On The Ineluctable Modality Of Shamus Nominations

Via Sarah Weinman comes news of the Shamus nominees, with my evil-twin alter-ego Declan Hughes (right) up for Best Novel with THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. Nice one, evil-twin alter-ego. The full list of Best Novel nominees runneth thusly:

BEST NOVEL
Thomas Cavanagh, HEAD GAMES (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
Reed Farrel Coleman, SOUL PATCH (Bleak House Books)
Declan Hughes, THE COLOR OF BLOOD (William Morrow)
Michael Koryta, A WELCOME GRAVE (Thomas Dunne/SMP)
William Lashner, A KILLER'S KISS (William Morrow)

Tough competition, for sure, and we’ll be keeping a weather-eye on yon multi-award-winning Reed Farrel Coleman in particular. The nicest part of the announcement for yours truly was that I got to hear about it last Thursday, when my evil-twin alter-ego let slip the news over a few scoops in Fitzgerald’s of Sandycove. Now Fitzgerald’s, as you may or may not know, is something of a shrine to James Joyce, being but a fried kidney’s throw from the Martello Tower of ULYSSES fame. It was, I have to say, a nice juxtaposition – Ed Loy as a latter-day Leo Bloom, perambulating the mean streets of Dublin and digging out the foibles and idiosyncrasies of his generation. What’s that? You didn’t know that ULYSSES was a murder mystery? Ah, the ineluctable modality of it all …