warned by some Bouchercon veterans that the first experience can be overwhelming, given the scale of the operation and the numbers of people there, but when John McFetridge and I finally pulled into Baltimore, the experience was more akin to a reunion.
  Peter Rozovsky I’d met before, during his sojourn to Ireland, and it would have been nice to hook up with him again even if he hadn’t sweated blood organising the Philly leg of John and Dec’s Most Excellent Adventure. Peter? Now that you’re au fait with ‘shite’ and ‘gobshite’, I really must introduce you to ‘shitehawking’ the next time.
  I’d met Donna Moore before too, at Bristol Fest, and it was smashing to meet up with her again, partly because I’d read her terrific GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET in the interim, but mainly because I want her to play Diane Lane when they come to make the movie of my life. There’s nothing like a hug from a flame-haired beauty to make you feel like you belong in Baltimore. Apart from the daily hugs (“Oi, I haven’t had my hug today!”), the best part of seeing the poker maven again was the news that her follow-up novel is currently with her agent, and that she’s mailing me a copy as soon as I sign up for Bristol Fest 2009. Yon Donna Moore, she drives a hard bargain …
  It was nice to meet Jen Jordan, too, my first experience of whom was having my shoulder nuzzled by some random hottie in the convention’s main thoroughfare. But lo! It wasn’t a random hottie, it was Jen Jordan. Nice …
  Sarah Weinman was something of a disappointment, given that I was expecting her to be a matronly ball-breaker of indeterminate age. Dang my britches if she’s not cute as a junebug, and prone to enveloping a man in a hug even before he’s been properly introduced. Nice …
  Back to Bouchercon, which I’ve actually been reluctant to write about this week, on the basis that the experience was something of a bubble I’ve been afraid to puncture. Friendly people willing and eager to talk books all day and all night – sounds like hell, I know, but you get used to anything after a while. Readers, reviewers, bloggers, writers, editors, publicists, publishers and – crucially – booksellers, all mingling freely. Anyone who hasn’t yet grasped how the chaos of minute particles colliding at random at the quantum level can translate into a solid object or force at the macro level should get along to the next Bouchercon in Indianapolis.
  I suppose it helped that I had a foot in a few camps. I was there as a reader, of course, but also as a writer and a blogger / reviewer; and technically speaking, given that THE BIG O was originally a co-publication with Hag’s Head Press, I also had a foot in the publishing / publicity / distribution / selling side of things. So there were a lot of people I was hoping to see.
  Jeff Pierce was one, and it was nice to hang out with him on a couple of occasions. Glenn Harper was another, although we didn’t actually get to sit down and talk books – next time, Glenn, hopefully. I also got to meet Angie Johnson-Schmidt, who was kind enough to help me try to find tobacco in late-night Baltimore, as was Dana King, albeit in vain. It was cool to meet Brian Lindemuth and Sandra Ruttan too – Sandra’s another blogger with a foot in more than one camp. And then there was the effervescent and damn near omniscient Ali Karim, and Clair Lamb, and Janet Rudolph … The inimitable Joe Long came down from New York, to greet me with the words, “So where’s the other prick, Hughes?” And it was terrific to hook up with Jon Jordan and be able to say thanks in person for all the support he’s given me ever since way back when, aka the publication of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE. Jon? You’re a gent, squire.
  Greg Gillespie of Philly’s Port Richmond Books came down to Baltimore on the Saturday, and nice it was to make his acquaintance again, given that he’d brought the troops out in force to Wednesday night’s Noir at the Bar at Fergie’s. Greg was supposed to sleep on the floor of our hotel room that night, but with an 8.30am panel on Sunday morning looming, I cracked around 2am and went to bed, and haven’t seen him since. Can anyone confirm that Greg is okay?
  Incidentally, McFetridge was great company on the road-trip, apart from his insistence in talking up the Toronto Blue Leafs, which plays some weird hybrid of hockey, football and baseball. Well, that and the fact that the Y he booked us into in New York had the noisiest bunk-beds ever made, and that one of the three communal showers was festooned with crime scene-style tape. Other than that, though, he was no more boring than you’d imagine a Canadian writer to be. We may even road-trip again, one day.
  As for the rest, well, this post is already too long – suffice to say that Bouchercon 2008 was a tremendous experience. Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik deserve all the credit going, and more.
  It did occur to me at one point that the attendees as a group were heavily skewed towards an older demographic, although that’s easily enough explained when you consider the cost of travelling to a four-day convention that’s a sheer indulgence. And you could also say that crime fiction is a conservative genre, concerned for the most part with upholding the status quo, and that older generations are more likely to be of a conservative bent.
  But here’s the thing – I’ve never had anyone say to me, “Yeah, I got into crime fiction in my fifties.” I was a teenager when the crime bug bit, and I thought I was pretty radical back then, as most teenagers tend to do. Maybe it’s because it’s the most popular kind of writing, and therefore the most accessible, and because the world of gats, molls and grift has a certain surface cool that appeals to the impressionable mind. But once it gets you hooked, it doesn’t let go. It’s odd, especially when you consider that you don’t listen to the same kind of music twenty, thirty or forty years on from your teens, or watch the same kind of movies, or like the same artists, etc. But when I read Ray Chandler today, I enjoy him even more than I did twenty years ago.
  The Big Question: any theories as to why crime fiction takes such a compelling grip as to last you an entire lifetime? Over to you, people ...

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

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

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

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

Bristol Crime Fest 2008: Where Were You When We Were Getting High? # 1

A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: “The first thing to be said about Bristol’s Crime Fest 2008 was that there was really no need for the good burghers of Bristol to go to all the bother of erecting statues (right) of the Grand Viz. Still, it was a nice touch, and his black, twisted heart pumped briefly in gratitude on Friday lunchtime, when the miserable curmudgeon finally deigned to put in an appearance.
  “Friday afternoon was something of a dispiriting experience, it has to be said, as the most frequently mentioned phrases at the panels the Grand Viz attended were ‘sales force’ and ‘marketing strategy’. Meanwhile, every single writer at the BCF was adamant they were paupers who couldn’t even afford an unheated garret, while the industry in general, as we all know, is loud in proclaiming that books are a bust, people don’t read anymore, the business is leaking capital, yadda-yadda-yah.
  “It did occur to the Grand Viz that expecting imaginations – those of reader and writer – to be fired by the strictures of accountants is probably asking too much, and that the relentless homogenisation of the industry to maximise profit is short-term thinking of the most self-destructive kind, and a business practice that could be broadly equated with strip-mining. Ever the romantic, the Grand Viz couldn’t help but fondly remember the bloated corporate monolith the music industry had become before Johnny Rotten started gobbing all over his audience, and wondering if perhaps the books industry, given recent technological innovations, is now primed for a 1976 punk DIY revolution that bypasses the traditional structures, or at least forces the contemporary model to recalibrate its approach in mediating between artist and audience.
  “Mind you, that was very probably because the Grand Viz was spending too much time in Mickey No-Mates mode, other than with his trusty sidekick Insatiable Ego, because the fool had forgotten to make arrangements to meet with anyone in Bristol. But lo! Along came a spider, aka the Book Witch, to whirl him away into her sticky social web and introduce him to the mellifluous Rhian, for whom no vowel is so soft and sweet it couldn’t do with another coat of honey. Then Donna Moore passed by. When the movie is made of the Grand Vizier’s life, he wants and needs Diane Lane to play Donna Moore.
  “Out to dinner, then, with Ms Moore, the ever-radiant Ms Witch, the disgustingly youthful Chris McEwan, and Pat, an American lady taking the Grand Tour and deigning to drop in on Bristol to share her stories about Lawrence Block and the Mitford sisters and sundry other weird and wonderful experiences. Allan Guthrie was there too, but he’s shy, so the less said about him the better. Oh, and a lovely woman called Kate, whose first words were, ‘You had a baby recently, didn’t you?’ Yes, ma’am, we most certainly did. Her name is Lily (right) …
  “Then it was back to the hotel for a dry sherry or two and a wee chat with Karen Meek and Maxine Clarke, which was rather disconcerting, as Maxine turned out to be more in line with the harsh-but-fair dominatrix-type the Grand Viz had been hoping Karen Meek was, whereas Karen was the bubbly, vivacious blonde he’d always presumed Maxine was. Perceptive stuff from Ireland’s third-most relevant crime fiction blog, eh? Ms Witch disappeared entirely, sadly, given that it was her 29th birthday, although it’s entirely possible she had to leave before midnight and the whole coach-into-a-pumpkin malarkey kicked in. A pity. Sample quote from Ms Witch’s Bristol update: “Next after the psychics came the comedians, and it worried me slightly that I had had dinner with three of the four [comedy award nominees] on the panel. The losers, I have to point out.”
  “Anyhoo, the rest of the evening was something of a blur, happily, until the shutters came down at 2am. Seriously, people – what’s up wid dat? A hotel bar stuffed with crime writers and readers and YOU CLOSE THE BLUMMIN’ BAR AT 2AM?
  “Up at the crack of dawn-ish on Saturday, then, for a panel hosted by Donna Moore that included Shy Al Guthrie, man-child Chris McEwan, man-mountain Martyn Waites and Tony ‘Bet-On’ Black. Huzzah for the restoration of the Grand Viz’s will to live, as the panel had fun (gasp!) talking about series characters with nary a whisper of marketing ploys or cynical exploitation – albeit within the context that the self-perpetuating series character is the industry’s holy grail. Still, it was a huge advance on the bean-counting and ledger-fiddling of the previous day. Plus, Ms Moore was wearing some eye-watering shoes. And Shy Al Guthrie’s ‘homework’, an excerpt from a possible blockbuster in the criminally underrated ‘bucolic erotica’ sub-genre, had the Grand Viz wondering anew at the sexual potential of turnips. All in all, a marvellous success. Oh, and afterwards Ms Moore presented the Grand Viz with a copy of her tough-to-get debut GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET, with which he was well pleased.
  “Leaving the venue, we had the good fortune to bump into Norm from Crime Scraps. Your secret’s safe with us, ‘Norm’. And don’t listen to the critics – THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE is one of your best novels yet.
  “Lunchtime on Saturday being a good place to snip the weekend report in two, we’ll leave it at that for now. One last pertinent thought on what might well be the most important issue the crime fiction industry will have to face in the immediate future. To wit: has anyone else noticed Shy Al Guthrie’s (right) eyelashes? Like kitten’s whiskers, they are. Enough to make a Grand Vizier kick a hole in his stained-glass harem window. Peace, out.”

Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

Being the weekly cornucopic round-up of stuff ‘n’ nonsense from the interweb we were too busy / lazy / underwhelmed to write up as fully fledged posts, to wit: Ken Bruen (resplendent in oils, right, courtesy of KT McCaffrey), gets hauled in for questioning by the Podcast Inspector over at the Podcast Pickle, answering, among other queries, ‘the one question he hasn’t been asked that he really wants to answer – namely, what he really thinks of the Irish police’ … Meanwhile, the Grand Vizier of Crime Always Pays, aka Declan Burke, turns up here on Pulp Pusher waffling on about the importance of characters’ names … Over at The Guardian, Ronan Bennett allows mere mortals to peer into his rather resplendent cave in their ongoing ‘Writers’ Rooms’ series … ress – Stop the Press – Stop the Press: Joan Brady update: the author gives her side of the infamous ‘fumes wot wrecked my life and made me write crime fiction’ story in a rather poignant piece with The Guardian … Mark Sarvas at The Elegant Variation alerts us to some Benny Blanco vids, including one we illegally uploaded to YouTube ourselves, albeit without giving us the credit. Boo … Finally, a rare treat for fans of hysterically histrionic pop-opera at its finest. Lifted from the soundtrack of 1984’s STREETS OF FIRE, the vid features Diane Lane in a backless velvet red dress coming over all Bonnie Tyler to the god-like genius Jim Steinman’s classic, Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young. A perfect storm, we call it … although it might help if you appreciate that your correspondent was an entirely impressionable 14-year-old the first time he clapped eyes on this six minutes of pure joy. Altogether now: “And if I can’t get an angel / I can still get a boy / And a boy’ll be the next best thing / The next best thing to an angel / A boy’ll be the next best thing …” Sigh. Roll it there, Collette …

The Big Question: Is it just us, or does Diane Lane remind anyone else of an ever-so-slightly younger Donna Moore?

The Embiggened O # 1,219: The Stick Hasn’t Been Born Yet That Could Beat An Irish Stew

Ah, ye olde blogosphere. Wot karma-type larks, eh Pip? You’re nice to people, they’re nice to you … No sooner had we hoisted a post on Irish crime fiction’s Florida faction – aka Michael Haskins, under the great-grandparent ruling – than he goes and blogs about our humble offering THE BIG O, to wit:

“Think of the ironic humour of Donald Westlake’s John Dortmunder novels, and throw in the black humour of a Carl Hiaasen Florida-misadventure novel. Mix up the humorous, determined, demented heroes and anti-heroes of these two fantastic authors and (I’m not done yet!) toss in some hardboiled writing, a lot like Elmore Leonard’s, and you have Declan Burke’s writing. Think of it as an Irish Stew of writing.”

An Irish stew, eh? That’s us, alright: thick, gloopy and, y’know, nutritious … Meanwhile, over at It’s A Crime! Or A Mystery!, Crimefic has the latest instalment of her ‘Books for Christmas’, as recommended by page-blackeners of the crime fraternity. First off, the lovely Donna Moore – author of GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET – cheats disgracefully by mentioning THE BIG O in a quick round-up of the books she won’t be choosing, and then Brian McGilloway, he of BORDERLANDS fame, pitches in with this:

“If I have to pick one, I couldn’t, so I’ll go for two. For a new discovery, I’d have to say Declan Burke’s THE BIG O, which I read in one sitting a few months back. This is an extremely funny crime novel that takes Irish crime fiction in a whole new direction. Under the cracking comedy of the book lurks some very subtle and highly skilful plotting and prose. Declan’s just got a US deal, so catch THE BIG O before it gets any bigger.”

Blimey! With all that good karma floating around, who needs Elf-Wonking Juice? Thank you kindly, people – feel the love …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 173: Donna Moore

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?
Has to be Donald Westlake’s The Hot Rock. I love caper novels and that’s a classic that just makes me laugh every time I read it (which is about once a year).
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
That’s a tough one because for me no reading is a guilty pleasure – if I don’t have a book handy in the loo I’ll read the back of the toilet roll pack (did you know, by the way, that there are an average of 241 sheets in a roll of Andrex and the average total roll-length is 29.76m?). Most of my guilty pleasures come in the form of TV. I was off work for a few weeks recently with a chipped bone in my ankle and I spent all morning watching all the How To Get Rid Of The Crap In Your Attic programmes. I can now spot a Victorian cake-stand at 20 paces.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Winning The Lefty for most humourous crime novel of 2006. I still can’t believe it. My biggest regret though is not thinking for one moment that I would win and hence not preparing a speech. Apparently (and I say apparently because I have no clue what I said) it was the most ridiculous (but, thankfully, short) acceptance speech imaginable.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
One of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. Either The Guards because it’s the first in the series and I was so excited when I discovered it, or The Dramatist even though it made me cry at Prestwick airport and they sent security to see if I was OK.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
See previous answer. I’d love to see the Jack Taylor series on either the big or the small screen.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best ... so many things – I love it when I have an idea for a character and sit and write a scene and it just all flows out. The encouragement and support of fellow crime writers is heart-warming. It’s all been great fun. The worst – thinking that everything I write is a big pile of steaming shite (can I say that? If not, change it to something less odoriferous).
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Two elderly ex-hookers turned con artists on the run from an Australian hitman are hiding out in Glasgow, fleecing Scotland’s rich and famous out of their hard-earned cash. They hatch a plan to steal a pair of jewel encrusted shih-tzu dogs from a Glasgow museum. Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones.
Who are you reading right now?
Most recently finished was Kevin Wignall’s Who Is Conrad Hirst?, which is about a hitman who has decided to get out of the business. To do so, he thinks the best way is to kill his way out – disposing of the few people who know about him. A wonderful book – a look at the meaning and value of life to someone who is existing, rather than living. Kevin Wignall’s writing gets better and better. Spare, but full of depth and feeling. If this doesn’t propel him into the big time I’ll be exceedingly surprised. It’s one of those satisfyingly perfect books that all way through you are on edge wondering how it’s all going to pan out, and then when you’ve finished it’s so much more than you anticipated.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Well, when my mum read the first chapter of my book, my dad told me she wandered around the house shaking her head and muttering “Weird, weird, weird. My daughter is weird.” So I think I will just go with that – weird, weird, weird.

Donna Moore’s Go To Helena Handbasket is available in all good bookshops