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Category: Stuart Neville
 Yon Norn Iron blokes have been busy lately. First up is Stuart Neville (right), who hasn’t been resting on the laurels garnered by his debut, THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST). Quoth the Scotland Herald: Neville’s next novel, COLLUSION, is in part a sequel to THE TWELVE. It follows one of the minor characters from his debut, a policeman investigating his missing wife and child, but the novelist says the similarities between the new book and its predecessor end there. “The Twelve is about frustration, about knowing that people will never be held to account for what they did. COLLUSION will not touch on those issues. It has nothing to do with party politics or Stormont.” Decades of fatuous Hollywood IRA flicks may have given audiences Troubles fatigue, but there is now...
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 John Connolly has been dabbling in the dark corners where demons lurk for many years now, and Stuart Neville’s THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (aka THE TWELVE), as the title suggests, also incorporated supernatural elements, or at least allowed for the possibility of such. Is a trend starting? Should I start dusting off my dog-eared collection of Aleister Crowleys? For lo, the blurb for Stephen Leather’s latest, NIGHTFALL, runneth thusly: “You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale.” They are the words that ended his career as a police negotiator. Now Jack’s a struggling private detective – and the chilling words come back to haunt him. Nightingale’s life is turned upside down the day that he inherits a mansion with a priceless library; it comes from a man who claims to be his father,...
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 The BSC website has posted a top ten Mystery/Crime Fiction of 2009 list from the three wise-guy reviewers, Keith Rawson, The Nerd of Noir and Brian Lindenmuth -- the triple-pillar of new noir.These boys know what they're talking about and I was very pleased to see a good Northern Irish representation. Stuart Neville's The Ghosts of Belfast (AKA The Twelve) and Adrian McKinty's Fifty Grand made the cut.Also mentioned were three adopted sons of CSNI (ie, not Northern Irish writers, but with enough of an Irish connection to have been interviewed here in the past). Dave Zeltserman's Pariah, Jason Starr's Fake ID and Allan Guthrie's Slammer got their much deserved big-ups.Jump over to BSC to see who placed where for whom (grammar?). I'll be referring to it for some reading recommendations in...
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 Brendan Garner is the author of Possession, Obsession and a Diesel Compression Engine, a chapbook of Belfast-set horror tales with a smattering of black humour. He’ll get around to the website thing some day, but in the meantime, you can catch the odd Garner tweet here. Yeah, yeah, there isn't much there. He'll get around to that some day too.Q1. What are you writing at the minute?Very little. I blame writer’s block. Or getting blocked. I have plans to work on a sequel to my unpublished novel, FIREPROOF, but have a lot of thinking to do before I commit myself to it. Mostly around whether or not FIREPROOF will actually be published in this lifetime.Q2. Can you give us an idea of your typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?I turn off the TV and stare at a computer...
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 Daragh Carville is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays, which include Language Roulette, Observatory and Family Plot, have been widely produced in Britain and Ireland, and as far afield as France, Germany, Holland, and the U.S. He has also written for television and radio. His television drama about drugs awareness issues for young people, The Family, was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1998. His radio play Regenerations, first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2000, was nominated for the Richard Imison Award. His adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2003.Daragh’s first feature film, Middletown, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2006. The film, which stars Matthew MacFadyen, Daniel Mays, Eva Birthistle and Gerard McSorley, was directed by Brian...
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 Last week I mentioned that I’d asked as many Irish crime writers as I know to vote on their favourite novel(s) of the year, in 1-2-3 order, with each first preference getting 10 points, second getting five points, and third preference getting one point. The results are as follows: THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville (32)THE LOVERS by John Connolly (21)DARK TIMES IN THE CITY by Gene Kerrigan (17)WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn (15) ALL THE DEAD VOICES by Declan Hughes (15)FIFTY GRAND by Adrian McKinty (11) Personally, I think all six are terrific novels, and I’m not just woofing: I think that any country, regardless of its size, should be proud of producing six novels of that quality (in any genre or none) in a given year. The bar has been well and truly raised, and it augurs well for...
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 For all my recent piffling about quitting as a writer, it was still something of a shock to see my picture in yesterday’s Sunday Times’ Culture section (Irish edition) with the caption ‘ex-novelist Burke’. Mind you, as my lovely wife pointed out, at least I’ll be able to show it to the grandkids to prove that I’m not some senile old fool when I wibble on about the halcyon days when I used to be a writer. I write theatre reviews for the Irish Culture section most weeks, and very enjoyable work it is too. The editor of the Culture section was kind enough to get in touch last week to say that he’d read the post on the blog about my quitting the writing game, and wondering if I’d be interested in turning it into an article. I didn’t want to write a me-me-me piece,...
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 A trumpet parp there, please, maestro … Last week (or maybe the week before) I posted about the inaugural but rather less than prestigious ‘Crime Always Pays’ Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award, which was, above all else, designed to remind people of how many excellent Irish crime novels were published in 2009. If memory serves (although more often than not, it stands and waits), the post involved detailing a forthcoming shortlist and what were in retrospect horribly complicated voting procedures. By which I mean, of course, that the voting would have been fairly straightforward, but the collating and counting would have been unnecessarily time-consuming for yours truly. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I cheated, and went with a system akin to that of the...
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 There was an interesting piece on Irish crime fiction from Fintan O’Toole (right) in yesterday’s Irish Times, in which he referenced Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan and Alan Glynn as exemplars of ‘the nearest thing we have to a realist literature adequate to capturing the nature of contemporary society …’. The gist runneth thusly: “It is striking that the most successful Irish crime writer, John Connolly, who began his career just a decade ago, felt it necessary to set his books in the US and to insert himself directly into the American detective tradition. Connolly presumably decided that Ireland, even in the Celtic Tiger years, was not the place for crime fiction. Yet it is equally striking that in the last few years, Irish-set crime writing has not merely begun to blossom but...
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 It’s been a terrific year for Stuart Neville. Superb reviews of his debut novel, THE TWELVE (aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST); interviewing James Ellroy at the Belfast Waterfront; and last weekend – in case you missed it – a lovely write up from Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times, in which TGOB was the lead review. All of which is very nice indeed, but then Stuart is a very nice bloke indeed, as you’ll see for yourself in this video interview with Keith Rawson. Roll it there, Collette … And while we’re on the subject of nice blokes, there was a marvellous turn-out for Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND launch at Dubray Books last Tuesday night, which was cunningly timed to coincide with the official turning on of the Christmas lights on Grafton Street. Among the writerly types in...
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 It’s getting to that time of the year again, when the ‘Best-of-Year’ selections are made, and Crime Always Pays has never been backward about clambering aboard a bandwagon. Yep, it’s the ‘Crime Always Pays’ Irish Novel of the Year Award, that somewhat-less-than-prestigious gong coveted by the very few and the ludicrously self-deluded. The usual hyperbole aside, 2009 was a terrific year for the Irish crime novel, and will, I’m pretty certain, be seen in retrospect as a watershed year in terms of quality. Everyone seemed to up their game, in some cases to a frighteningly good level (if you happen to be an aspiring Irish writer yourself), and the result was some excellent novels across the entire spectrum of the crime writing genre. What I’m doing today is...
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 ’Tis the season to be merry, tra-la-la-la, etc. There will, no doubt, be a fair swally of dry sherries lowered in the wake of not one but two book launches next week, with merriment assured at the launch of THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL, the latest offering from The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman. I’m reliably informed that TAFKAP will be doing interpretive excerpts from Riverdance as part of the evening’s festivities at No Alibis (where else?) in Belfast, the shindig kicking off at 6pm next Monday evening, November 17th. I’ve just finished TAFKAP’S A-OK TDOTJR, and enjoyed it even more than MYSTERY MAN, the eponymous ‘hero’ of which returns to investigate The Case of the Cock-Headed Man. Having much more in common with THE MALTESE FALCON than THE DAY OF THE JACKAL,...
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 (L-R Nat Sobel, Stuart Neville, James Ellroy and David Torrans) Some joker said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Fair enough, says me. Makes for a very short blog post when you've photos like these to display. Many thanks to Hilary Knight for sending the pics through.(Ellroy, Neville and Sobel in deep literary discussion in the super-chilled surroundings of No Alibis.)The event itself was one of the best I've attended to date. Ellroy is a showman. He didn't read. He performed. During the performance, it struck me; if this writing business hadn't worked out for him, he could have fallen back on a career as an evangelist. Of course, the subject matter of his sermons might have been a bit close to the knuckle. This cat doesn't hold back.(Sobel, Neville, Ellroy and Torrans a few...
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 Gosh, but that Ruth Dudley Edwards (right) keeps busy promoting Irish crime writing. One minute she’s schmoozing Gene Kerrigan in the Sunday Independent, the next she’s bigging-up Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE over at Shots Mag. To wit: “While THE TWELVE is taut and beautifully-written, it is not its success as a thriller that so impressed me. It is that it that after decades of painfully seeking to achieve an understanding of what went on during the Troubles, I am stunned to find a novel that reflects the extraordinary complexity of that period, that treats the various players without sentimentality but with deep understanding, and has empathy for the unfortunates caught up in something beyond their ability to control. The blurb provided by my friend Sean O’Callaghan, whose THE...
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 Off with me yesterday to Belfast to interview James Ellroy, who’s on the circuit promoting BLOOD’S A ROVER, and a marvellous day it was too. Mr James Ellroy was charm personified, an elegant, erudite and self-effacing interviewee who also understands the worth of a mutually beneficial stand-out quote or ten. I liked him a lot, which was nice, because it’s not always a good thing to meet your heroes, and I think Ellroy is one of the best writers on the planet. Hence the irrepressibly smug demeanour of yours truly above, although Mr James Ellroy doesn’t seem to be enjoying the occasion anywhere as much, despite his protests of ‘Man, I’m digging it,’ to the contrary. Oh, and I probably shouldn’t have worn my favourite shirt, the one with the hole in the elbow … ...
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 It’s hi-ho for Belfast this coming weekend, to see / hear / watch Stuart Neville interview the Demon Dog, aka James Ellroy (right), in a gig sponsored by No Alibis. To wit: No Alibis Bookstore is very pleased to announce that we will be hosting an event with none other than the Demon Dog of American crime fiction, James Ellroy, in early November to celebrate the release of the final book in his Underworld USA trilogy, BLOOD’S A ROVER. This event will be held in the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, on Saturday 7th November at 8:00PM. Tickets are now on sale, and are priced £12. There’s also a special screening of LA Confidential at the Queens’ Theatre at 2pm, for those interested. I’ll be interviewing James Ellroy myself over the weekend, shortly before Stuart gets his...
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 Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A; for those shifty-looking usual suspects ... What crime novel would you most like to have written?James Ellroy’s LA CONFIDENTIAL. What fictional character would you most like to have been?Boone Daniels in Don Winslow’s THE DAWN PATROL because he’s such a damn good surfer. Who do you read for guilty pleasures?George V Higgins, Elmore Leonard, Don Winslow, Peter Temple, Ken Bruen, James Ellroy, Walter Mosley, Anthony Bourdain. Most satisfying writing moment?When the plot resolves itself unaided. The best Irish crime novel is …?You think I’m crazy, you think I’m gonna say anything other than THE BIG O? What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?Have to say THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville – partly because I read it...
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 (I could introduce the following piece, but I think it speaks for itself in all its PR professionalism. As for what this event is doing for the crime fiction scene in Northern Ireland? Just have a look at the smile on Stuart Neville's face in the accompanying photo [Stuart is the slightly smaller giant on the left]... gb)Following the success of his recent book ‘The Twelve’, internationally recognised Armagh author Stuart Neville will be joining legendary US crime writer James Ellroy, at the Waterfront Hall on Saturday 7th November.The evening audience with Ellroy is an opportunity to hear one of the greatest crime novelists in recent years speak about his work, read from his latest and long awaited new novel, ‘Blood’s a Rover’ and listen to his views on crime fiction...
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 A couple of very nice reviews for Alan Glynn’s forthcoming WINTERLAND this weekend, with the Irish Independent proclaiming it, “A brilliant Dublin noir thriller by a writer with real international potential.” Nice. Not to be outdone, the Irish Times drafted in John Boyne to review WINTERLAND, who gave it the full half-page treatment and concluded thusly: “WINTERLAND takes its place as the first contemporary Irish novel to explore the disastrous effects of the property boom and the damage it has done to countless Irish families. For that, and for this thrilling, brilliantly written novel, Alan Glynn deserves enormous praise.” Well said, that man, and I’d imagine that those reviews are only the start of something Very Big Indeed. Meanwhile, and staying with the Irish...
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 A recent email from Amazon:Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,As someone who has purchased or rated The Twelve by Stuart Neville or other books in the Content Stores > Amazon Vine category, you might like to know that Ice Princess (Skate School) will be released on 30 October 2009. You can pre-order yours for just £3.99 (33% off the RRP) by following the link below.Ice Princess (Skate School) Kay WoodwardRRP:£5.99Price:£3.99You Save:£2.00 (33%)Release Date:30 October 2009This is why I shop at No Alibis...And I'll be there on Monday 16th November at 6PM when Colin Bateman launches his latest book, THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL.You should go...
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• RT @ConcernWorld U2, spaceships and Croke Park: all in a night's work http://bit.ly/10PiGY
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