McKinty in America
This hard-hitting and very human crime novel, published by the wise and discerning folks at Serpent's Tail, is now available in the U.S. for your Kindle (or free downloadable Kindle application). That's good news; the book made my best-of-2011 list because I read an advance copy just before the New Year. It will surely be one of this year's best as well.
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Labels: Adrian McKinty, Ireland, Northern Ireland
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 12:52 AM
31 Comments:
Peter
Thanks for the hup ya!
For the people visiting who won't have heard of me (I expect this will be a healthy majority) I should explain that I'm actually a Scandinavian novelist resident in Ireland. My books explore the seemy underbelly of all things Nordic and in particular the sinister plot by Ikea's neoNazi founder to undermine Western civilization by making Ikea furniture designs so impossible to follow that grown men in hordes are driven mad and thus into the arms of reactionary political parties.
here's a review of The Cold Cold Ground in last week's Guardian newspaper although for some reason they left out all the Stockholm, Abba and Daim bar references.
Great cover story for a Northern Irish guy currently on the lam in Australia.
Great, but not quite convincing.
Seriously, everyone, pick up this book by any means necessary. You won't regret the time you spend with it.
Adrian, you're the next Stieg Larsson or Jo Nesbø. All that you lack are double letters and odd diacritical marks.
For all you Scandi-crime lovers out there, Dublin was founded by Vikings, so all Irish crime writers are really Scandinavian crime writers.
Seana, I believe you since I have assembled an article or two of Ikea furniture in my time. I lost my belief in the founder's neo-Nazi ideology when I found out the the TV sets in the room settings at Ikea are not real.
I have never been inside an Ikea, so I will just have to take your word for this, Peter.
One thing I've learned from Adrian's books is that Belfast is the original capital. Dubling is the latecomer. I'm not sure how Viking the Ulstermen feel.
I think Belfast is just about the only large Irish city that the Vikings did not found, at least in the Eastern part of the Ireland.
As for Ulstermen not identifying with Scandinavian crime writers and their Viking forebears, we'll just keep that to ourselves, shall we?
Peter, Seana
Indeed Belfast is just about the only major city in Ireland not founded by the Norse.
History is deeper in Ireland though. When I was a kid my local pub was a bar that had been in existence since 1550. Now of course I feel obliged to drink at my sister's pub which has only been around for a couple of centuries.
Adrian, I've heard music and drunk cider at Dublin's Brazen Head, which claims a lineage dating to 1198. This would mean Richard FitzGilbert de Clare just missed being able to order a Strongbow there.
Californina is probably one of the places you have the least sense of deep history, unless you're an anthropologist or an Ohlone or something. It's not just that we're all relative newcomers here, it's that we're so prone to natural disasters. I remember that that was one of the easiest parts of the trivia book to research, but it's probably the part that's already the most outdated and it's not thaat old a book.
By the way I got a comment on my quasireview of CCG today that was not from one of the usual suspects. When I clicked on his link, I found a very interesting review of the connection between Jim Thompson and Kubrick, among others.
Ohlone again, naturally.
That discussion to which you link is full of worthwhile information. I'd been thinking about some of the matters it raises because I recently read David Goodis' "Cassidy's Girl" and have been thinking about Goodis' odd life and Cornell Woolrich's as well.
Nice! About Adrian's book I mean.
It is awfully nice. There's something wrong with publishing (which will come as no surprise to you) when books this good have to kick and scream and squawk for attention.
Peter
Kick, scream and squawk and yet still doesn't actually sell any copies. I'm starting to think that I've written my best book about a subject no one actually wants to read.
Seana
As you'd expect I knew about the Jim Thompson/Stanley Kubrick links because both of course are huge idols of mine. Kubrick did his best work when he had collaborators like Thompson and Clarke who he couldnt run roughshod over.
Adrian, to suggest that no one wants to read about that subject is to concede that the publishing industry is doing its job. I'm not sure that's the case. If it were, you wouldn't be busting a gut trying to get published in America.
Jim Thompson also has a highly effective cameo role in the 1975 movie version of Farewell, My Lovely.
I started reading The Grifters a while back. It hits hard, but Thompson could have used an editor. I’m not sure where Thomsonians rank the book in the Thomson canon. It does not get mentioned as much as Pop. 1280 or The Killer Inside me.
Nice one on the pun, Peter, though actually it's Ohlon-ee.
It's been some years since I've seen it,but The Grifters made a pretty great movie, and maybe some of the editing happened that should have in the book.
If you check out Adrian's blog, you'll find out that the London Times has also weighed in on the book. His writing is being compared to some other hack no one's ever heard of.
Adrian, I figured you know the Kubrick/Thompson connection, although it does sound like he walked over Thompson a bit too. I was pleased to hear of the Sterling Hayden connection as well.
"I'm Ohlon-ee boy / I ain't got no home / Ooh-oo-oo-oooh oo etc. "
And did you know that Donald Westlake wrote the screeplay for The Grifters? By editing I meant not trimming but rather cleaning up. Some of the prose in the book is perfunctory and some just goes clunk.
I don't know Kubrick's work as well as Adrian does, and my opinion of him may be unduly influenced by Andrew Sarris', but everything I have heard about Kubrick suggests that he was miserable person.
Hmm, I don't know if The Cold Cold Ground is what Chandler would have written. Maybe Chandler with, I don't know, a bit of John Buchan or Graham Greene mixed in?
I didn't know that about Westlake. Sounds like a good call to have hired him.
Yeah, I don't think Raymond Chandler would have written quite this book either. In fact, I don't think anyone else could have.
Or if anyone else could have, he or she does not come from the ranks of the crime writers who come to mind.
Westlake was nominated for an Oscar for the Grifters screenplay.
Peter
Kubrick was certainly odd and his treatment of actors could sometimes verge on the abusive (Shelley Duvall) but he wasn't miserable. If you can find the documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (about his boxes) on youtube you'll get a really good insight.
The Grifters is a bit weaker than some of his other stuff. But With JT you've got to take some clunky dialogue and duff scenes. The guy wrote with a typewriter on his knees in the john.
Seana
I think thats why Kubrick dropped Thompson, because Thompson could give it back. He never liked anyone who could beat him at chess either which is the sign of a fragile ego.
Sounds like Westlake did better in Hollywood than Thompson did.
It's interesting that there is a rediscovered treatment of Lunatic at Large that Kubrick commissioned from Thompson. And now he's not alive to not give him credit.
I don't remember being stopped short by the prose in Savage Night, the other Thompson novel I've read.
Seems to me I heard that Kubrick had a rep for thinking he was better than he was and better than all those around him.
I think thats why Kubrick dropped Thompson, because Thompson could give it back.
Adrian, it's big of you, as a Kubrick fan, to share information that Kubrick really was a shit. Passages in The Grifters, on the other hand, suggest that Thompson may have baan an admirable soul.
Seana, Westlake also wrote the screenplay for The Stepfather, a suburban murder story very much worth seeing.
Heads-up: Westlake wrote the 1987 original, not the 2009 remake.
I put the correct one in my netflix list so I won't get mixed up.
I didn't realize there had been a remake until now.
I hadn't heard of Lunatic at Large either, though I like the title. Other have, as well. It was apparently the title of a silent British comedy in 1921.
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