More "Violence"

Here's a bit more of Colin Bateman's view of the fictional Northern Ireland town of Crossmaheart in his early novel Cycle of Violence:

"When you live on the First World poverty line — you can only afford to hire out two video cassettes each week and you take your summer holidays within a hundred miles of home — looting is less of a crime and more of a signal from God that he's busy elsewhere but here's an early Christmas present just to keep your interest."

"First World poverty line" is brilliant. The next bit ("you can only afford...") might seem condescending, but the rest of the sentence dissipates that possibility in a burst of japery. Sympathetic? Satirical? Reader, you decide.

***

And who is Bateman's target here, republican terrorists or their nationalist counterparts?:

"A car was hijacked in Belfast, repainted, number plates changed, new documentation acquired, fluffy dice attached. It was driven to Meadow Way, parked in a garage, and the bomb loaded. Five hundred pounds' worth. A few pounds of Semtex might have done the same trick, but the UVF didn't have access to international markets. Fertilizer, chemicals, batteries, wire, a detonator, a clock."

(Read more about Cycle of Violence.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Cycle of Violence

I'm going to quote at even greater length than usual from Colin Bateman's early novel Cycle of Violence because this bit is funny and, in its way, touching:

"Crossmaheart still had a Cripples Institute. There were no special people in Crossmaheart. There were no intellectually or physically challenged people. There were mentals and cripples. There were no single-parent families, there were bastards and sluts. There were natural-born mentals and mental cases, nuts who had made themselves crazy through wielding a gun in the name of one military faction or another. There were natural-born cripples and those who had brought it on themselves, gunmen who had been shot, gunmen who had shot themselves, bombers who had blown their hands off, thieves who had been shot in the legs by terrorists because they (the thieves) were a menace to society, and you could see them hopping down the streets, wearing their disability with pride like it was some red badge of courage."

Crossmaheart is the town to which the protagonist, a reporter and newspaper columnist named Miller, has been exiled, and that passage gives a vivid picture of just what kind of a town it is. It also uses parentheses to good effect.

***

I have read that a collection of Bateman's early newspaper columns was published under the title Bar Stool Boy. I bow in awe.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Belfast's and Bateman's little shop of crime

The estimable Gerard Brennan of Crime Scene NI gives a thumbs-up to Colin Bateman's upcoming novel Mystery Man:

"There’s a new PI in Belfast. His qualifications? He owns No Alibis, a bookshop specialising in crime fiction. Is he a fast-talking, hard-drinking, skirt-chasing tough guy? Um, no. Not at all, really. He’s a bit ... well, he’s cut from a different cloth. Oh, and he most definitely is not David Torrans."

Now, Mr. Brennan is always worth a listen when the subject is Irish crime fiction, but that's not why I bring the matter up. No, I mention Mystery Man because I have not only visited No Alibis (may its sales increase!), but I have met its real-life owner, the same David Torrans on whom the protagonist of Mystery Man is definitely not based. I offer photographic evidence here. I'm the one with the beard (I looked so much older then. I'm younger than that now.)

(Read the first two chapters of Mystery Man here, and learn what a good author can do with a pair of leather women's trousers.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

CrimeFest, Day III, Part II: Appetizers, dinner and dessert

Donna Moore, Declan Burke, Cara Black and Paul Johnston's panel called "Natural-Born Killers: Maxim's Picks" (the name honored moderator Maxim Jakubowski) took meandering paths with brief stops at several interesting destinations.

Moore recalled her childhood admiration for the Nancy Drew books, for the heroine, her handsome boyfriend, her fun friends and young Nancy's car. But then, she said, "I actually read one a few years ago and decided Nancy Drew was a bit of a whiner, her boyfriend was pathetic, and her friends were neurotic. I still liked the car, though." Perhaps you won't be surprised that Moore's first novel, Go to Helena Handbasket, pokes fun at every crime-fiction cliche Moore could think of.

Burke's comment that "I'm fascinated by the power of the Internet and what it can do" sparked a discussion of that medium's potential, both good and bad, for writers and publishers. Burke works hard to exploit that potential, both in his own fiction and as keeper of the Crime Always Pays blog. If Ken Bruen and Colin Bateman are godfathers to the current wave of Irish crime fiction, Burke is the godfather of Irish crime blogging, so he knows what he's talking about. Still, the discussion was leavened by a bracing sense of dread and blissfully free of the wifty optimism (pure shite, really) that can infect discussions of consumer technology.

I also quite liked Johnston's comment on writing about a country where one lives but is not a native: "That book I wrote about terrorism in Greece, I don't think a Greek could have written."

=========

The baked cod at the gala dinner in the King's Room was more than acceptable, accompanied by waves of ecstatic verbiage to my left, and graceful acknowledgment to my right. The former came from Ali Karim, world's most voluble booster of Stieg Larsson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire). The latter came from Reg Keeland, the books' English translator.

Each guest of honor (Simon Brett, Håkan Nesser, Andrew Taylor) gave a short, funny, speech, joyously irreverent of the proceedings. My favorite of the three was Taylor's deconstruction of the prizes he'd been given for each of his many Dagger awards from the Crime Writers' Association. Fook, the gent is twisted.

=========

As a rule, the reporters' notebooks shut when the hotel bar opens. Still, I can't resist mentioning Kevin Wignall's scintillating impersonation of Marlon Brando as the Godfather, cut short only when Wignall almost swallowed one of the napkins he'd stuffed in his cheeks.

As always, view the complete CrimeFest program here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Akashic to publish Belfast Noir

Photos by your humble blogkeeper

In the best news out of Belfast since the Titanic Van Morrison, Akashic Books is adding Belfast Noir to its "City Noir" crime-fiction series.

Confirmed contributors include Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Colin Bateman, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Tammy Moore, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar and Gerard Brennan, with Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville as editors who I hope will contribute stories as well.

It's the world's best crime writing in one place, and you can read it in 2014. Learn more at McKinty's place.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

In other news ...

John McFetridge (the author, not the fictional character) posts notice that his novel Dirty Sweet is now available as an e-book. So, no more excuses. Order the book now, and be reading it before I log off.

The day's other news concerns one of the more creative ideas for a crime-fiction anthology that I've heard of. Co-editor Gerard Brennan explains:

"Morrigan Books aims to put out the very best in dark genre fiction, and who does dark crime fiction better than the Irish? Nobody, in my opinion. And luckily, Mark was willing to accept this opinion. It left one small problem, though. How to set this collection apart from Ken Bruen’s excellent Dublin Noir and Colin Bateman’s forthcoming Belfast Nights? Well, it’s Morrigan Books, right? Morrigan is the Celtic goddess of war. Why not ask for stories with an Irish mythology theme? Why not, indeed?"

Gerard says he has stories in hand from Ken Bruen, Adrian McKinty, Garbhan Downey, Sam Millar and Tony Bailie and in the works from even more of the talented cohort of Irish crime writers. About the only thing the book lacks is a title. But you can change that. Click here for details.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

The good crime writer's guide to self-reference

Circumstances have me reading several books at once,  one of them The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan. Since all the reading keeps me from writing, I thought I'd bring back this post I'd made about an earlier book in Ewan's "Good Thief's Guide" series. Ewan also figures in an article by Colin Bateman that sparked one of this blog's longer comment strings.

================================

I've written with some ambivalence about self-reference and in-jokes in crime fiction. Done well, they can be clever. Done poorly, they can be clever – winking, nudging, back-patting and over the top.

Chris Ewan's The Good Thief's Guide to ... novels, the second of which was the occasion of yesterday's post, are bound to contain some self-reference; Ewan's protagonist is a crime writer/burglar whose novels include The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam, the title of Ewan's own first novel.

I like the first big block of self-reference in Ewan's The Good Thief's Guide to Paris. For one thing, its introduction is a bit of a surprise. The good thief in question, protagonist Charlie Howard, introduces the self-referential note when a reader might well expect him to be raising quite another matter. For another the reference is full of good humor that ought to make all thriller and suspense readers smile.

Howard is worried about his current book, whose plot involves Rio de Janeiro, Carnival, a bank vault, and a robbery, all to be carried out by his series character acting alone. He seeks a spot of advice and sympathy from his agent, who replies:

"Honestly, Charlie, I have clients who need their hands held from time to time but you can really push it. You're concerned about credibility in one of your Faulks novels? Next you'll be telling me Ian Fleming made a few things up."

There are multiple in-jokes here, Sebastian Faulks being among the authors who have written James Bond novels as successors to Fleming. In any case, the reference is an affectionate nod to the stories that I suspect Ewan and many of his readers love.
And now, your thoughts, please, on self-reference and genre in-jokes in crime fiction. Do you like them? Dislike them? Does your reaction vary? Feel free to offer examples good, bad, interesting or indifferent.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

***

Chris Ewan will be part of my “CRANKY STREETS: WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT MURDER?” panel on Saturday, Sept. 17, 11:30 a.m.-12:30, at Bouchercon 2011.  

Bloomsday, or Not every Irish writer is a dead green male

Today is Bloomsday, and Mysterious Press wants you to celebrate by reading Ken Bruen. Adrian McKinty, mentioned a time or two in this space, suggests reading some contemporary Irish writing.  I will take their suggestions, run with them, and offer a few of my own. And this is just crime fiction:

Declan Burke. McKinty. Stuart Neville. Ronan Bennett. Bruen. Eoin McNamee. Kevin McCarthy. Arlene Hunt. Alex Barclay. Brian McGilloway. Garbhan Downey. Alan Glynn. David Park. Gerard Brennan. Eoin Colfer. Colin Bateman. Ruth Dudley Edwards. Gene Kerrigan. Declan Hughes. John Connolly. Gerard O'Donovan. Tana French. Ian Sansom. John McAllister. Sam Millar. Jason Johnson. Rob Kitchin.

Who'd I miss?

*

If you're old-school and want to celebrate Bloomsday with Joyce's text, copyright expires on Ulysses this year, so adapt, stage, and perform away!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Down These Green Streets

Declan Burke has released a working table of contents for Down These Green Streets, the collection of essays, articles, interviews and short stories by Irish crime writers on Irish crime writing for which he is acting as editor and benevolent shepherd. Who's contributing? Just about everyone in Irish crime writing: Ken Bruen. Adrian McKinty. John Banville. Tana French. Colin Bateman (It's good to see humor represented) and many more.

Declan Hughes will no doubt speak for many of his fellows when he discusses American influences on Irish crime fiction. I'll also be interested to see what a woman of Ruth Dudley Edwards' political persuasion has to say about Liam O'Flaherty, some of whose revolutionary characters were anything but heroic. Eoin McNamee's contribution ("The Puritan soul and Irish noir") looks to be fascinating, too. And I wonder if Burke and McKinty will clash over the merits of early Irish crime fiction.

Visit Burke's Crime Always Pays for more details.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Crimefest 3: Denise Mina and the concomitant wank

Everything's coming up roses

Speaking on Crimefest 2013's third day, French crime writer Pierre Lemaître called the relationship between author and reader a contract.

What, I asked, does the reader owe the author in such a contract?

"Suspension of disbelief," Lemaître said.

What do you think? After a reader has plunked down the price of a book, what does he or she owe the author?

***

Saturday's Books to Die For panel had Declan Burke quizzing four of the authors who contributed essays to Burke and John Connolly's Books to Die For. Two of the panelists offered insight into why they began writing. Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, who started her writing career as an author of children's books, said she did so because:

"This was a time when children's books had to teach you something. The parents were alcoholic or they wouldn't let you have a birthday party. They were so depressing."

And Northern Ireland's Colin Bateman talked about an animus against Northern Irish writing that seeped into his early aspirations:

"I think it's that if you grew up in Northern Ireland, you're ashamed of it. I didn't want to write the great Northern Ireland novel, I wanted to write the great American novel, because I thought everything in America was better."

Finally, Denise Mina, asked by interviewer Jake Kerridge to explain her early admiration for fellow interviewee William McIlvanney, said: "I used to work in the pub where he drank." When she decided to be a writer, Mina said:

 "I didn't want to do the concomitant wank, and William was a normal person."

Another remark of Mina's formed a nice elaboration of her discussion of the working class and writing at Bouchercon 2010 in San Francisco. I'll tell you about it after breakfast.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Rev. Derek Coates does not believe in transubstantiation! or, what's your favorite graffiti?

Two good bits from books I've started this week:

"In the bed-and-breakfast ghetto the shutters squeaked and banged and a chill low-season wind blew old newspapers down the road."

— Malcolm Pryce, Last Tango in Aberystwyth

***

And here's Colin Bateman's Mystery Man on a graffiti vandal's trail in Mystery Man:

"A footpath on the Malone Road bore the legend Alan McEvoy beats dogs; a gable wall on the Andersontown Road had Seamus O'Hare plays away from home; on Palestine Street the front door of a student flat had been daubed with the words Coke dealers live here and a parish house in Sydenham decorated with Rev. Derek Coates does not believe in transubstantiation."

***

What's your favorite graffito ever? I saw my two in neat, bold, large letters in Boston's Charlestown section more than twenty years ago:

Eat shrimp for better function!

and

Kevin has his priorities

I wonder to this day if demolition of an adjacent building robbed the second of a punch line we shall sadly never know.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Whom have you read for the first time in 2010?

Here are the authors whose work I've read for the first time this year. (Hat tips to Jeff Pierce at the Rap Sheet and Brian Lindenmuth.) Whom have you read for the first time in 2010?

• Yishai Sarid

• Roger Smith

• Meshack Masondo

• Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

• Olen Steinhauer

• Mike Hodges

• Ted Lewis

• Geoff McGeachin

• William McIlvanney

• Donna Moore

• Max Allan Collins

• Nicolas Bouvier

• Alix Bosco

• Vanda Symon

• Surender Mohan Pathak

• John McAllister

• Sam Millar

• Caryl Férey

• James McClure

• Tonino Benacquista

• Michael Moorcock

• Ed Brubaker

• Greg Rucka

• Colin Bateman

• Neil Cross

• Maurice Gee

• Lindy Kelly

• Stuart Neville

• Kevin McCarthy

• Alan Glynn

• Michael Stanley

• Lisa Brackmann

• James R. Benn

• Jassy Mackenzie

• Cara Black

• Christopher G. Moore

• Don Winslow

• Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Calling all fans of Irish crime fiction

He's a novelist. He's a blogger, a father and gracious host. And now, Declan Burke of Crime Always Pays is turning midwife to a fascinating collection of perspectives on Irish crime fiction. Why fascinating? Because he's asking the authors themselves to contribute essays on various aspects of this fascinating topic, and quite a number have responded, including John Connolly, Colin Bateman, Declan Hughes, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Gene Kerrigan, Gerard Donovan, Brian McGilloway, Neville Thompson, Adrian McKinty and Gerard Brennan.

Get the full scoop here, where you can also weigh in with suggestions for the project.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Posts and outposts

Welcome to the Gutter

Crime Always Pays brings the happy news of a new crime-friendly bookstore in Dublin. The Gutter Bookshop, conveniently situated in the happening Temple Bar district, has hosted or will host the likes of John Connolly, Arlene Hunt and Colin Bateman. Give store owner Bob Johnstone a round of applause, and give the store lots of support and money.

Out of the frying pan and into the Shrier

Former Noir at the Bar star Howard Shrier is up for Canada's best-novel Arthur Ellis Award for High Chicago. Shrier won the best-first-novel award last year for Buffalo Jump.

High five for Ghosts

Finally, Stuart Neville's criminally neglected debut novel, Ghosts of Belfast (called The Twelve in the UK, where the name Belfast apparently makes folks shuffle awkwardly and stare at the floor), has won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the mystery/thriller category. Well done, Irish Stu.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010