For intelligence operative Sean Dillon, it is a routine passport check. But the events it will lead to will be as bloody as any he has ever known. The man he stops at Heathrow airport is Caspar Rashid, born and bred in England, but with family ties to a Bedouin tribe fiercely wedded to the old ways, as Rashid has just found out to his pain. His thirteen-year-old daughter, Sara, has been kidnapped by Rashid’s own father and taken to Iraq to be married to a man known as the Hammer of God, one of the Middle East’s most feared terrorists. Dillon has had his own run-ins with that tribe, and when the distraught man begs him for help, he sees a chance to settle some old scores – but he has no idea of the terrible chain of events he is about to unleash, nor of the implacable enemies he is about to gain. Before his journey is done, many men will die – and Dillon may be one of them.The indestructible Dillon dead? Pshaw, blurb elves, for shame – lure us not with your patently false elf-promises. You won’t be warned again …
“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.” – Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian
Friday, September 7, 2007
Jack’s Back
Baby, You’re A Starrett
“The bloodied body of a crucified man is discovered in the Second Federation Church in the Donegal Heritage Town of Ramelton on the first Friday of summer. The investigation by Inspector Starrett of the Serious Crime Unit and his young team reveal a team that is not nearly as righteous as its many churches might suggest. The body is that of local carpenter James Moore, whom Starrett discovers was having a relationship with the wife of the pastor of the very same Second Federation Church, and she has mysteriously disappeared. Meanwhile, it transpires that Moore’s own wife had started to get close to her childhood sweetheart. While investigating Moore’s past, Starrett also discovers that the carpenter might have witnessed a local professional in action …”Marvellous. So what’s yon Starrett like then, Mr Paul Charles, sir?
“Starrett is in his mid forties, has deep blue eyes, dresses well, likes a pint of Guinness and is a decade into his third career. The locals say he may have a sixth sense: he’s not so sure but has been eternally grateful when that special something or other has kept him out of trouble and come to his aid while on a few of his cases … ”Oooh, spooky. And are there any advance reviews we could pop in here at the end, just so the post doesn’t end too abruptly?
“Well, Mark Billingham was kind enough to say: ‘From its killer first line to its last, The Dust of Death is compelling and elegant, like a well-woven garrotte.’ John Harvey added: ‘A mystery that’s as smooth as a good single malt and none the less satisfying.’ And who am I to argue?”With Billingham? Too right, sir. Never argue with anyone who sounds like an English stately home, that’s our policy …
Thursday, September 6, 2007
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 379: Kelli Stanley
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Farewell, My Lovely. It’s the first Chandler I ever read, and still my favourite. His lyricism was in fantastic form. That scene with Marlowe picking up a bug in the police department office and taking it outside the building was revelatory to me – tough and hard-boiled does not necessarily mean insensitive to even the smallest suffering. Hammett, the outspoken political liberal, enjoyed hunting; Chandler, who sometimes is unjustly and mistakenly labelled a conservative, rescued cats. One reason why Marlowe resonates with me on such a profound level.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I do a lot of vintage comic book reading. I’ve got a conference presentation coming up about comics and classics. Of course, I'd read ’em anyway, but the conference is an excellent excuse.
Most satisfying writing moment?
I love this question ... it puts the pleasure emphasis on writing, not publishing, which is a sort of communal, social-acceptance kind of satisfaction, but not as pure as the kind you get when you write a passage and you’re breathing hard and on the edge of your seat and your palms are sweaty and you can barely get through the line in legible English because your thoughts are moving too quickly for you to get them down on paper and, damn it, your character is aching and so are you, and you don’t even realize you’re crying until you fall back in your stained and creaky chair, and realize you’re alone. Really alone. Because you just finished the damn book. The first draft is always the most satisfying to me, because you get swept away. Editing and revising means stepping back, and you lose some of that bonding, that euphoria.
The best Irish crime novel is ...?
I’d nominate Ken Bruen’s The Killing of the Tinkers. Devastating, lyrical, and a seductive and spiritual odyssey.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Any one of Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. For something a bit lighter, Cecil Day Lewis’ Nigel Strangeways’ mysteries – they’d make a good series for television, instead of this constant revision of Agatha Christie.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best things: That incredible sense of creation-elation. Someone reading your work and liking it. Places you can go and people you can meet. Worst thing: Rejection, rejection, rejection. I think we tend to take it personally. And solitude isn’t all that healthy. It’s good to get out of yourself and into a pub occasionally.
The pitch for your next novel is ...?
The sequel to Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping) is finished, but waiting for a final round of revision. The title is Maledictus (Cursed). My books are very character-driven. Mystery plots are nearly always contrived to some degree, so I concentrate on making more than murder happen – and making the reader care about who it might happen to. I also look at my books as more noir than historical mystery, though the history aspects are all as accurate as a lot of research and an M.A. in classics can make them. Maledictus is a noir about a professional curse-writer in Aquae Sulis (Bath) whose curses have an uncanny habit of coming true. Arcturus will get involved in ways he can't fathom or predict. Nightmare Alley and Red Harvest were two big influences on this novel. I’m also working on another short-story prequel to Nox, and researching another series set in 1939 San Francisco.
Who are you reading right now?
There are several books next to my bed at the moment: a Cornell Woolrich anthology (Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories), Raymond Chandler: A Literary Reference, and Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life by Jane Gardner. There’s also a Life magazine from 1938 and a volume of Sallust (a Roman historian I’m writing a paper on). Yeah, I know I’m weird.
The three best words to describe your own writing are ...?
Poetic. Visceral. Redemptive.
Kelli Stanley’s Nox Dormienda will be published in July 2008.
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Sleeping Dogs Lie by Sylvester Young
“So this thing involved a lotta people who work for different government agencies? Man, Oliver Stone would have a field day.”Ne’er a truer word was ever spoken: Sleeping Dogs Lie will surely become a byword for paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Very much a novel of its time, the tale follows the fortunes of Robbie Walker as he departs New York in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, headed for Georgia with his fellow fugitive from justice and long-term friend, the ex-IRA man and cold-blooded killer Danny Maguire. Hiding out in the rural township of Petra, Robbie – English-born, to Jamaican parents – wonders why Danny has taken them to such a Godforsaken place, only to discover that Danny’s motives have been less than pure when a murderous plot concocted by rogue elements of the Colombian paramilitary group FARC collides with an investigation by a shadowy anti-terrorist American secret agency, ‘the Seventeenth’. Young’s first-person narrative is delivered in a beguiling patois that reeks of authenticity, the voice luring you down into the complex workings of a mind struggling to forge a path through the disintegrating remnants of what is quickly becoming a wasted life. Squeezed on one side by government-sponsored threats, on the other by loyalty to his old comrade, and coping with the casual violence of overt racism while trying to bail a new friend out of a murder frame-up, Walker is run ragged by the excess of adrenaline coursing through his system as he battles, above all else, the will-sapping paranoia that wafts up out of every line. A punchy, cynical and relentlessly political novel, Sleeping Dogs Lie is as courageous a statement of intent as it is a gripping thriller.- Declan Burke
Sylvester Young, Sleeping Dogs Lie
This review is republished by the kind permission of Euro Crime. Sleeping Dogs Lie is published by Raldon Books.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Blood Is Never Simple
Where There’s A Will, There’s A McGilloway
“Having read so much American crime fiction and admired writers like JL Burke for many years, I’m obviously delighted to think that Borderlands and Gallows Lane both will be made available in the US. And a little nervous ...”Nervous, schmervous. Not when one John Connolly is of the opinion that Borderlands is “Beautifully written and very gripping ... [McGilloway] is going to be a considerable force in Irish crime writing.” You heard it here first, folks. Unless you heard it somewhere else before, of course.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
History: Officially No Longer Bunk
“Film director Tomas Dalton returns home to his North Inner City Dublin roots. However, the country he has returned to, with its new-found affluence and glamour, is unrecognisable from the one he left behind. But this version of Ireland has yet to reach Bass Avenue, where the mischievous welcome he receives from the local mob of children quickly grows into something far more sinister. Lost amongst the wreckage of a painful divorce, a chaotic film shoot and the manic advances of a fading Hollywood diva, Tomas is forced to protect the faded trophies of his life. By any means necessary.”Moncrieff’s previous outing, Dublin, garnered some very nice reviews indeed, to wit: “Moncrieff takes the well-worn images of warm and sleepy Dublin, pulls a plastic bag over their head and executes them,” reckoned the Evening Herald, while the Sunday Independent chipped in with “A telling portrait of smugness and disillusionment, of the festering underbelly of Celtic Tigerland.” Form an orderly queue, people: line-jumpers will be plastic-bagged and executed …
You Didn’t Hear It Here First
"Revelations that one of the Colombia Three is to publish a book about his experiences in jail were last night greeted with disgust by senior members of the DUP. According to the Sunday Times, James Monaghan will give an inside account of his arrest and subsequent trial in Colombia Jail Journal, to be published in November. Monaghan was one of three Irish men arrested at Bogota airport in August 2001 on suspicion of training Farc rebels in bomb-making techniques based on IRA technology. He and he co-accused, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley, were sentenced to 17 years in prison, but returned to Ireland in August 2005 after skipping bail. An extradition request sent to the Irish authorities was unsuccessful. The Sunday Times quotes Steve McDonagh from Brandon Books, which is publishing the book, as saying it is a “vivid account” of Monaghan’s jail experience. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who saw the Colombian prison in which the three were held, said it was not morally right that Monaghan should profit. “I’m aware of the deep anger that remains in Colombia that these three fugitives from justice still haven’t been held to account for the crimes they committed. People are still being murdered by Farc using tactics taught by James Monaghan. The proceeds should go to victims rather than making profits for him.” Steve McDonagh told the Sunday Times that Monaghan’s book “tells the story of who he met in Colombia and what he did”. The book is full of atmosphere. It follows the court case but also depicts the difficulties he and the others faced inside jail,” he adds. It’s unclear whether it contains any admission by Monaghan of links to the IRA. The three men deny allegations that they taught Farc guerrillas how to make explosive devices, and claimed that they travelled under false passports to study the Colombian peace process."
Monday, September 3, 2007
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 1,917: Ray Banks
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Lord. Straight in with the easy stuff, aren’t you? Either The Death Of Sweet Mister which really is one of those books that does the odious thing of “transcending the genre”, and written by one of the finest living American authors, or The Grifters by Jim Thompson, which remains my favourite Thompson. Or Cotton Comes To Harlem for its humour and brevity. Or The Postman Always Rings Twice for its longevity and clarity. Or The Shark-Infested Custard for its savage take on single men about twenty years before Neil Labute.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
The literary children of Peter Biskind. I’m a sucker for movie non-fiction (just finished bios on Spike Lee and Hitchcock), and the only reason it’s a guilty pleasure is that something like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls has absolutely no bearing on what I’m currently writing. Hell, anything I read nowadays that isn’t research is a guilty pleasure.
Most satisfying writing moment?
When a book has passed muster with my wife. If there’s anything more satisfying than that, I haven’t experienced it yet.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
The Guards is a major book, but if I can pick one by an Irish author not necessarily set in Ireland, I’d have to go for one of my favourite Bruens – The Hackman Blues or American Skin. Having said that, I hear good things about Declan Hughes. Oh, and Gene Kerrigan.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Don’t know if this counts, seeing as he lives in Denver, but Hidden River by Adrian McKinty is ripe for the movies.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is the chatter, the “advice” from people I wouldn’t trust to sit the right way on a toilet, the naysayers, the doomwatchers, the wannabes and neverweres, the sheer overwhelming stench of a million “writers” who don’t actually read books for fun. Especially when it overwhelms the reason we all started this in the first place – to write something we’d want to read. The best is when we hit that, when we write something we’d pay good money to read. And if I ever make a living out of this, that’ll come into it, too.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Cal Innes, steeped in a full-on codeine jones, becomes a local hero when he saves a wee Asian lad from a house fire. Turns out the fire was arson, our man has to investigate it during the hottest summer on record, whilst trying to keep his habit under control, the press off his back, and himself out of the middle of a race riot. It’s my anti-issue book.
Who are you reading right now?
Jean-Patrick Manchette, The Prone Gunman. Chilly. And James Ellroy, American Tabloid. Sweeping.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
I’ll use Russel MacLean’s – Dirty, hard and fast. Yeah, that about sums it up.
Ray Banks’ Donkey Punch is available anywhere they appreciate good books.
The Guns Of Brixton
“Yes, he is, as our closing night feature will also be the British premiere of Death Proof. We also have five other Brit firsts on film-side and Lynda La Plante, Fred Vargas, Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Colin Bateman, Natasha Cooper, Ruth Rendell, Martina Cole, David Suchet, Philip Glenister (from Life on Mars), Nigel McCrery on the books / acting front, plus a Claude Chabrol and A.E. Bezzerides retrospectives.”Thank ’ee kindly, sir. Incidentally, the premiere of Death Proof will be screened at the Ritzy Brixton, and beamed to cinemas across the UK via satellite. Let’s hope the punters are a little more impressed than our very own movie-reviewing elf, Michael McGowan …
Sunday, September 2, 2007
The Monday Review
What KT Did Next # 349: The Canvas Wrecking Years
“When I write, I try to create images in words, but when I paint I take the more direct route. I find that the two art forms provide me with the perfect combination to stimulate the creative juices – if I need a break from writing, I move to the easel; when the layers of paint need time to dry, I return to the keyboard. My wife Mary has a more profound take on my two disciplines, she says – it keeps me from underneath her feet in the house. Nothing like feeling grounded.”And there you have it. Check it out, folks – the oil portrait of Ken Bruen as Sam Spade is worth the price of admission alone. Especially as there’s no admission price.