Good news on some good books out of Ireland
Some good news in recent days from a pair of Irish crime writers whose names you have read here from time to time.Adrian McKinty's Falling Glass has been named mystery or thriller of the year by Audible.com, and Declan Burke's Absolute Zero Cool is now available in North America, which instantly becomes a better continent on which to live and read.
Each (and McKinty's Cold Cold Ground) is liable to expand your idea of what this thing called the crime novel is capable of. They're also a hell of a lot of fun.
© Peter Rozovsky 2011
Labels: Adrian McKinty, Declan Burke, Ireland, Northern Ireland
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 5:51 PM
18 Comments:
Who are these guys, anyway? I never heard of 'em.
v word:flutiv
Peter
Thanks for the nod. Falling Glass is a weird book: readers like it, critics like it, listeners like it but publishers hate it like poison.
Seana, those are a couple of guys who ought to change their names to Sven Olafsson and Ake Akvarsson. If they can't spare the time to do so, they ought to carry around a few spare diaereses in their wallets that could slap over their vowels whenever a publisher is near.
Adrian, I read your reasoned discussion that accompanied the announcement you posted about Falling Glass. I don't know the publishing business, but some of what you said makes sense to me nonetheless. In tight times, concentrate on proven winners. The bigger the company, through corporate consolidation, the fewer the chances it will take.
I can't understand why publishers will promote authors who don't need the promotion, though, just as I could never understand why bookstores would slash prices only on books that readers would pay full price for anyhow.
Seana: flutiv is pretty good. Debussy felt flutiv from time to time. Beethoven and Wagner did not.
I loved the ending of Falling Glass. So delightfully ambiguous.
Congrats to all!
Loren, I suspect Adrian might suggest that that ending has not endeared the book to U.S. publishers. This is a shame.
There is a public vote to find the best Irish novel for 2011.
With permission, I would be happy to post a link here, but did not want to presume.
Irishbookawards Bord Gais gives links for anybody interested in Irish writers in general.
The voting page has .aspx included.
(This is beginning to read like a Sherlock Holmes mystery.)
And many congratulations to the writers lauded in your post.
Heady days...
I.J., I'd just like to see and hear people talking about Irish crime writing the way they talk about Scandinavian crime writing. Maybe if someone let publishers know that Dublin was founded by Vikings, they could put some marketing muscle behind Burke, McKinty, et al.
P a D, go ahead and post the link. I could always delete it if it is offensive or objectionable. Thanks for asking.
Thank you. There is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction to choose from.
Vote for Irish Book of the Year
Also I have to apologise for uploading the link by mistake on the Barbarian post.
Quite uncalled for. And now I cannot get it off...
Aha. I guess those book-awards people scatter the announcements over several weeks. Those are the same folks who run the crime-fiction award, which Alan Glynn's book one a little while ago.
Which Barbarian post do you refer to?
In fact I thought I had made a mistake by posting on the Visigoth piece, but it did not go through.
I'm "away with the fairies" these days, thanks to cold, dark and windy weather.
Now I know why the Irish write so many books. It's because we stay indoors so much.
I'm sure I speak for the Visigoths when I say that any mispost you may have made is forgiven.
Peter - Much obliged for the kind words, sir. I believe you're attending Crimefest at Bristol next year, where I shall repay you in tinctures of gin.
Cheers, Dec
The pleasure is mine, sir, though I warn you that I am freshly returned from Portugal, where I developed a potentially expensive taste for aged tawny port.
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