Friday, May 02, 2014

Detectives Beyond Borders is the luck of the Irish

Want to win an award (says John Connolly)? Then talk terrorism with me. Before this evening's 69th Annual Edgar Awards Dinner, I grilled Connolly about Gerry Adams' arrest. I had Northern Ireland in mind; Connolly talked a bit about the IRA (and its offshoots) in Ireland south of the border and north.

An hour and a half later, Connolly was called to the podium to accept the Edgar for best short story. (Read a complete list of the winners.)

My fellow diners included Bill Alder, up for an Edgar for his book Maigret, Simenon and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and Stories. I learned as much from him about Simenon's early career as I did from Connolly about the afterlife of the Troubles in the Irish Republic, and that's not even counting some juicy tidbits about World War II and France.  This most stimulating of Edgar dinners may keep me posting for weeks.

Oh, and the food was good, too. Thanks, MWA.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014 

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5 Comments:

Anonymous James Benn said...

Let's hear those juicy tidbits from WWII France!

May 05, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

OK, not exactly juicy tidbits, but we discussed what the wars we call World Wars I and II are called in other countries, a subject bound to reveal much about national attitudes and histories. Alder said the French don't really have a name for World War II other than, occasionally, the war of resistance.

Now, I have read that the French call the war the Seconde (or Deuxième)Guerre Mondiale, but I'm sure you can well imagine the stimulating trains of thought that this set in motion. And it all happened right there at Table 35.

May 05, 2014  
Anonymous Jim Benn said...

Interesting. Not - La guerre de la collaboration?

May 06, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I remarked to Mr. Alder that after the war, of course everyone in France had fought in the resistance during the war. The discussion was really continuation of the reading I did for our panel at Bouchercon in Albany.

May 06, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

From Robert Gildea's Marianne in Chains:

"The moral universe of occupied France was notoriously murky. What was right and what was wrong, what patriotic and what unpatriotic, may have been clear in 1944, but not before."

It's no surprise many French would choose to remember only part of the story. What this means to you is that if Billy Boyle continues his overseas career past war's end, he'll have no shortage of work to do.

May 06, 2014  

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