The permeable borders between crime fiction and history

The latest frisson of crime-fiction recognition I got while reading Irish history comes thanks to Ronan Fanning's Fatal Path, specifically its discussion of the controversy and violence that attended establishment of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

That lends even greater historical resonance to, say, the title of Brian McGilloway's first novel, Borderlands. And that, in turn, is all the more poignant because McGilloway never set out to write a political  novel:

"As for the Troubles — I wanted to write a non-Troubles book but, around the Border, it would be unrealistic to assume that they're not there somewhere — thus the only representation of the Troubles in Borderlands is the disembodied voice, talking about the past. It's there, but increasingly insubstantial. Or that was my intention, at least."

And now I'll take a break and read some crime fiction, though the author shares a last name with an important figure in modern Irish history.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

More Irish history and why you should read it

Here's some more of what I've learned about Ireland's history, this time mostly from Ronan Fanning's Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution 1910-1922:

1) German arms shipments to Ireland date back at least to April 1914—to the Ulster Volunteer Force; unionists, not nationalists.

2) A much smaller German arms purchase by Irish nationalists, co-led by Erskine Childers a month later for maximum publicity, resulted in a bloody a crackdown by a British regiment.

3)Yes, that Erskine Childers, author of the early spy novel The Riddle of the Sands.

4) The Irish tradition of secret societies and volunteer groups long predates the alphabet soup of organizations that became familiar during the sectarian Troubles that began in 1969.

5) That "The IRA’s initial focus in what is known either as the ‘War of Independence’ or the ‘Anglo-Irish War’ of 1919–21 was the ostracisation of the police."

What does this have to do with contemporary crime fiction set in the present, or a lot closer to it than 1910 to 1922? Not much, unless one is reading Stuart Neville or Adrian McKinty or Eoin McNamee or Garbhan Downey, or Kevin McCarthy, or Anthony Quinn, or Andrew Pepper, or ...

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Bill James in the absence of Harpur and Iles

More Bill James (though not Harpur and Iles), more Irish history (Ronan Fanning on the U.K. Parliament's mishandling of the Unionist revolution. That's right, Unionist revolution), and a crime novel about hockey that, despite its subject, appears to have real teeth.

The James is his 2009 novel Full of Money, in which drug gangs from rival territories clash, an investigative journalist's murder is reviewed, a television presenter gets close to the wrong woman, and Detective Chief Superintendent Esther Davidson worries about her bassoonist husband. Some highlights so far:

"The mad indirection and gibber of most of this demoralized Esther."

"Being arty they thought they could speak their piece at full volume if they wanted to. And such people, liquored up, would want to, convinced that loudness helped prove they were not timorously, narrowly or miserably bourgeois. "

"She was as good as soccer, better than TV cookery."

"Of course, nobody among this crew present tonight would ask him what he thought of the programme. In their eyes, he was still and only the bottles bloke."

"He steepled his hands before his chest for a moment to emphasize the undoubted church qualities of churches, evident inside a church."

"Betty Grable insured her legs, and Esther often told him to do the same for his lips because her left lacked the absolute accuracy to avoid them always. Her right, better. Her right usually chinned."

"`They talk too loud, draw attention, possibly antagonize. They’re middle-class, professional/ artistic/ media, I think. I try to avoid.' Gerald imitated a quibbling donnish voice : `" Oh, yes, William Boyd can describe room interiors well enough in his novels, but let me recount what happened to me one day in Tasmania.”' `That’s fucking Ince. Do I want to line myself up on the screen with such people?’ Yes. But Esther didn’t say so."

Hmm. Maybe I'll save Ireland and hockey for tomorrow.

 © Peter Rozovsky 2014