The View from the Blue House

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-02-19T10:24:00.004Z

I gave my 'Prospects for the Irish Property Market' talk in Galway on Thursday. It's not the cheeriest of presentations. I got told afterwards that shots of whiskey should be at hand for all everyone in the audience. Every sector of the market is deep in the doldrums at present, with the situation set to get worse before it gets better. Our interaction graph module relating to house prices can be found here (or by clicking on the image right). As you can see, nationwide houses are down 47% (54% Dublin) and apartments are down 57% (Dublin 58%). 1 in 7 mortgages are more than 3 months in arrears or have been restructured, 1 in 3 are in negative equity.

My posts this week
Seven shots of noir
Review of When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson
Which country is the next big thing in crime fiction?
Lifting the load: Help for people with mortgage arrears
Review of Nobody's Perfect by Donald Westlake
On a high wire
The long walk

The long walk

2012-02-18T09:34:00.002Z

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

‘We need the money.’

‘You could just sell it.’

‘It’s worth fuck all and we’ll get more this way. This’ll do.’

The car pulled to a stop and the two men exited onto the narrow lane. In the distance the city cast the clouds in an orange glow.

They pushed the car into the ditch, doused it with petrol, lit a match, then WHOOSH!

‘Fuck!’

‘Now what?’ the driver asked, mesmerized by the dancing flames.

‘We walk home and wait for the cheque.’

‘Walk? Fuck. The cheque’s gonna get there before us!’

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

On a High Wire

2012-02-17T14:34:00.003Z

My flash fiction piece 'On a High Wire' has been published over on Flash Fiction Offensive. A little slice of Irish urban noir.

Review of Nobody’s Perfect by Donald Westlake (The Mysterious Press, 1977)

2012-02-17T07:38:00.003Z

Dortmunder is a professional thief who has been caught red-handed boosting televisions from a store. He’s going back to prison and knows it. Then a high class, celebrity lawyer turns up and miraculously he’s wriggled out of the charges. The catch is the lawyer’s paymaster, the rich and feckless Chauncey, wants Dortmunder to steal a painting - Folly Leads Man to Ruin by Veenbes - from his New York townhouse, bypassing an alarm system and a houseful of guests as part of an insurance scam. The deal is that Dortmunder keeps the painting until the insurance company settles. To make sure Dortmunder doesn’t make off with the painting, Chauncey has also hired a hitman to keep an eye on his thief. Dortmunder puts together his string of accomplices and plans the robbery. It should be relatively straightforward - in, out and away, whilst Chauncey keeps his guests occupied. Except it all goes horribly wrong, the painting lost in a throng of drunken Scot’s men as the gang make their getaway. They have six months to retrieve the painting or come up with another foolproof plan.

Folly Leads Man to Ruin would have been a much better title for this book than Nobody’s Perfect. Dortmunder’s follies pile up one after the other, each leading to a more precarious future. Westlake keeps up a steady pace, with a series of nicely constructed and clever set pieces that are strung together into a plot divided into four parts. There is a gentle humour running throughout and a few genuine belly laughs. The characterisation is well observed, with a good mix of likeable rogues. For me, the story was a little let down through a lack of edginess or grit and the book seemed to stop about ten to fifteen pages too short. Also the premise around the insurance scam as it entered the last quarter didn’t stand up to much scrutiny. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read from a powerhouse of comic crime storytelling.

Publishing Perspectives: Which Country is the Next Big Thing in Crime Fiction?

2012-02-16T10:42:00.002Z

Publishing Perspectives have put a question that seems to do the rounds every now and then - what country's fiction might rise up and become the next big thing internationally? It frames this within the statement: 'With Scandinavia’s crime fiction spree winding to a close.' I'm not really convinced that this is the case; it seems to be still doing just dandy. More a case of what crime fiction is going to eat further into the share of the UK and American markets. Of course, I'm biased, but I'd like to think that Irish crime fiction might be the one to rise to prominence.

As the comment by Declan Burke on the PP website makes clear, there are a healthy number of Irish authors publishing crime fiction set in Ireland or abroad - John Connolly, Tana French, Colin Bateman, Alex Barclay, Ken Bruen, Stuart Neville, Benjamin Black, Adrian McKinty, Arlene Hunt, Conor Fitzgerald, Eoin Colfer, Declan Hughes, Eoin McNamee, William Ryan, Brian McGilloway, Gene Kerrigan, Niamh O’Connor, Alan Glynn, Cora Harrison, Jane Casey, John J. Gaynard, Gerard Brennan, Casey Hill, Gerard O’Donovan, Kevin McCarthy, KT McCaffrey, Cormac Millar, Paul Charles, Sam Millar, Claire McGowan, Garbhan Downey, John Brady and Declan Burke himself. And good stuff it is too. Check it out, if you haven't already.

Other countries presently making their mark? In my view, Scotland, South Africa, Australia and Italy.

Review of When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson (1975)

2012-02-14T10:28:00.003Z

The fiscal and financial conditions across Europe are far from perfect at the minute. Ireland is in debt up to its rheumy eyes and undergoing austerity measures. Greece is teetering on the edge of default and collapsing into an uncertain future. Portugal, Italy and Spain are on austerity diets after the gorging on debt for the past couple of decades. In all five countries unemployment has risen, household income has fallen, and the population are feeling financially squeezed by personal and national debt obligations. Life though is a hell of a lot better than Germany under the Weimar Republic, post World War One. Adam Fergusson’s, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Hyper-Inflation, tells the story of when a whole economy implodes; when very large sections of society lose everything they own, many are left starving, and petty crime, large scale demonstrations, strikes and riots become common place. The book mainly focuses on Germany, but also shows how the same problems were replicated in Austria and Hungary.

In 1914, 20 German Marks equalled a British pound. By 1924 a British pound was equal to the number of yards to the sun and Germany was all but a barter economy. The First World War had left Germany on its financial knees, though its industrial base remained strong. The payments to the allies under the Versailles Treaty hung heavily on the struggling economy. Gradually inflation started to rise, devaluing the mark against foreign currencies. This allowed German business to grow, but the domestic economy started to spiral out of control. The Reichsbank’s solution was to increase wages and print more money to enable the populace to purchase goods. And as prices increased, the denominations of notes increased, and the value of savings and pensions plummeted. It soon became apparent that the only way to extract the value of money was to immediately spend it as Germany entered a period of hyper-inflation (when the value of money at the end of a month was worth half that at the start). By 1923, it was not uncommon for salaries to be raised several times a month to keep pace with inflation. Unable to pay the reparations to the Allies, the French and Belgians moved into the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland, to seize and exploit its assets, further weakening the economy and its ability to make such payments. Whilst people suffered, unemployment remained quite low, however by 1924 it was clear that a new strategy was needed to end the madness of exponential inflation. The solution was to introduce a new currency with a stable commodity base and to move the economy onto it, and to balance the books to reduce the need for deficit finance. The result, whilst curbing inflation, was a massive drop in industrial production as German goods became more expensive on the world market leading to mass unemployment. Although not directly responsible for the rise of National Socialism, Fergusson makes a good case that the turbulence of economic circumstance, the disenfranchisement of the middle classes, and the rise of unemployment helped provide the conditions within which it could grow.

Adam Fergusson does an admirable job of detailing for a lay audience what happened with the German economy in the early 1920s. He uses a mix of historical sources, including letters, British diplomatic material, and newspaper reports. Sometimes the narrative is a little dry and it would have been good to include more detail on Austria and Hungary, the strategy of German industrialists, and the French/Belgian intervention in the Ruhr. Although not its intention, what the book demonstrates is the value of the European project in binding Europe into a common monetary framework that makes it easier for countries whose economy is in trouble to weather financial storms. As the present crisis demonstrates, that process is not always straightforward and easy, and is fraught with difficult politics and decisions, but what Fergusson’s book highlights is that trying to cope on their own with politicians who seem clueless about core economic principles can be a hell of a lot worse.

Seven shots of noir

2012-02-13T09:32:00.003Z

Here are the links to the seven short stories I read last week. All flash fiction pieces, so nice, quick shots of noir.

Convergence by John Spaert (Flash Fiction Offensive)*
The Confessor by Lonni Lees (Shotgun Honey)
Cosmo in the mourning by Gary Clifton (Spinetingler)
Sleep tight by Jack Bates (Near to the Knuckle)
Pimp Inc (c) by Nick Mott (Flash Fiction Offensive)
Goes around by Sandra Seamans (Shotgun Honey)
The hater's club by Len Kuntz (Near to the Knuckle)

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-02-12T09:05:00.005Z

I've done an awful lot of reading in the last couple of weeks. Of exam scripts and coursework (hence the lack of reviews). I've ten scripts left then I'm done for a while. I took a break from it yesterday and worked my way through a Donald Westlake novel, and let me tell you, it was a pleasant relief. One of the courses I've been marking is 'Geographies of the Crisis' and its fairly depressing to read one essay after another by early twenty-something year old students about how they see and understand the present and immediate future (which largely seems to be emigration). Though I guess that might be marginally preferable to Westlake's alternative which is a life of crime, albeit an amusing one. The painting at the centre of Westlake's novel is Folly Leads Man to Ruin - that seems about right for describing Ireland at the minute. Maybe next time I'll get the students to explain the country through a piece of art. Hopefully that would be easier on the eye than some of their handwriting, but somehow I doubt it.

My posts this week
Seven shots of noir
CIF, Future Housing Supply in Ireland report - one year on
Review of Head Games by Craig McDonald
Unfinished estates in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland
Ghost estates
Embrace the destroyers of your world
She wrecks my head

She wrecks my head

2012-02-11T11:27:00.002Z

‘I can’t work with her!’

‘What?’ The boss looked up.

‘She ... she wrecks my head.’

‘She does what?’

‘Look ... I can’t work with her. She ... How about I work with Kirsty instead?’

‘I don’t want you to work with Kirsty.’

The young man looked pained.

‘What’s wrong with Carla?’ the boss asked.

‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with Carla. That’s the problem.’

‘The problem?’

‘She wrecks my head.’

‘Oh. You fancy Carla? Our Carla?’

The man looked away, his face flushed red.

‘Carla. Wow. Well, I guess you have three choices: concentrate, resign, or ask her on a date.’

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Embrace the destroyers of your world

2012-02-10T09:23:00.001Z

Came across these two images yesterday. Irony was the word that popped into my head. Click image to link through to source.

Ghost estates

2012-02-09T14:47:00.003Z

For those interested in what is happening in Ireland with respect to so-called 'ghost estates', I've just published a short paper on the issue:

NIRSA Working Paper 67 – Unfinished Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland by Rob Kitchin, Cian O’Callaghan and Justin Gleeson.

Summary

In the wake of the global financial crisis, and the ongoing financial and fiscal crisis in Europe, much attention has focused on Ireland and its beleaguered economy given its status as one of the PIIGS and the fact that it had to be bailed out by the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB in November 2010. Whilst much of the gaze has been directed at Ireland’s banks and the strategy of the Irish government to manage the crisis, a substantial amount of interest, both nationally and internationally, has been focused on the property sector and in particular the phenomenon of so-called ‘ghost estates’ (or in official terms, unfinished estates). As of October 2011 there were 2,846 such estates in Ireland and they have come to visibly symbolise the collapse of Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. In this paper, we examine the unfinished estates phenomenon, placing them within the context of Ireland’s property boom during the Celtic Tiger years. We detail the characteristics and geography of such estates, the various problems afflicting the estates and their residents, and the Irish government’s response to addressing those problems. In the final section we speculate as to the fate of such estates given the approach adopted and the wider political and economic landscape.

Full paper is here.

Review of Head Games by Craig McDonald (Bleak House Books, 2007)

2012-02-07T13:50:00.002Z

Hector Lassiter is a pulp novelist and Hollywood scriptwriter turned cultural icon, a writer whose life is more dramatic than the characters in his books. He was one of Pershing’s raiders into Mexico in 1913, chasing General Francisco Villa, he served in the Europe in the First World War, took active role as a spy/gun-runner in the second, and amongst his close personal friends are Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles and Marlene Deitrich. It is 1957 and Lassiter’s young daughter and his third wife are dead. Lassiter has travelled into Mexico with Bud Fiske, a young poet, who has been commissioned by True magazine to write a profile of the writer. In a bar they are cut into a deal involving the fabled head of Villa, long stolen from a grave. The head is being sought by Yale’s Skull and Bones Society for their private collection for a large fee. It is also reputed to contain a treasure map to Villa’s missing fortune. Before the deal is concluded they are attacked. Lassiter and Fiske escape with the head, dashing to the border. Several parties of headhunters though are on their trail, including the US intelligence services. Over the next couple of weeks, the two of them, along with the beautiful Alicia, try to stay one step ahead of their pursuers as they try to convert the head into cash.

This was a book of two halves for me. The first half was a dark, screwball noir, with a strong plot and a suite of interesting characters, both fictional and real. Indeed, the book contains a number of real characters and is rooted in the real myths surrounding Villa’s missing head. McDonald provides a rich and colourful back story for Lassiter, with a good degree of depth and complexity to his personality. The story has a good sense of place, historical context, and the right kind of feel as a literary pulp noir story as Lassiter would have written it. It hummed along like a well tuned engine. The second half of the book, however, seemed to run out of pace and ideas, with the last quarter in particular becoming bitty, with a faltering pace and staccato story line. If the second half could have kept the same pace and feel of the first half, this would have unquestionably been a five star read. The unevenness, however, pulled it back into the pack. More than enough here though for me to seek out other McDonald books.

Seven shots of noir

2012-02-06T09:10:00.003Z

Here are the links to the seven short stories I read last week. I'd love to see 'How we roll' by Matthew Funk extended out as a novel. Has a great feel to it.

How we roll by Matthew C Funk (Shotgun Honey)*
A day in the death of Stafford Plank by Stuart Aylis (Flash Fiction Offensive)*
Showtime by Albert Tucher (Spinetingler)*
Hells Express by John L Thompson (Shotgun Honey)
Saving Cletus Brockton by Jim Harrington (Powder Burn Flash)
A pain in the ass by Phil Beloin (Pulp Pusher)
The body by Andrew Hilbert (Flash Fiction Offensive)

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-02-05T08:30:00.004Z

It's a month since I started on Facebook and a week since I started on Twitter. I can see the attraction of both, though I think I'm reaching the limit on time I want to devote to social media. Facebook, Twitter, plus Friendfeed and two blogs, eat up time. I also still prefer blogging as the pieces and exchanges are more substantive. Talking of blog posts, here are two about two books published last week in one of the book series I edit, Public private partnerships in Ireland and Youth policy, civil society and the modern Irish state. The series is Irish Society, published by Manchester University Press.

My posts this week
Short story heaven
Dublin falls from 12th to 198th (out of 200) in Brookings Global MetroMonitor
Review of The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty
Medidan book award
IDA job losses and creation 2007-2011 by region and county
Casanova succumbs to Two Ton Tina
CSO property price changes 2005-2011
Property market by sector and region 2011
January reads
A little encouragement

A little encouragement

2012-02-04T11:12:00.003Z

'Have you got my money, Michael?'

Michael glanced up nervously, scratching at a grubby shirt. 'I ... I'm working on it.'

'Perhaps you need to work harder?' Doyle lifted up a baseball bat, wiggling its tip menacingly.

'I ... I definitely won't be able to get it if I can't walk.'

'You don't seem to be able to pay it back as it is. Perhaps you need a little encouragement?'

'I'll pay it back, Mr Doyle. I promise.'

'I know you will, Michael.'

Doyle swung the bat, tight and fast.

Michael yelped as his wrist snapped with an audible crack.

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

January reads

2012-02-03T15:44:00.004Z

I'm surprised to find that I read 8 books in January. It felt like I'd done a lot of reading, but that it was mostly coursework and exams. Looking down the list it was a good month. My read of January goes to The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty, closely followed Storm Front by Jim Butcher.

The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty *****
The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man by Donal Conaty ***
The Dead Detective by William Heffernan ***
Black Sheep by Arlene Hunt ***.5
Storm Front by Jim Butcher *****
Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer ****.5
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes ****
White Nights by Ann Cleeves ****

Casanova Succumbs to Two Ton Tina

2012-02-02T10:30:00.004Z

Harry and Pete, two hapless, lazy, misogynist cops wobbling along the slow road to retirement, are back in another slice of politically incorrect, screwball noir. Casanova Succumbs to Two Ton Tina was published on A Twist of Noir yesterday. Check out the other flash fiction stories there. There's some great five minute fixes for story addicts.

Meridan Book Award 2011

2012-02-01T15:27:00.004Z

My book Code/Space, co-written with Martin Dodge, has won the Association of American Geographers Meridan Book Award for the Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography 2011 for "the one book published last year that makes an unusually important contribution to advancing the science and art of geography". I guess I better savour this one as I doubt I'm going to get another best book in the discipline award (well of those books that were considered at least) any time soon. Of course, there's an award ceremony at the end of the month in New York at the annual meeting which I am going to miss as, for only the second time in 17 years, I'm not attending. Ironically, I've decided to devote the week instead to trying to catch up on some writing. 8-9,000 geographers in one place at one time, all talking geography over five days, is kind of weird, intense week. My plan is to talk to no geographers that week, just to read some of their work and write!

Review of The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail, 2012)

2012-01-31T18:11:00.004Z

Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy is a Catholic cop in Northern Ireland in 1981 in a force dominated by protestants and targeted by paramilitary republicans. A few weeks after being posted to the CID in Carrickfergus, the Maze hunger strikers start to die, the whole province erupting into violent protest. Between having to don riot gear to help his beleaguered colleagues, Duffy has two new cases to investigate - the death of a homosexual man, his hand severed, and the apparent suicide of an ex-wife of a Maze hunger striker. This is quickly added to by the murder of a second known homosexual man. It seems that Duffy might be investigating the first known serial killer on the island, one that is taking advantage of the limited police resources. As Duffy works away at the case he has to negotiate the complex terrain of IRA, loyal paramilitaries and the security forces, none of whom prove cooperative. Duffy though has the bit between his teeth and is unwilling to let the case slide into the unsolved pile.

As an Irish police procedural, The Cold, Cold Ground is right up there with Brian McGilloway’s Inspector Devlin and John Brady’s Matt Minogue series. In fact, it might just be the best example of a police procedural so far produced on the island. It’s pretty difficult to pick holes in any aspect of the story, with perhaps the exception of forgetting to return a submachine gun left on the hall table back to the barracks for two whole weeks (not the kind of item that would escape one’s attention). McKinty immerses the reader in Carrickfergus and Belfast in 1981 - its politics, its riots, its policing, its fashions, music and social relations, its sense of place, without it ever swamping the narrative. The attention to detail is excellent. Sean Duffy is a complex, flawed and bright lead character, out of his depth and desperately trying to stay afloat amongst paramilitary groups and police and security service politics, and determined to solve the two cases. He’s surrounded by a well realised support cast, some of whom are real figures, other fictional characters. The plot twists and turns and is nicelyy paced, and McKinty shows his usual flair for poetic prose. A great read from an author who consistently turns out interesting and insightful books. The only let down - I have to wait for the next Duffy book to be published.

Short story heaven

2012-01-30T10:04:00.001Z

Slowly getting myself on track to read 365 short stories in 2012. Here are the ones I read last week. There's some good stuff here, folks. Check them out.

The Vagueness of Maybes by Kieran J. Shea (A Twist of Noir)

Framed by CJ Edwards (Flash Fiction Offensive)

McDojo by Gerard Brennan (Shotgun Honey)

Monster by David Barber (Close to the Knuckle)

Cattle Call by Terry White (Thrillers, Killers and Chillers)

Cheating by Trey R Barker (Shotgun Honey)

The Worst Thing in the World by Albert Tucher (A Twist of Noir)

Grind by Chad Haskins (Spinetingler)

Man Down by Jason Chirevas (A Twist of Noir)

Drama’s wet dream by Anthony Venutolo (Bukowski’s Basement)

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-01-29T07:59:00.005Z

As with Facebook, I've taken the plunge on Twitter (@RobKitchin). In the end I've needed to do both to access content that I wanted to see and contribute to. I'm not one for dormant accounts, so I'll try to post regularly on both. Last week was incredibly busy. It ended with a conference on Irish economic policy. After my talk I was collared by The Irish Times and asked to present the whole talk again but in five minutes without notes or slides. The result is below.

I started to list the short stories I'd read during the week in this weekly post, but I'm going to do another regular spot for those on a Monday from now on.

My posts this week:
Review of The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man by Donal Conaty
Collapse of the Celtic Tiger
Housing affordability in Ireland
Into the lion's den
Review of The Dead Detective by William Heffernan
How about paying the Anglo bondholders with a €1.4 billion house?
Whiskey and tears

Whiskey and tears

2012-01-28T08:37:00.002Z

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at his son. The boy’s breathing was shallow and a touch breezy. The father brushed back a lock of brown hair from over an eyebrow. Jack needed a trip to the barber, but it was too late for that now. It was too late for anything, except whiskey and tears. He placed a pillow over Jack’s face, gently pressing down. The boy woke with a start and struggled, his legs kicking, but he quickly lay still. The father kissed his forehead, rose unsteadily and went to fetch his gun.

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Dead Detective by William Heffernan (Akashic Books, 2010)

2012-01-27T09:36:00.002Z

When he was ten years old, Harry Doyle and his brother Jimmy were drugged by their mother and left in a garage with car engine running. Both were clinically dead when the Tampa police broke open the door after a neighbour had called the alarm. Harry was resuscitated, but Jimmy didn’t survive. Twenty years later and Harry is a homicide detective whose colleagues believe that because of his past he can talk to the dead. That supposed talent is called on when local beauty, ex-teacher and convicted child abuser, Darlene Beckett is found murdered, her throat cut, the word ‘evil’ carved into her forehead. Assigned a new partner, the feisty Vicky, Doyle starts to investigate, soon discovering another body. Two conflicting bodies of evidence start to emerge, one pointing to a local evangelical church, the other to one of Harry’s colleagues. To add to Harry’s worries, his mother is due for parole and he’s determined that she stays behind bars.

I was attracted to this book by the title and the premise that Harry shared some bond with the dead through his own death. That angle and Harry’s feelings for his mother are quite well developed. The rest of the story is a pretty straight up and down police procedural focusing on the hunt for an unstable serial killer. The characterisation is quite nicely realised, but the characters are cookie-cut from the genre’s tropes - Harry has a reputation as being a brilliant detective, a tough guy with hang-ups, who is happy to skirt around proper procedure (think Harry Bosch or Rebus); Vicky is the hyper-sensitive female cop with a large chip on her shoulder; the Church minister is mainly concerned with reputation and growing his flock and has a wayward son who has been trouble with the law, etc. Whilst Heffernan lays down a series of red herrings, the plot is fairly mundane and to a seasoned crime fiction reader the identity of the killer is fairly obvious a good distance from the end of the book. That all said, the story is well told and Harry Doyle is worth spending some time with.

Into the lion's den

2012-01-26T19:03:00.003Z

It's been a very busy week so far, hence the lack of posts. Today we had a government minister out to the institute to take a look at our AIRO project. Tomorrow I'm presenting at the Irish Economy conference in Croke Park. I'm one of the couple of non-economists presenting in what is a kind of who's who of academic economic commentators on Ireland post-crash. There's going to be a live twitter feed #ieconf that will tweet away all day apparently, if you're interested and into that kind of thing. It'll be interesting to see what the economists make of my take on the property market. Oh well, always fun to wander into the lion's den. Back to a book review tomorrow - The Dead Detective by William Heffernan.

Collapse of the Celtic Tiger

2012-01-24T16:31:00.003Z

A good, short video called the Collapse of the Celtic Tiger has been released by Al Jazeera. If you want to know what happened/is happening in Ireland this is a good place to start (even if I ended up on the cutting room floor after spending an hour walking around in the wind and rain on a bank holiday because the sound quality wasn't good enough!).

Review of The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man by Donal Conaty (Y Books, 2011)

2012-01-23T16:17:00.003Z

Ireland is bankrupt and the IMF team headed by Ajai Chopra has flown to the country to negotiate the terms of the bailout. Amongst their number is an Irish-American who is a more than a little bemused by his ancestors approach to finance and public service. He is given the task of shadowing the head of the Department of Finance, Dermot Mulhearn, during the negotiations and is then left in place to monitor progress when the rest of the IMF team leave town. Mulhearn’s priority seems to be to maintain a certain kind of lifestyle for the civil service and to protect his various perks and assets such as investments in apartments, hotels and a room full of voting machines, rather than to broker the best deal he can for the country. The politicians on the other hand seem totally clueless, dancing the last waltz as the walls come crumbling down around them. Instead it is left to the Eighty Five Billion Euro Man from the IMF to go through the books and to try and get civil servants and politicians used to the high life to change their ways. Mulhearn and his cronies however have a touch of the Sir Humphries about them and they’re not about to simply lie down and roll over.

Based on the @IMFDublinDiary Twitter feed and stories in The Mire, The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man is a satire/farce, starting with the IMF’s first visit to Dublin and ending just a few weeks after Enda Kenny took office as Taoiseach. It covers a whole range of different events and parodies both the civil service and leading politicians. The story is told mainly through dialogue heavy scenes that work well to capture some of the absurdities, ironies and tragedies of the bailout and subsequent political shenanigans. There is a lot to like about the novel. Some of the scenes are very amusing and the caricatures of some politicians are particularly well done, for example, Brian Cowen, Mary Coughlan, Brian Lenihan, Michael Noonan and Joan Burton. However, the plot is a little uneven, with the tail end of the book, in the lead up to the election and afterwards, notably weaker (partially because it starts to stray too far from the situation it seeks to satirise - especially Mulhearn running for election). The level of satire also varies a little and whilst it is very amusing at times it’s never quite as biting or cutting as it could be, and it doesn’t have the sophisticated wit and cleverness of a political satire like Yes, Minister. Given the in-jokes, I’m also not sure how easy it would be for someone unfamiliar with Ireland to follow some of the scenes. That all said, The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man is a recommended read for anyone who is interested in the crash in Ireland and the government response. It’s an amusing read and provides a counterpoint to the dry journalistic accounts that have dominated the shelves to date.

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-01-22T09:03:00.004Z

I arrived home from a conference on Friday night to find that our accessibility mapping module had been covered that day in most of the main Irish newspapers - Irish Times, Independent, Examiner, Star, Sun, Mirror and Herald. Quite unusual, in my experience at least, for academic stuff to get both broadsheet and tabloid coverage, though they can do quite different things with the same material - see right. Nice that it was seen as interesting and useful.

Short stories read this week:
Oh Superman by Colin Graham (Pulp Metal Magazine)*
Neighbors by Kieran Shea (Shotgun Honey)
Lucky Convenience by Chris Rhatigan (A Twist of Noir)*
Sex Crime by Katherine Tomlinson (A Twist of Noir)*
The Tut by Paul Brazzil (Cavalcade of Stars)*
Dudley Do Right by R. Thomas Brown (Flash Fiction Offensive)
Tight by John DuMond (Powder Burn Flash)
Musculature by Charles Dodd White (Plots With Guns)*

My posts this week:
Review of Black Sheep by Arlene Hunt
The Self-Preservation Society
To cut a long story short
Banning the boom
Crime fiction and contemporary Ireland
Mapping and graphing accessibility and deprivation
Review of Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Lost

Lost

2012-01-21T09:05:00.002Z

‘For god’s sake, Margie, where the hell are we?’

‘I ... we must be ...’ Margie twisted the map, peeked over it at the passing landscape, then back at the map.

‘You haven’t got a clue, have you! All you had to do was read the flipping map.’

‘I’ve been reading the flipping map! You must have taken a wrong turn.’

‘How could I have taken a wrong turn! You’ve been telling me which turns to take.’

‘Don’t yell at me!’

‘Do you have any idea where we are?’

‘No, but neither do you!’

‘I wasn’t reading the stupid map!’

Review of Storm Front by Jim Butcher (2000, Orbit)

2012-01-20T07:34:00.004Z

Harry Dresden--Wizard
Lost items found. Paranormal investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is a PI with a difference - he’s a (mostly) white wizard who specializes in dealing with paranormal and supernatural events, acting as a consultant to the Chicago police force in cases where there are unexplainable happenings. Accident prone, destroyer of all things electrical, and shadowed by white council representative to make sure he doesn’t use magic inappropriately (after some previous offences), Harry is too proud to take anything but magic related cases and bumps along on the breadline. Shortly after he’s called by a frightened woman concerned about her husband, he’s called by the Chicago police to investigate a horrific death, where two lovers hearts have literally exploded out of their chests. On his way back to the office he’s given a ride by a local mobster and he’s then sought out by a sassy journalist. Something is going on and it involves black magic; a lot of it. And very quickly it’s clear that the wielder of this power wants Harry out of the picture; preferably permanently. Not only does Harry need to solve the murder case, he needs to find and neutralise the black wizard without using any illegal magic, as that will result in a death sentence from the white council. And that’s going to be damn difficult, especially when a number of supposed allies think he is black magician.

I loved this book. It captivated me from the first page to the last. It’s clever and funny (I laughed out loud several times and had a grin on my face the rest) and its as tight as a drum. Harry Dresden is a wonderful creation - he has all the stereotype hallmarks of the classic Chandler/Hammett PI, but Butcher has managed to give them a fresh spin. Written in the first person, Butcher has a strong and distinctive voice. The plot is intricate, well paced, and has nice twists and turns. And the action sequences are some of the best I’ve read for a while - a fight sequence with a demon midway through the novel is very well done. It is extremely rare that I will stay up into the wee hours to continue reading, but I did so with Storm Front. It was a five star read all the way. I’ve already sought out the second book in the series.

Mapping and graphing accessibility and deprivation

2012-01-19T15:13:00.005Z

Just launched two new, all-island mapping tools - one that displays access to education, health and urban services for every house on the island (the map right is access to dentists by drive time), the other maps social deprivation using an index that is comparable in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The systems can be accessed directly through:

All-island Accessibility mapping tool
All-island Deprivation mapping tool

The news page, which also provides access to the graphing tool that shows average results for every local authority, is on the AIRO site.

Crime fiction and contemporary Ireland

2012-01-18T13:30:00.006Z

First announcement of an event I'm organising. All welcome, free entry.

Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland:

An audience with Declan Burke, Gene Kerrigan and Niamh O'Connor

Tuesday, 6th March, 5-7pm, Renehan Hall, NUI Maynooth

It is perhaps no coincidence that at time of crisis and social and economic upheaval Irish crime fiction is flourishing both domestically and internationally. More than any other genre, crime fiction is said to document and help its readers make sense of the social, political and economic landscape of its setting. Talking about their own work and that of other Irish novelists, the three authors will discuss the role of the crime novel in reflecting and understanding contemporary Ireland.

Register: nirsa@nuim.ie

Declan Burke is the author of Absolute Zero Cool (2011), Crime Always Pays (2009), The Big O (2007) and Eight Ball Boogie (2003) and editor of Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the Twenty First Century (2011). He writes the influential blog, Crime Always Pays, reviews crime novels for a number of newspapers and radio programmes, and is film reviewer for The Last Word on Today FM. Absolute Zero Cool was nominated for an Irish Book Award in 2011.

Gene Kerrigan is the author of four novels, The Rage (2011), Dark Times in the City (2010), Midnight Choir (2008), and Little Criminals (2007), and seven non-fiction books including Hard Cases (1996) and This Great Little Nation (1999). He is one of Ireland's leading political commentators, working as a columnist for the Sunday Independent. He won the Irish Book Award with Dark Times in the City and has been nominated for the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award.

Niamh O'Connor is the author of two novels, Taken (2011) and If I Never See You Again (2010), and the author of the true crime books, Blood Ties (2009), Cracking Crime (2001), and The Black Widow (2000). She is a journalist and true crime editor at The Sunday World. If I Never See You Again was nominated for an Irish Book Award in 2010.

To cut a long story short

2012-01-17T09:45:00.003Z

One of my short stories - To Cut a Long Story Short - was published on Shotgun Honey yesterday. Check out the other stories there. Bite-sized, max 700 words, of tight, punchy noir. There's some great stuff for 3-5 minute fixes for story addicts.

Review of Black Sheep by Arlene Hunt (Hodder Headline Ireland, 2006)

2012-01-16T11:48:00.004Z

David Reid, a successful furniture designer, has been found dead in a Dublin canal. He was drunk when he died, and his death has been ruled as misadventure by the local gardai and coroner. His brother though is convinced that David was the victim of foul play and hires QuicK investigations, run by PIs Sarah Kenny and John Quigley, to discover what really happened. Reid’s car is missing, and on the day of his funeral, his house is broken into by two teenage twins and his laptop and other items stolen. Sarah is a witness to the robbery and it provides an initial clue that suggests the Reid’s brother might be right. As the case progresses it’s clear that Reid had a dark secret to hide, one that could have repercussions for others if revealed, and by pursuing the killer, Sarah and John have unwittingly stirred a hornet’s nest that will potentially lead to further skulduggery.

Black Sheep is the second in the QuicK Investigations series. In many respects, there’s no great mystery to the story - an astute reader will have a fair idea as to how the story is going to unfold and who the killer is from near the start - but that doesn’t really matter. It’s the telling and unfolding of the story and the characters that make the book work. The plot is nicely constructed and hangs together well, and the procedural elements of the private investigation are credible, even if the police seem fairly incompetent (though that might be a fair assessment). The first third was a little slow, but then it picks up and the latter third rattles along with no flab. What I particularly liked was the characterisation of the suite of secondary characters - Big Jack, the Quinn Brothers, the golfing buddies, JJ, Jimmy and Billy, Sarah’s sisters and mother, etc are all well penned and come alive on the page. Somewhat oddly, it was the two leads - Sarah and John - that felt a little lifeless and distant to me; for some reason I couldn’t really get a handle on them or their relationship. Sarah seemed all unnecessary hard angles and John somewhat bland, and their back stories were a little thin. I’m wondering if that’s because I’ve come into the QuicK series at the second book. Regardless, this was a good, solid, enjoyable read set in the context of Ireland at the height of its excesses, just prior to the crash.

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-01-15T09:26:00.006Z

Some of the books I ordered turned up at the local bookshop on Friday. I collected them yesterday. Really looking forward to tucking into them: The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty; Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Coterill; White Heat by Melanie McGrath; Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson; Or the Bull Kills You by Jason Webster; and Kiss Me Quick by Danny Miller. I'm going to start with Adrian McKinty.

I'm not one for following blog challenges, but I'm going to have a go at this one - reading 365 short stories in a year (and in my case mostly flash fiction). The associated blog is Shortstory365. It'll probably go in fits and starts, rather than one a day. I'm already behind, but only started a couple of days ago. I'm going to keep a record of them in Sunday Service slot (* denotes the standouts for me).

Short stories read this week:
Two and a half miles by W.D. County (Spinetingler)*
Fashionably late by R. Thomas Brown (The Laughter Shack)
What Could Happen by Matthew C. Funk (Flash Fiction Offensive)
Lambs of God by Patti Abbott (Spinetingler)*
Scrapbook by Joe Myers (Shotgun Honey)
T-Bone's Girl by Edward Vaughn (Shotgun Honey)*
Teddy in the Tree by Wayne A. Conaway (Thrillers, Killers and Chillers)

My posts this week:
Review of Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer
Facebook and Irish Crime Fiction
ALA Choice Award
Review of In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes
She has to go

She has to go

2012-01-14T10:23:00.004Z

‘This can’t go on, Tom,’ Mary hissed. ‘She has to go.’

‘What do you mean, go?’ He looked up from his cereal.

‘You know what I mean! When we got married, I didn’t sign up for caring for your mother.’

‘But ...’

‘There’s no but. I’ve raised our kids and worked for the last fifteen years. I’m not spending my retirement running around after your mother, washing, cleaning and listening to her complain about me.’

‘But where’s she meant to go?’

‘I don’t care! To your brother’s; into a home. All I know is that if she stays, I’m leaving.’

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes (1947, reprinted Feminist Press, 2003)

2012-01-13T08:51:00.004Z

Post-Second World War and pilot Dix Steele has drifted to Los Angeles where he is notionally writing a novel, living off a monthly allowance posted to him by a wealthy uncle, and staying in the apartment of an old university friend who is away in Rio for a year. Clever, charming, confident and missing the meritocracy of the armed services, Steele resents not being independently wealthy and tries to attach himself to rich folk in order to sponge from them. He also possesses an almost uncontrollable rage against women and for the past six months he has vented his anger by strangling and raping one woman each month. Prowling the fog-bound beach area he loses a potential prey and decides instead to look up an old war buddy, Brub Nicolai. It turns out that Brub has married and settled down, and more ominously, has joined the police and is working as a detective on the murders. Rather than backing away, Steele seeks to use Brub to keep him informed on progress on the case. In the meantime, he has started a whirlwind romance with the smart and sassy actress Laurel Gray, a femme fatale that whilst at first smitten becomes increasingly concerned at Steele’s jealously and possessiveness. As the murder investigation gathers pace and closes in, Steele remains confident that he has outwitted them all.

Dorothy B Hughes writes literary hardboiled noir taking on and matching Chandler, Hammett, Cain and Thompson at their game. In a Lonely Place is atmospheric, taut, tense and dark. Although written in the third person, the story is told exclusively from the point of view of Dix Steele, a misogynist with a murderous psychosis, and Hughes does well at capturing his corrupted rationalities. This is not however at the expense of the other characters, who are still well realised and rounded. The pacing is nicely done, with the gradual unfolding of Steele’s back story and the investigation of the murders, yet there is no flab, the story being tightly told. There's also no violence, with Hughes able to create drama and tension without directly portraying any of the crimes or their aftermath. For my tastes, the story is a little too melodramatic in places and I whilst I enjoyed it and recognised all its merits, I was never fully captivated and swept along by the story. Nevertheless, a very solid piece of hardboiled noir and I hope to read more of her books in due course.

ALA CHOICE award

2012-01-12T10:19:00.003Z

Got an email last night from MIT Press to say that my co-authored book with Martin Dodge, Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life, has been awarded 'CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2011' by the American Library Association. Very pleased with that. That's two years in a row - last year the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, for which I was editor in chief, won an award. It won't happen for 2012 as I've no academic book due out this year!

Facebook and Irish crime fiction

2012-01-11T12:28:00.004Z

At the weekend I finally signed up with Facebook so that I could access the Irish Crime Fiction group. And very informative it's been so far. A great resource for anyone interested in Irish crime fiction.

People keep telling me I need a Facebook presence. Now I have one, I think I need to spend a bit of time working out how it works, what I might do with it in terms of the wall and other functions, how the whole friends things works, and issues around privacy and sharing, etc. I'll try and feel my way into it. Anyway, if you're on Facebook and you want to find me on there and connect or whatever, I think this link should work.

Review of Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer (Hodder, 2007)

2012-01-09T13:11:00.004Z

Christine van Rooyen is a high class escort with a young daughter that she dotes on and a rich client who wants her to play the role of a wife. Thobela Mpayipheli served as a elite soldier overseas before returning to work as a bodyguard for a criminal in Cape Town and eventually settling down on a farm with a wife and young son. The wife has died and the son becomes everything, but then at a service station two armed robbers shoot the boy as they make their getaway. Whilst on trial the two men escape and the police seem resigned to leaving them on the run. Thobela though isn't and he has the skills and the patience to track them down, and whilst he stalks them he can do the work that the justice system fails to. Inspector Benny Griessel is an alcoholic cop on the verge of losing his wife, kids and his job. He's been given one last chance to get himself off the drink and to solve the case of a vigilante killing paedophiles and child murderers that the justice system has failed to deal with. Christine, Thobela and Benny start to dance around each other, slowly circling until their inevitable convergence.

The real strengths of Devil's Peak are the characterisation, plotting and sense of place. Meyer provides an intricate story based on three in-depth character studies embedded in the turmoil of South African society, its criminal underbelly, and overstretched and corrupt police force. Over the course of the novel their back stories are revealed and teased apart as their lives start to intersect. The story moves at a steady pace, at times a little too slow for my tastes, slowed by detailed description, as Meyer carefully moves the inter-connecting pieces into place, but it builds to a page-turning finale. At its heart, the story is about the strengths and failings of people, families and institutional systems, and it raises questions about human nature, justice and the balance between self-destruction, love and survival. Benny Griessel and Meyer's storytelling reminded me of early Harry Bosch stories by Michael Connelly. Meyer writes with the same intensity, layering, and level of detailed knowledge that Connelly does, raising the story above the average police procedural fare. The overall result is a very fine read and I'll certainly be keeping an eye out Meyer's other novels.

Lazy Sunday Service

2012-01-08T10:05:00.005Z

The distributor failed to deliver a batch of books to my local bookstore on Friday, which meant my attempt to buy Adrian McKinty's The Cold, Cold Ground was thwarted yesterday. Hopefully, it'll be in stock sometime next week. Unable to get stuck into the first Detective Sean Duffy outing, I instead starting reading Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place. I'm about halfway in now and the pages are ticking over nicely. A really excellent filler whilst I wait for the book distributor to get its act together.

My posts this week
Best reads 2011
Around the world in 365 days
New to me authors read in 2011
Top read book reviews of 2011
Wee Rockets launches
Review of White Nights by Ann Cleeves
100 up
Reviews of books published in 2011
Swimming with loan sharks

Swimming with loan sharks

2012-01-07T10:50:00.004Z

'Where's my fuckin' money, Michael?'

'I ... I don't have it, Mr Doyle. I'm sorry ... things haven't worked out as I hoped.'

'I don't give a shite how things have worked out, Michael. I want my one thousand euro back.'

'But I only lent five hundred!'

'At twenty percent interest per week. It's been four weeks.'

'But one thousand euro! That's, that's ...'

'That's capitalism. I provided you with a service, Michael. You needed a loan, I gave you one. You knew the terms.'

'I need more time.'

'Two weeks. Same rate of interest. And next time ... '

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Reviews of books published in 2011

2012-01-06T11:31:00.001Z

Out of the 103 books I read last year, 34 were published in 2011, 31 of which were fiction. All of these books were bought, bar three. I'm not sure how much they cost, but buying books in the year they were published is a fairly expensive business. I'm not sure a third of my reading this year will be books published in 2012. Here are the books listed by my rating. The balance of ratings were reflective of those across all books read.

Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke *****

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan *****

Sweet Money by Ernesto Mallo *****

The Rage by Gene Kerrigan *****

Devil Red by Joe Lansdale ****.5

Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen ****.5

Ashes by Sergios Gakas ****.5

Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill ****.5

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridson ****

The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still by Malcolm Pryce ****

Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski ****

Dirty Old Town by Nigel Bird ****

Bloodland by Alan Glynn ****

Plugged by Eoin Colfer ****

The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin ***.5

The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan ***.5

The Quarry by Johan Theorin ***.5

White Death by Tobias Jones ***.5

The Fatal Touch by Conor Fitzgerald ***.5

One of Our Thursday's is Missing by Jasper Fforde ***.5

Falling Glass by Adrian McKinty ***.5

Death Toll by Jim Kelly ***.5

Taken by Niamh O'Connor ***

Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli ***

The Whispers of Nemesis by Anne Zouroudi ***

The Killer is Dying by James Sallis ***

The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris ***

The Red Coffin by Sam Eastland **.5

Frozen Out by Quentin Bates **.5

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry **.5

Agent X by Noah Boyd **

100 up

2012-01-06T10:30:00.001Z

I was having to update something this morning and realised that at some point last year I passed the 100th mark for volumes edited/authored. The vast bulk of these are issues of academic journals. The tally is: 20 academic books, 2 novels, 12 volumes of an encyclopedia, 68 issues of the journals Social and Cultural Geography, Progress in Human Geography and Dialogues in Human Geography, and 5 special issues of journals. I've no idea how much that totals in words, but my guess is somewhere between 11-12 million (the vast majority of which I didn't write, but edited). If nothing else, it amounts to a fair amount of dead trees and a lot of zeros and ones.

Review of White Nights by Ann Cleeves (2008, Pan)

2012-01-05T09:32:00.003Z

On the Shetland Isles the white nights of mid-summer when the sun barely sets over the horizon has everyone a little crazy. One evening a practical joker gate-crashes the opening of an art exhibition in the remote village of Biddesta. The next morning he is found hanging in a boat shed. Inspector Jimmy Perez was at the launch, hoping to start a new relationship with artist Fran Hunter. He's called to the scene and the local doctor rules the death murder rather than suicide. Whilst Perez waits for Chief Inspector Roy Taylor to arrive from Aberdeen, delayed by fog, he gets to work investigating the crime. The village of Biddesta is small, but tight knit, with a long shared history and secrets. The hanged man not yet identified, another murder is committed; this time a famous local musician is found at the bottom of a cliff. Taylor is wound like a cog, always wanting to force the pace of the investigation, whereas Perez is more reflective and circumspect. As a shetlander, Perez knows the people and place, but the puzzle of the deaths and the reason behind it are elusively out of reach and take a while to fall into place.

White Nights is the second book in the Shetland Quartet. My review of the first, Raven Black, is here. The strength of White Nights is its sense of place and characterisation. Cleeves immerses the reader in the small community, ways of life, and landscape of the Shetland Isles. The characters are well penned and the relationships between them credible and compelling. The telling was a little too descriptive at times for my tastes, especially near the start, but Cleeves has a nice easy going style of storytelling that is pleasant to the eye. I thought the middle of the book, once the investigation is well underway and Taylor is adding spice to tale, was excellent. My main problem was the resolution, which didn't quite gel for me. Regardless, this was a good, solid enjoyable read and I look forward to the third book in the series.

Wee Rockets launches

2012-01-04T16:28:00.006Z

It wasn't too long ago since I noted the publication of Gerard Brennan's The Point (Oct 19th, in fact). Hot on its heals, he now has a new book out as of January 1st - Wee Rockets published by Blasted Heath. Here's the blurb:

Wee Rockets is a gritty, urban morality tale; a wake-up call for society. It follows a gang of fourteen-year-old hoods as they rampage through West Belfast, fearless and forever upping the ante in their anti-social crimes. They mug pensioners to pay for the cider, cigarettes and sweets they hope will ease them through so many long, aimless days of summer. Their actions send shockwaves through an already damaged post-Troubles society that has yet to build a relationship with a new ‘catholic-friendly’ police force.

Stephen McVeigh, a local Gaelic football ‘star’ and concerned resident has had enough. He wants the kind of justice the Provos dealt in their heyday and he believes he’s the man to fill that void.

With rat-like instincts, Joe Phillips has realised that his luck can’t hold out much longer. He wants to relinquish his post as the leader of the Wee Rockets. But as Stephen McVeigh closes in with his ham-fisted investigation has Joe left it too late to change his ways? Without his loyal gang to back him up, Joe’s just a vulnerable fourteen-year-old kid from a broken home with nobody to turn to.

Wee Rockets does for Belfast what Irvine Welsh did for Edinburgh. It’s a frank look at the drink and drug-addled youth ejected onto the streets of a socially deprived community as they smirk in the face of authority and play Russian Roulette with their adolescent lives.

There's a promo video that accompanies the release. From 60 secs in it has Gerard walking a street in West Belfast discussing the area and the book.

Wee Rockets by Gerard Brennan from Blasted Heath on Vimeo.

At present, it's available from Amazon.co.uk for a special introductory price of 99 pence (or on Amazon.com for $1.50). I really am going to have to invest in an e-reader in the next couple of weeks as this is another e-only book I'm interested in reading. More details can be found at the publisher's website.

New to me authors read in 2011

2012-01-03T14:28:00.001Z

I read 74 books by 71 new to me authors in 2011 (out of 103 books read). Below are listed the 61 new to me fiction authors (listed alphabetically), the vast majority of whom are crime fiction writers. I plan to read other books by a fairly large number of them, which means a similar list for 2012 should hopefully be shorter than this!

Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen ****.5

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson ***.5

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry **.5

Frozen Out by Quentin Bates **.5

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes ***.5

Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill ****.5

Dirty Old Town by Nigel Bird ****

Open Season by CJ Box ***.5

Agent X by Noah Boyd **

A Stone of the Heart by John Brady ****.5

Plugged by Eoin Colfer ****

LA Requiem by Robert Crais ****

The Serbian Dane by Leif Davidsen ***

The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle ***.5

The Red Coffin by Sam Eastland **.5

The Rainy City by Earl Emerson ***.5

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan *****

The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris ****

The Fatal Touch by Conor Fitzgerald ***.5

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin *****

Greenwich Killing Time by Kinky Friedman ****

Ashes by Sergios Gakas ****.5

Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler ***

Winterland by Alan Glynn *****

Tilt-a-Whirl by Chris Grabenstein ****

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths ****

Headbanger by Hugo Hamilton ***

30 For a Harry by Richard Hoyt ***.5

White Sky, Black Ice by Nathan Jones ****.5

White Death by Tobias Jones ***.5

Death Toll by Jim Kelly ***.5

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov ***

The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson ****

The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin ***.5

Peeler by Kevin McCarthy ****

Orchid Blue by Eoin McNamee ***

The City, The City by China Mieville ***.5

Garnethill by Denise Mina ***

The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris ***

The Cutting Crew by Steve Mosby ****

The Big Mango by Jake Needham***.5

Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser ***

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn ****.5

Taken by Niamh O'Connor ***

1974 by David Peace ****.5

Still Life by Louise Penny ***.5

The Ice Harvest Scott Phillips ****

Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli ***

He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond ****

The Holy Thief by William Ryan *****

The Killer is Dying by James Sallis ***

Officer Down by Theresa Schwegel ****

Mixed Blood by Roger Smith *****

The Vienna Assignment by Olen Steinhauer ****

The Quarry by Johan Theorin ***.5

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson ****.5

The Main by Trevanian ****.5

Black Diamond by Martin Walker **.5

Miami Blues by Charles Willeford ***

Stratton's War by Laura Wilson ***

The Whispers of Nemesis by Anne Zouroudi ***

Around the world in 365 days

2012-01-02T09:31:00.002Z

Below are all my 2011 reviews organized by the country in which they were set (not by the nationality of the author). I managed to get a decent international spread, visiting 22 countries. The list is still dominated, however, by the US (29 books), although I managed 12 books set in Ireland, reading 17 books in total by Irish authors. Oddly, I only read one set in Australia, having read a number set there last year. Here's the split.

29: United States
12: Ireland
9: England
5: Russia
3: Greece, South Africa, Sweden
2: Iceland, France, Denmark, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Italy
1: Australia, Ukraine, Argentina, Thailand, Laos, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary
4: Fictional
2: Multiple countries
11: non-fiction

United States

The Killer is Dying by James Sallis ***

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin *****

LA Requiem by Robert Crais ****

Greenwich Killing Time by Kinky Friedman ****

Open Season by CJ Box ***.5

Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli ***

The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle ***.5

White Sky, Black Ice by Nathan Jones ****.5

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott ****.5

Pariah by Dave Zeltserman ****

Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski ****

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly **.5

The Deputy by Victor Gischler *****

Plugged by Eoin Colfer ****

The Saints of New York by RJ Ellory ***.5

Officer Down by Theresa Schwegel ****

Agent X by Noah Boyd **

Devil Red by Joe Lansdale ****.5

Slow Burn by G.M. Ford ***

30 For a Harry by Richard Hoyt ***.5

The Rainy City by Earl Emerson ***.5

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston *****

Secret Dead Men by Duane Swierczynski *****

Miami Blues by Charles Willeford ***

The Ice Harvest Scott Phillips ****

Tilt-a-Whirl by Chris Grabenstein ****

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson ****.5

Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler ***

Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill ****.5

Ireland

Bloodland by Alan Glynn ****

Winterland by Alan Glynn *****

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry **.5

Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke *****

The Dramatist by Ken Bruen ****.5

Headbanger by Hugo Hamilton ***

The Rage by Gene Kerrigan *****

A Stone of the Heart by John Brady ****.5

Falling Glass by Adrian McKinty ***.5

Peeler by Kevin McCarthy ****

Orchid Blue by Eoin McNamee ***

Taken by Niamh O'Connor ***

England

Call for the Dead by John Le Carre ****

Death Toll by Jim Kelly ***.5

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths ****

1974 by David Peace ****.5

Stratton's War by Laura Wilson ***

The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham ***

He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond ****

Dirty Old Town by Nigel Bird ****

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson ***.5

Russia

The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris ***

The Red Coffin by Sam Eastland **.5

The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan ***.5

The Holy Thief by William Ryan *****

People Who Walk in Darkness by Stuart Kaminsky **.5

South Africa

Mixed Blood by Roger Smith *****

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes ***.5

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn ****.5

Sweden

The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson ****

The Quarry by Johan Theorin ***.5

Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser ***

Greece

Ashes by Sergios Gakas ****.5

The Whispers of Nemesis by Anne Zouroudi ***

Crime Always Pays by Declan Burke ****.5

Scotland

The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris ****

Garnethill by Denise Mina ***

Wales

The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still by Malcolm Pryce ****

From Aberystwyth With Love by Malcolm Pryce ****

Italy

White Death by Tobias Jones ***.5

The Fatal Touch by Conor Fitzgerald ***.5

Canada

Still Life by Louise Penny ***.5

The Main by Trevanian ****.5

Denmark

Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen ****.5

The Serbian Dane by Leif Davidsen ***

Iceland

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridson ****

Frozen Out by Quentin Bates **.5

France

The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin ***.5

Black Diamond by Martin Walker **.5

Netherlands

The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan ****

Australia

The Brush Off by Shane Maloney ****.5

Hungary

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjowall and Pers Wahloo ****

Argentina

Sweet Money by Ernesto Mallo *****

Ukraine

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov ***

Austria

The Vienna Assignment by Olen Steinhauer ****

Thailand

The Big Mango by Jake Needham***.5

Laos

Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill ***

Multiple

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan *****

Field Grey by Philip Kerr *****

Fictional

The City, The City by China Mieville ***.5

One of Our Thursday's is Missing by Jasper Fforde ***.5

The Cutting Crew by Steve Mosby ****

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett ****

Best reads of 2011

2012-01-01T13:28:00.001Z

2011 was a good year for reading. I completed and reviewed 103 books, 92 of which were fiction. I awarded five stars to 12 fiction books and one non-fiction. Difficult to decide which two to leave off the top ten list, but below is my final ten fiction choices. My book of the year was Declan Burke's Absolute Zero Cool. Only two of the 34 books I read that were published in 2011 made it onto my final ten list (I might do a separate published in 2011 list).

Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke (2011). "Burke uses Greek mythology, theology and philosophy to deconstruct and satirise the life of a writer, the crime novel and contemporary society, especially the Irish health system. The result is a very clever book, that’s at once fun and challenging. The prose and plot has been honed within an inch of its life, full of lovely turns of phrases, philosophical depth and keen observational insight. ... Absolute Zero Cool takes the crime genre and its many tropes and stereotypes and throws them out the window. It’s a genuinely unique tale."

Crooked Le tte r, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (2010). "A slower burner of a novel that never really roars into fire, but rather sizzles along intensely from start to finish. Which suited me just fine; this was a book to savour. Like Daniel Woodrell, Franklin immerses the reader in the landscape, people and rhythms of rural America; its small town politics and social relations, the poverty and racism, the slowly decaying buildings and half-tamed wilderness. Indeed, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a masterclass in Country Noir - atmospheric, understated, dark, humane. The plotting was excellent with just the right balance of back story, historical flashbacks and contemporary unfolding."

Field Grey by Philip Kerr (2010). "Field Grey is a real return to form. It is a big book linking together parts of Bernie’s life between 1931 and 1954 and a connected set of events and actors in Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. The plotting is intricate, with the flashbacks skilfully interwoven with the 1954 narrative, and dotted with insightful observations and history. The pacing is well judged, the characterization excellent, the dialogue and action credible and engaging, and the balance between show and tell just right."

Mixed Blood by Roger Smith (2009). "Mixed Blood starts at a nice quick pace and steadily gathers more speed, rattling and twisting along like a rollercoaster by the end. This pace, however, is not at the expense of plot, sense of place or characterisation. Indeed, Smith manages to pack an awful lot into three hundred pages and Mixed Blood is a masterclass in tight, taut and tense writing. Smith perfectly captures the troubled post-Apartheid politics and geography of Cape Town, its racism, poverty, crime and corruption. The Cape Town tourist industry probably won't thank him for his efforts, but anyone who likes noir will thoroughly enjoy this dark tale."

The Holy Thief by William Ryan (2010). The Holy Thief skillfully weaves together a police procedural with the understated elements of a spy thriller a la Le Carre. The characterization is well developed and Korolev is sympathetically portrayed with an interesting back story and enough depth to sustain a series. Where the book excels is in the contextual framing of politics and social relations of Stalin’s Russia – the cliques and factions, the collectivization, the role of the state, the division of power and resources, the social conditions and the everyday drudge of making ends meet – and in the strong sense of place and claustrophobic atmosphere. The plot is carefully constructed and well paced, with sufficient twists and turns and tension points."

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (2011). "The book has all the ingredients I like in a novel - a strong story, well penned characters, a good sense of place and atmosphere, lovely prose, and a sensitive embedding in historical context. The characterization and the social relations between the principals - the love, jealousy and tension - is the standout quality of the book. At the heart of the story are the themes of friendship, betrayal, guilt and forgiveness and these are skillfully woven through each other, providing the threads that tie the two time periods together. The prose is rich and colourful, and a real joy to read."

Secret Dead Men by Duane Swierczynski (2004). "Swierczynski has one hell of an imagination and taking a reader and immersing her/him in the world as he’s conceived it, and to believe and go along with that world, takes a lot of skill. He manages to pull it off and after the first two dozen pages the story is zipping along. The jumping between bodies, false identities and double crossing demands a certain attention to the plot, but it’s well worth it. Secret Dead Men is a blast of a read and the most imaginatively conceived crime novel I’ve read in ages, possibly ever."

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston (2004). "Caught Stealing starts at a canter and is soon at a flat out gallop. Huston’s writing is terse, edgy and captivating. I was hooked from the first page to the last. Huston does a great job of introducing the reader to Hank and his world in an economical, yet rounded and somewhat self-depreciating fashion, and in constructing an action filled, yet strangely credible, plot. I thought it was a hoot. If someone has some spare cash for the film rights, and they’ve not already been snapped up, then it would make a terrific movie."

Winterland by Alan Glynn (2009). "Winterland is a searing social commentary on Irish life, full of keen observational insight and emotional depth. Glynn writes with deceptively engaging prose, appearing quite ordinary but actually well layered and lyrical. The principal characters are all nicely developed, with full contextual back stories. The plot was well structured and despite the story being framed as a thriller that links a disparate set of characters it is very believable. A very entertaining read that provides real insight into twenty first century Ireland."

The Deputy by Victor Gischler (2010). "The Deputy is country noir crime novel that unfolds at an ever-quickening pace. Gischler writes in a well honed, pared back prose, and like Daniel Woodrell seems to be able to paint characters with a few deft strokes. Whereas Woodrell focuses on the everyday and mundane consequences of crime, Gischler delivers a rollercoaster ride, with twists and turns and some very fine set pieces. There’s a nicely developed sense of place and the plotting is first rate. I thought it was a blast of a read and zipped through it in a sitting."

Non-Fiction book of the year

The Ghost Mountain Boys by James Campbell (2007). "The story of the 32nd Division’s campaign in New Guinea in WWII, their trek across the Owen Stanley range and the eerie Ghost Mountain, and their struggle to overrun the Japanese at Buna. A wonderfully engaging narrative that provides a detailed overview of the campaign. In my view, this is military history at its best, working at different levels and registers to give the reader a real sense of the tragedy of war. A poignant but rewarding read."

December reviews

2012-01-01T10:13:00.004Z

December was a bumper month of reading. Some very good reads including Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill and Ashes by Sergios Gakas, but the two standout books were Mixed Blood by Roger Smith and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. Very different in their styles and pace, and both excellent reads. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter probably just about shades my read of the month, but it's by a nose.

Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill ****.5
Taken by Niamh O'Connor ***
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes ***.5
Kursk by Lloyd Clark ***
Anglo Republic by Simon Carswell ****
The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris ***
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin *****
Mixed Blood by Roger Smith *****
The Killer is Dying by James Sallis ***
Ashes by Sergios Gakas ****.5
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov ***
LA Requiem by Robert Crais ****

2011 Review and Resolutions

2012-01-01T09:49:00.003Z

First things first, happy new year to everyone. I hope 2012 is a happy and prosperous one. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2011 and for the comments and chat.

Review

On the home front, 2011 was a good one, with the exception of my Nan's death.

On the work front, 2011 was a real stinker. I took over a second head of department role and inherited a deputy director role and spent most of the year in crisis management mode trying to fire fight issues and raise the funds for everyone's salary. I imagine that 2012 will be much the same. I can't say I'm looking forward to the work year ahead; one job is bad enough, three roles has me run ragged.

On the fiction writing front, I wrote two novels and a few short stories. I'm halfway through drafting a novella. I now have four completed novels in the bottom drawer, one of which I hope might see the light of day in 2012 if things fall in to place. On the academic writing front, I managed to write a handful of articles and book chapters, some blog posts, and made some headway on the dictionary I'm writing. I was an editor for nine issues of two academic journals and shepherded two book series. Two of my books were published, The Map Reader (Blackwell Wiley) and Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life (MIT Press).

On the reading front, I managed to read 103 books during the year and a whole bunch of short stories. A pretty good year for reading, though I faired a lot better with fiction than non-fiction.

On the blogging front, I wrote 311 posts on this blog, and another 50+ on Ireland After NAMA.

Resolutions

On the home front: try and lose a bit of weight and get a little fitter. Nothing drastic, but it would be nice to fit into 2010's clothes again.

On the work front: Don't take on any more roles or responsibilities and try to get rid of some of the ones I have. Cut back on commitments - I gave 23 talks in 2011, plus dozens of media interviews; interesting to do, but they took up a lot of time. Keep the two institutes ticking over and source a decent chunk of money.

On the writing front: Finish off the novella, then concentrate on short stories. This will be the year of short story writing and I aim to do at least one a month, along with a weekly drabble. With respect to academic writing, finish off the dictionary entries by the end of summer deadline and get to work on some decent articles and a new monograph. Try to stay on top of the editing work. 2012 is the year for getting my academic writing back on track.

On the reading front: Last year my resolution was to cut back on reading to concentrate on writing. In the end I read more books in 2011 than 2010. This year I'm just to see how it unfolds. I might well read more non-fiction if I manage to make a start on a new monograph. We'll see. This is probably the year I invest in an e-reader, simply because there are things I want to read that are being released in e-format only (specifically short story collections). I'm going to have a think about what brand to buy. Suggestions welcome.

On the blogging front, I aim to just carry on as normal, and see how I get on.

I hope that you'll succeed with whatever resolutions you've set for yourself.

The dance floor swallows him whole

2011-12-31T21:54:00.002Z

The music was throbbing, lights flashing in sequence.

'I'm telling you, she likes you,' Mike shouted, raising his pint to his lips.

'I don't even like me,' Richie shouted back, 'there's no way she does.'

From across the dance floor a young woman glanced over at them.

'Go on, ask her to dance.'

'She'll say no.'

'You won't know unless you ask! Go on, you wuss.'

'Sod it. I'll be back in ten seconds.'

He tapped her bare shoulder.

'Do you want to dance?'

'Only with your mate.' She looked past him.

His shoulders slumped. 'Come on, I'll introduce you.'

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Almost missed the regular Saturday slot; made it just in time!

2011 End of Year Book Meme

2011-12-31T11:09:00.003Z

I picked up this meme from Reactions to Reading, who got it from Jen's Book Thoughts. I read 103 books in 2011 (two more than 2010).

1. Best Book of 2011 - A close run thing but I'm going with Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke. Here's what I said in the review: "Burke uses Greek mythology, theology and philosophy to deconstruct and satirise the life of a writer, the crime novel and contemporary society, especially the Irish health system. The result is a very clever book, that’s at once fun and challenging. The prose and plot has been honed within an inch of its life, full of lovely turns of phrases, philosophical depth and keen observational insight. ... Absolute Zero Cool takes the crime genre and its many tropes and stereotypes and throws them out the window. It’s a genuinely unique tale." My favourite non-fiction book was Ghost Mountain Boys by James Campbell.

2. Worst Book of 2011 - Agent X by Noah Boyd. Here's my damning verdict. "In my view it was the literary equivalent of a Steven Seagal movie. The prose was workmanlike and flat and the dialogue wooden, lifeless and corny. The characters have no depth and their back stories are practically none existent. There is barely any chemistry between the leads, despite their supposed attraction. The plot is totally unbelievable, both in premise and its unfolding, with Vail solving a whole series of very difficult puzzles in a matter of seconds, undertaking James Bondesque escapes where the baddies really should have finished him off several times, and relying on a couple of unlikely coincidences."

3. Most Disappointing Book - Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly. I'm a massive Connelly fan, but for me this one fell well short of his best work. Here's part of my verdict. "The story felt rushed, with prose that was workmanlike and flat. And the plot was weak, feeling like two shorter stories jammed together. The part of the book set in Hong Kong, in particular, seemed to lack life, depth and credibility. There was a particular event that happens that is described as if it had barely any emotional resonance or trauma to Bosch and other characters, and it continues as a notable absence throughout the rest of the book. And from the minute Bosch arrives back from Hong Kong, very little of the plot seems credible. The result is a police procedural/psychological thriller with the psychology bit mostly missing; a Harry Bosch story where Bosch seems like a very pale version of himself." Still can't believe I wrote that about a Michael Connelly book; he's usually bang on the money.

4. Most surprising (in a good way) book - Mixed Blood by Roger Smith. Bought on a whim in a bookshop in London and with no sense of what to expect. It was one of my discoveries of the year. My verdict: "starts at a nice quick pace and steadily gathers more speed, rattling and twisting along like a rollercoaster by the end. This pace, however, is not at the expense of plot, sense of place or characterisation. Indeed, Smith manages to pack an awful lot into three hundred pages and Mixed Blood is a masterclass in tight, taut and tense writing."

5. Book you recommended to people most - Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke and The City, The City by China Mieville (I work in an academic Geography department and the latter is an interesting exploration of territory).

6. Best series you discovered - Difficult to judge but I plan on continuing with these four series - William Ryan's Captain Korolev, Asa Larsson's Rebecka Martinsson, Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway, and Stan Jones' Nathan Active.

7. Favourite new authors you discovered - I read books by 71 authors new to me in 2011. Alan Glynn, William Ryan and Victor Gischler made sufficient impact that I read two of their books during the year. Other new favourites include John Brady, Tom Franklin, Roger Smith, Esi Edugyan, Frank Bill and Sergios Gakas.

8. Most hilarious read - I didn't read half as many humorous novels as I would have liked, something I intend to alter in 2012. Top of 2011 list though goes to Eoin Colfer's Plugged. "A zip along plot; lots of action; plenty of twists and turns; some very funny scenes; a healthy dose of witty one liners; and a load of colourful characters."

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book - Field Grey by Philip Kerr, closely followed by Mixed Blood by Roger Smith and The Holy Thief by William Ryan.

10. Book you most anticipated - Devil Red by Joe Lansdale; One of Our Thursday's is Missing by Jasper Fforde; Field Grey by Philip Kerr. Big fan of all three series.

11. Favorite cover of a book you read - Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I like the simplicity and humour.

12. Most memorable character - Rudi "Gatsby" Barnard in Mixed Blood; Captain Korolev in The Holy Thief; Larry Ott in Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter; Sid in Half Blood Blues; Ruth Galloway in The Crossing Places

13. Most beautifully written book - Sweet Money by Ernesto Mallo had an unusual and engaging style, David Peace's 1974 was like reading a pitch perfect scream, Megan Abbott's Bury Me Deep was beautiful sculptures of prose, Frank Bill's Crimes in Southern Indiana was all float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, but I'm going for Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. My verdict was: "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a masterclass in Country Noir - atmospheric, understated, dark, humane."

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you - difficult to judge. The affective response to 1974 by David Peace and Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill were both quite powerful. Simon Carswell's Anglo Republic had my blood boiling at times.

15. Book you can’t believe you waited until 2011 to finally read? The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson first published in 1952. What can I say? I'm still catching up on the classics. Was it worth the wait? You betcha. The writing was tight, all tell and no show, and plotting and characterization was excellent.

Review of Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2011)

2011-12-31T09:53:00.005Z

Crimes in Southern Indiana is a collection of 17 short stories all set in the area and interlinked by characters and common settings such as the Leavenworth Tavern. They are also the darkest set of country noir tales you're ever likely to read. If they were accompanied by a musical score it would be fighting banjos played by Black Sabbath. These are dark, dark stories of the rural underclass and feature murder, revenge, drugs, prostitution, rape, dog fights, bare knuckle boxing, domestic violence, incest, child abuse, mental illness, hit and runs, and immigrant gangs. Bill's tales are populated by the desperate, the needy, the greedy, the lawless, the revengeful, the hapless and the hopeless; people whose moral compass has been whacked off kilter and never reset. Across the stories, the sense of place is palpable and the characterisation excellent. There is a little unevenness in storytelling, ranging from good to outstanding, but each tale is well conceived and paced, using prose that swings at the reader in graceful arcs and wallops in the gut like an iron fist wrapped in silk. The stories might have been ruthless, joyless, bittersweet, cathartic, violent and vengeful, but they evoke a powerful, conflicting affective response of repulsion and admiration. Definitely not a book for everyone, but for those that like their noir as black as the water at the bottom of the Ohio River, this is a must read.

2012 wishlist

2011-12-30T12:10:00.005Z

Here's what is presently on my 2012 reading wishlist, in no particular order:

The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

Money Shot by Christa Faust

Head Games by Craig McDonald

Death In The City Of Light by David King

Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

Incompetence by Rob Grant

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

The Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey

Or the Bull Kills You by Jason Webster

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint

White Heat by Melanie McGrath

Kiss Me Quick by Danny Miller

Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson

Cypress Grove by James Sallis

The Dead Detective by William Heffernan

The Imitation of Patsy Burke by John J. Gaynard

The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin

The Brotherhood by YA Erskine

Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh

When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson

Review of Taken by Niamh O'Connor (Transworld 2011)

2011-12-30T09:47:00.005Z

Celebrity model, Tara Parker Trench, has just filled up her car with petrol at a Dublin city centre garage. Her young son, Presley, is asleep in his car seat and its lashing rain so she decides to leave him in the car whilst she pays. When she returns a couple of minutes later, Presley has gone. Turning to the police for help they do very little. At her wits end, Tara seeks the aid of Inspector Jo Birmingham. Frustrated by her colleagues lack of action, she sets to work on the case. Very quickly it becomes clear that there is much more going on than a snatched child. Tara's world is not simply modelling and child care, but includes drugs, prostitution and people in high places. And she has just dragged Jo Birmingham into it and its dangers.

Taken starts at a clip and steadily builds steam. Niamh O'Connor works as the true crime editor of the Sunday World and she brings her knowledge of Ireland's criminal underbelly to the story, fictionalising elements of rumours concerning high class prostitution she's heard in her day job. Whilst the criminal side of the story, linking the rich and famous with underclass criminal gangs seems credible, the policing and family side of the story seemed less so. The guards are portrayed as incompetent, jealous and backstabbing, and the procedural elements are weak. This worked to create some tension and melodrama, but also undermined the credibility of the story. The plot also relied on some awkward set-ups at times, such as leaving the car unlocked, putting people in an inspector's office unattended, and a mobile phone too wet to use. Despite this, the story rattles along at a heck of a pace, dragging the reader with it as the various threads are woven together and resolved, culminating in an explosive finale. And given the high melodrama, its breakneck speed, and the mixing of the rich, famous and criminal gangs I can easily envisage Taken being serialised for television. Overall, a searing commentary on the legacy of Celtic Tiger excesses, played out through thrill-bound melodrama.

Review of Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot, 2010)

2011-12-29T16:02:00.007Z

From the back cover: "Zinzi has a sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit, and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons."

Zoo City is not an easy book to summarize. It's set in present day Johannesburg and follows Zinzi December, a former journalist and drug addict, as she tries to find one half of a pop band who has disappeared. Zinzi has spent time in prison for killing her brother. She's also been animalled, like others who have morally transgressed; twinned with an animal familiar that is symbiotically attached to her and also given a special power which acts as both a blessing and a curse. In her case, she carries round a sloth who is atuned to her thinking and she is able to find missing items. A new, unexplained phenomena around the world, those animalled are marginalised, living with stigma and on the edges of society. Zinzi squats in Zoo City eaking out a living from her special talent and by writing email scam letters for a gangster designed to get the gullible to part with their cash. As she tries to track the missing pop star she's drawn into a deadly conspiracy where she's being set up as the fall girl.

Zoo City is a highly imaginative and creative story; a kind of modern version of cyberpunk - blending new cultural forms and urban dystopias into a rich kaleidoscope of colour and action. Indeed, it reminded me of William Gibson circa Virtual Light. This is no bad thing. Beukes is something of a 'word pimp' in her own words, fashioning some nice prose and a richly realised world. I suspect it is a book that needs a second reading to fully appreciate all the nuances of the story. There is so much going on, some of which is only obliquely explained, that it sometimes a little difficult to follow what is unfolding. And whilst the story is engaging and clever, it is also seemed a little uneven its telling. That said, Zinzi December is an interesting character that's fun to spend some time with and the book is populated with other colourful folk and subcultures. Overall, a entertaining read that works on different levels.

Irony and iconography

2011-12-28T11:08:00.004Z

Finished Zoo City by Lauren Beukes yesterday. A book chocked full of ideas, imagination and astute observations. I could have pulled any number of passages out, but I liked this one about how the political is neutralised into a brand.

The Biko Bar is to Stephen Biko as crappy t-shirt design is to Che Guevara. His portrait stares down from various cheeky interpretations. A hand-painted bardber-shop sign with a line up of Bikos in profile modelling different hair-styles and headgear; a chiskop, a mullet, a makarapa mining helmet. Steve stares out with that trademark mix of determination and wistful heroism from the centre of a PAC-style Africa made of bold rays of sunlight. Steve, with a lion's mane, is the focal point of a crest of struggle symbols, power fists, soccer balls and a cursive "The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." My academic dad would have hated it. Reduced by irony and iconography to a brand.

Review of Kursk by Lloyd Clark (Headline Review, 2011)

2011-12-27T08:29:00.004Z

In early July 1943 the largest single battle in history took place around the Kursk salient on the frontline between German and Russian armies. It involved over two and half million men and several thousand tanks and planes and lasted less than three weeks. In that time the Russians suffered 177,847 casualties and lost 1600 armoured vehicles and 460 aircraft; the Germans lost 56,872 casualties and lost 252 tanks and 159 tanks. In a pincer movement from the north and south, the Germans launched an offensive to try and cut the salient off and ring the Russian troops. They played straight into the Russian plans, who had constructed several rings of defences designed to absorb and neutralize the attackers and to wear them down by shear attrition. This was to be followed by a large counter-offensive. For the Germans still reeling after Stalingrad, this was the last major offensive of the war; a last throw of the dice. 'Stalingrad was the end of the beginning,' in Churchill's words, 'Kursk was the beginning of the end.'

Lloyd Clark's book seeks to tell the story of the battle, placing it in the context of the larger German-Russian relations and the Eastern front, and to tell it from both sides. This scope means the book falls between two stools. On the one hand, the contextualisation material takes up far too much of the book. It is only at page 218 (out of 389) that we get to the battle. For anyone who is interested in military history, the pre-war material is a distraction; they most likely bought the book to read about the battle in particular. The context needed to focus solely on the immediate run up to it, not the previous thirty years, and it needed to be a lot shorter (it could have started around page 166, for example). On the other hand, given that the battle constitutes less than half the book and it's trying to detail a massive engagement, the material is quite sketchy and sometimes difficult to follow. There are a number of maps in the book, but the text never refers to them once and they appear at chapter breaks rather than where they are discussed in the narrative (and it's quite difficult to link up text and map due to labelling and coverage). They could have been used to much better effect. The description is quite dry, and whilst Clark tries to place the reader on the battlefield through the voices of some of the men who took part in the battle it doesn't work as effectively as it might. Kursk works as a general primer to the hostilities between Germany and Russia, the Eastern front, and the battle, but readers with a general interest in Second World War military history who want a detailed account of the battle itself will probably be better off looking elsewhere.

Review of Anglo Republic by Simon Carswell (Penguin, 2011)

2011-12-26T10:57:00.003Z

In 2006 Ireland was riding on the back of the Celtic Tiger phenomena. The country was booming. The sky was full of cranes, unemployment was the lowest in Europe, everyone seemed to be driving a new car, and shopping trips to New York seemed normal. Fast forward to the end of 2011 and the country is in a very different place. One of the biggest banking busts globally led to the country being bailed out by the troika of IMF-ECB-EU and the effective loss of economic sovereignty. Unlike most of the rest of the global financial crisis that started to unfold in 2007, Ireland's economic crisis was not tied to the packaging and reselling of complex financial derivatives linked to sub-prime loans in the US. Rather it was a good, old fashioned property bubble grossly inflated by access to global inter-bank lending, very poor financial regulation, tax incentives, laissez faire planning, and greed. Ireland's banks, hungry for profit and growth, started to believe the rhetoric of developers hungry for capital to buy land and build property, and lent out massive sums of money. Risk assessment, due diligence and basic market analysis were pushed to one side. The result was huge profits, high stock price, massive lending way in-excess of deposit books, and enormous over-exposure to property. As the global financial crisis started to bite, the Irish banks and their lending came under scrutiny. Large institutional shareholders, investors and depositors started to get nervous. Share price dropped, money flowed out of the country, and investors wanted repaying. A run on the Irish banks seemed likely. The Irish government stepped in with a bank guarantee scheme, offering a national guarantee to all deposits and investments (to the tune of €440 billion). Next followed a calamitous set of decision-making that ultimately led to recapitalisation and nationalisation of the banks, the formation of NAMA, effectively a state bad bank, and the country being bankrupted. Bankrupted being the right word, since by tying the state to the Irish banks through the guarantee, the country was wedded to their dwindling fortunes.

Anglo Republic tells this tale through a forensic examination of Anglo Irish Bank. Anglo was the financial darling of the Celtic Tiger years. It grew from a small investment bank to become the third largest bank in the state. Each year it posted record profits and its share price grew accordingly. And more than any other bank its growth was tied to the property sector. Analysts were flabbergasted at its performance. Rather than questioning its business practices, they instead invested. Here was a bank that had seemingly found a magic formula. As Simon Carswell's book reveals, however, it's success was built on poor foundations and dodgy practices. Anglo was dependent on persistent high growth in the Irish economy to keep its house of cards upright. As soon as the economy started to slow, it started to fail. And it started using all kinds of tricks to keep the cards in place, including shifting money on and off the books when accounts were being audited and lending money to borrowers to buy shares to keep the share price up. If things were bad in the bank, things weren't much different outside with the financial regulator, Central Bank and Department of Finance all working to keep a dying entity alive. Anglo was viewed by the Irish government as a systemic risk to the state and could not simply wound down. Its balance sheet was equivalent to 60% of Irish GDP (Lehman Brothers was 7% of US GDP), and represented a fifth of the banking sector. Globally, no bank that represented such a large proportion of a country's banking balance sheet had failed before. All told, an entire year's worth of tax receipts were pumped into Anglo and promptly written down, never to be seen again. When Carswell chose the subtitle, 'Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland', he was being literal.

Anglo Republic is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the present Irish crisis and how it unfolded from a wider banking perspective and within a single financial institution. Carswell has amassed amount of information on the company and how it operated, included access into board meetings, email between key players and dozens of interviews. He does a very good job at putting a shape to all this information, producing a compelling narrative that details what went on in and outside the bank. Crucially he manages to weave the main characters, their motivations and actions, into the story to lift the book up out of a rather dry history. Sean FitzPatrick, David Drumm, Sean Quinn, Pat Neary and Brian Lenihan all figure prominently. What is particularly interested is the ways in which FitzPatrick, Drumm and Quinn schemed to try and save themselves and their personal fortunes whilst trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. Where the book is a little thin is with respect to wider analysis and judgement. Carswell describes in great detail Anglo's rise and fall, but does little to explain it; he shies away from commenting on the legalities and moralities of actions taken; and he fails to state how he thinks the system needs to changed to stop such a situation arising again. Overall, a book heavy on factual narrative that provides a very useful descriptive analysis of a banking and state failure. It's also a book that should perhaps come with a health warning: 'likely to make your blood boil'.

Lazy Christmas Service

2011-12-25T08:33:00.006Z

Happy seasonal break. Hope some nice books are under your tree (or as with the photo right the whole tree is made of books) and you get the time to read them.

My posts this week:
Review of The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris
Review of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Review of Mixed Blood by Roger Smith
Seasonal reading
Review of The Killer is Dying by James Sallis
The cook is in meltdown

The cook is in meltdown

2011-12-24T08:39:00.002Z

'Steve?'

'Yeah?' he replies from the living room.

'Where's the cranberry sauce?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, can you find it and put it on the table? Your parents are going to arrive anytime now.'

'We've loads of time until we eat.'

'Just do it will you!'

Steve enters the kitchen. The two children follow him in, clutching games consoles and radiating excitement. They head for a tin of chocolates.

'Out!' Chloe snaps. 'It's nearly time for Christmas dinner!'

Steve puts an arm round her waist. 'Hey, calm down. It's just a dinner.'

'Not with your mother judging it, it isn't.'

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Killer is Dying by James Sallis (No Exit Press, 2011)

2011-12-23T09:34:00.004Z

For forty years Christian has advertised as a disposer of dolls. Seriously ill he is working what will probably be his last hit. Someone else however gets there before him, though they botch the job. Sayles, a tired cop nearing the end of his career, and his partner Graves are assigned to the case. Not wanting to die a slow painful death in front of her husband, Sayles' wife, Josie, has fled to an anonymous hospice. Meanwhile, Jimmie, a young teenager abandoned by his parents, wheels and deals on ebay to pay the household bills and create the impression that he's not living home alone. Used to dreamless nights, he's started to have the vivid dreams of a killer. The three lonely men orbit around each other as Christian hunts for the person who attacked his target, Sayles works the case, and Jimmie tries to maintain his illusion.

I found The Killer is Dying a curious read. It's elliptical, layered and somewhat ponderous, seeming to almost skirt around the edges of what might be considered the main story (the attempted killing of Rankin). For a short book, it's full of asides and tangent observations. The reader is given entry ways into the lives of the three main characters, small samples of their back stories, but it all remains a little bit elusive and enigmatic. One part of me liked this as it invited the reader to work with the author, another part found it frustrating that so much was left tantalizingly out of reach. Having reached the final page, my overall sense was that I never really felt I got to know either the case or the characters to any sufficient degree. Sallis' writing is prose with a nice cadence. His style and how he approaches the story has its charms, but for my tastes the story needed a little more depth and definition. There was enough here, however, that I'll give another one of his books a go.

Seasonal reading

2011-12-22T08:11:00.002Z

For the last couple of years I have spent the seasonal break with my head down writing. For a change, I'm going to pass this year and read instead. I've pulled ten books off the pile for the seasonal break. I almost certainly won't get through them all, but I'm looking forward to having a go.

Zoo City - Lauren Beukes
Crimes in Southern Indiana - Frank Bill
Kursk - Lloyd Clark
White Nights - Ann Cleaves
Buried Strangers - Leighton Gage
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Black Sheep - Arlene Hunt
Shaman Pass - Stan Jones
Prague Fatale - Philip Kerr
Taken - Niamh O'Connor

A good mix there, I think.

Review of Mixed Blood by Roger Smith (Serpent's Tail, 2009)

2011-12-21T10:51:00.002Z

A veteran of the Iraq war, Jack Burn has fled the US having taken part in a bank raid in which a cop died. He lands up in an exclusive enclave of Cape Town, South Africa, with his heavily pregnant wife and young son. Their troubles though are only just starting. Just as they are sitting down to eat, two local gangsters looking to commit an opportunistic robbery enter the house. Jack dispatches them with ruthless efficiency. However, Benny Mongrel, the watchman on the building site next door has witnessed the botched robbery, and the vicious, crooked cop, Rudi Barnard, is looking for one of the gangsters. Massively overweight and overbearing, Barnard thinks that he is conducting God's work and dispenses his own brand of justice in the Cape Flats, a vast sprawling suburb of poverty and lawless. His behaviour has attracted the attentions of those wishing to clean-up corruption in the police force; the solution he knows is a large payoff. Whilst Burn disposes of the gangster's bodies, he fails to move their car, thus attracting the attentions of Barnard. And once Barnard gains an inkling of Burn's past, he sees an opportunity to gain the money he needs to buy off his pursuers.

Mixed Blood starts at a nice quick pace and steadily gathers more speed, rattling and twisting along like a rollercoaster by the end. This pace, however, is not at the expense of plot, sense of place or characterisation. Indeed, Smith manages to pack an awful lot into three hundred pages and Mixed Blood is a masterclass in tight, taut and tense writing. Smith perfectly captures the troubled post-Apartheid politics and geography of Cape Town, its racism, poverty, crime and corruption. The characters of Benny Mongrel and Rudi Barnard are very well penned, as are their back stories. The only characters I had trouble buying into were Jack and Susan Burn, who seemed a little shallow and thin. Otherwise, this is a cracker of a story. The Cape Town tourist industry probably won't thank him for his efforts, but anyone who likes noir will thoroughly enjoy this dark tale. I'll certainly be tracking down his other books. One of my discoveries of the year.

Review of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (Pan, 2010)

2011-12-20T09:20:00.003Z

In the small, rural town of Chabot, Mississippi, Larry Ott has been an outsider his whole life. Bullied and marginalised at school, his only friend was Silas, a black kid who lived with his single mother in a rundown shack in the woods owned by Ott's father. Silas was a rising baseball star and he and Larry have an uneasy relationship, largely confined to playing in the forest. When a local girl asks Larry for a date he sees an opportunity to join the fold. When she fails to return, Larry is suspected of abducting and murdering her. It's an accusation he can't shake free despite never confessing and there being no material evidence to link him to her disappearance. The result is that he is further ostracized. After his father dies in a drunk driving accident and his mother enters a home because of dementia, he is left to look after the land and his father's garage, living a lonely existence. Twenty years after his date vanished another local girl has disappeared and Ott is once again in the spotlight as a possible perpetrator. Having headed away after school, Silas is now back and working as the local cop. He's managed to avoid talking to Larry since the last abduction, but now their paths seem destined to cross; something Silas has his own reasons for dreading.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a slower burner of a novel that never really roars into fire, but rather sizzles along intensely from start to finish. Which suited me just fine; this was a book to savour. Like Daniel Woodrell, Franklin immerses the reader in the landscape, people and rhythms of rural America; its small town politics and social relations, the poverty and racism, the slowly decaying buildings and half-tamed wilderness. Indeed, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a masterclass in Country Noir - atmospheric, understated, dark, humane. It is a story that makes its readers reflect on life, how we treat each other, and how we're wrapped up in a contingent, relational set of values and interactions. The plotting was excellent with just the right balance of back story, historical flashbacks and contemporary unfolding. Larry, Silas and the other characters are very well realised, the dialogue authentic, and the scenes and social relations realistic. The childhood bullying, marginalisation and eventual isolation of Larry in adulthood is very nicely done. I thought the book might rise to a crescendo, but Franklin keeps the understated and humaneness of the story consistent to the end avoiding unnecessary clichés and leaving a nice sense of open closure. Before reading the book I thought the title was a little clunky. On finishing it, I think it works well to capture the crooked twining of Larry and Silas. Overall, a very fine piece of storytelling that lends itself well to movie adaptation.

Review of The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris (Faber, 2011)

2011-12-19T13:31:00.003Z

St Petersburg in 1872 and as the ice melts and spring awakens radical politics are starting to challenge the authority of the Tsar and his institutions. Pavel Pavlovich Virginski is an investigative magistrate who has sympathy with the calls for political reform, though not necessarily the appetite for revolution. As he returns home after watching a distillery burn after being attacked by arsonists he meets a man who challenges him to act on his convictions. The next morning the body of a man is found in a thawing canal. A witness to the discovery is later found dead after his apartment is set on fire, also killing the children of the family living next door. Inspector Porfiry Petrovich starts to investigate the case, along with his colleague Virginski, quickly coming to understand that it has a political dimension. Warned off the case by Section Three, the department that investigates political crimes, Petrovich and Virginski continue to pry, Virginski using his new contact from the distillery fire to infiltrate a radical political network to seek answers.

The Cleansing Flames is the fourth instalment of Morris' Inspector Porfiry Petrovich series and the first I've read. Whilst there is much to admire about Morris' writing, especially his wry observations, social and political historicisation and sense of place, for my tastes the story suffered from a weak plot, some non-credible characters, and being overly long. The plot holds much promise, centring on a political cell in Tsarist St Petersburg. However, the cell seemed so weakly organised and run, populated by a diverse range of extravert characters, that it would have been pried open within moments of its formation, let alone sustain an entire novel's attention. That might have been okay, but I just didn't believe in Virginski as a character and his actions in infiltrating the cell, nor in a number of the other minor characters. And the dreaded Section Three, which could have provided a useful foil for the investigators, disappears without a trace in the second half of the novel. The story is quite flabby in places, with extended descriptive passages, and in my view would have benefitted from losing at least fifty pages to make it tighter and tenser. What saves the book is the overall atmosphere, political intrigue, its detailing of social relations, and Morris' subtle black humour. Overall, an interesting enough read, but with a few tweaks to the plot and tightening of the narrative it could have been a really good yarn.

Lazy Sunday Service

2011-12-18T11:12:00.005Z

I bought a book yesterday based pretty much on the title, The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq, released last month (the geographer in me has difficulty passing over such a title; also its partly set in Ireland). I looked it up on Amazon when I got home to discover that it has already managed to split reviewers. Seems the book is a Marmite read - you'll either love it or hate it, even if you were previously a Houellebecq fan. Hopefully I'll be in the latter camp as it wasn't a cheap buy.

I've been slow in my posts this week. The last two weeks have been very busy at work. I'll be catching up with posting book reviews in the coming week - I have four lined up including The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, Mixed Blood by Roger Smith, and Anglo Republic by Simon Carswell. Have just made a start on The Killer is Dying by James Sallis, so that'll be coming up soon as well.

My posts this week
Mr Big by Woody Allen
What is trust ...
A mini-spree in London
You can ring my parents

You can ring my parents

2011-12-17T07:59:00.003Z

'Here's your Christmas present,' Mark held out an envelope. 'You'd better open it now.'

'Now?' Sarah's brow crinkled in puzzlement. Tentatively she pulled the card free. 'A week in Majorca.'

'We leave tomorrow. Better pack a bikini.'

'But we'll miss Christmas.'

'They have it out there as well.'

'But what about my parents?'

'I'm not paying for them to come with us.'

'But we're meant to be going to them!'

'We can go afterwards. Staying here is going to be depressing. Doom and gloom and the same old shite on the television.'

'If you ring my parents; I'll start packing.'

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

A mini-spree in London

2011-12-16T17:45:00.005Z

I flew into London on Wednesday night and flew back this afternoon. I was over for an editorial board meeting and slotted a couple of other meetings in. I did manage, however, to pick up a trio of books that I aim to read over the seasonal break. Two are them are new to me authors (Sallis, Smith). I've already made a start on Mixed Blood on the plane over. Great stuff. Reviews should appear over the next few weeks, hopefully.

James Sallis - The Killer is Dying
Roger Smith - Mixed Blood
Philip Kerr - Prague Fatale

What is trust ...

2011-12-14T08:07:00.001Z

I finished The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris last night (review soon). It has a number of nice observational touches. I liked this one about the relative, provisional nature of trust. A very poststructural argument.

'Can I trust you? Can you trust me? Can he trust us? I mean to say, my dear Kirill Kirillovich, that trust is always relative, always provisional, always unstable. Trust, whatever it is, is a highly volatile substance. I am not sure it even exists at all. And so, there is no meaningful answer to the question you asked. One must act as if there is trust between us, otherwise we could get nothing done. Still and all, at the same time, one must never lower one's guard. In essence, trust no one. Do not even trust yourself, Kirill Kirillovich.'

Mr Big by Woody Allen

2011-12-12T09:47:00.005Z

One of the stories in Murder for Christmas edited by Thomas Godfrey is Mr Big by Woody Allen. It's not exactly a Christmas tale, but it's a clever little piece playing on schools of philosophy, the existence of God, and hardboiled PI in the tradition of Chandler and Hamnett. PI Kaiser Lupowitz has been hired by a femme fatale to find a missing person, God. It's been converted to radio by The Drama Hour (click on the link to take a listen). The text is here.

Lazy Sunday Service: Murder for Christmas

2011-12-11T11:10:00.007Z

Got a nice early present yesterday - Murder for Christmas edited by Thomas Godfrey. The edition I have was published 1982 by Mysterious Press. It was first published 1958 which explains the make-up of authors. Here's the list of contents:

Back for Christmas / John Collier
Mr. Big / Woody Allen
The adventure of the blue carbuncle / Arthur Conan Doyle
The adventure of the Christmas pudding / Agatha Christie
Dancing Dan's Christmas / Damon Runyon
Cambric tea / Marjorie Bowen
Death on Christmas eve / Stanley Ellin
A Christmas tragedy / Baroness Orczy
Silent night / Baynard Kendrick
The stolen Christmas box / Lillian de la Torre
A chaparral Christmas gift / O. Henry
Dealth on the air / Ngaio Marsh
Inspector Ghote and the miracle baby / H.R.F. Keating
Maigret's Christmas / Georges Simenon
To be taken with a grain of salt / Charles Dickens
The adventure of the Dauphin's doll / Ellery Queen
Markheim / Robert Louis Stevenson
The necklace of pearls / Dorothy L. Sayers
Blind man's hood / Carter Dickson
Christmas is for cops / Edward D. Hoch
The thieves who couldn't help sneezing / Thomas Hardy
The case is altered / Margery Allingham
Christmas party / Rex Stout
The flying stars / G.K. Chesterton
Mother's milk / James Mines
Ring out, wild bells / D.B. Wyndham Lewis

Looking forward to dipping in and out of this over the seasonal break.

My posts this week:
Review of Ashes by Sergios Gakas
The problem with thinking ...
Rotten from the top down
Banksters
First timers likely to buy or property sector's pipe dream?
Review of Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
Cancelling Christmas

Cancelling Christmas

2011-12-10T09:06:00.002Z

'There's no way we're cancelling Christmas.'

'I'm not saying we cancel it; I'm saying it can't be like previous years. We can't afford it.'

'So you want us to have bangers and mash for Christmas dinner?'

'No! I'm saying we need to cut back on the presents.'

'They're seven and nine! They've been looking forward to this all year. Just because we're broke doesn't mean we're ruining their Christmas.'

'I'm not talking about ruining it; I'm talking about making sure they're not eating bangers and mash until next Christmas.'

'And you think fewer presents is going to stop that happening?'

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (Vintage, 2003; in Russian 1996)

2011-12-09T14:41:00.003Z

Victor is a lonely aspiring writer in post-Soviet Kiev who lives with Misha, a depressed King Penguin who he has adopted from the city zoo who were unable to afford to look after the bird. Unable to place enough short stories to make a living, Victor approaches a newspaper to see if they might have any work. They immediately offer him a job writing obelisks - obituaries for notable people who have not yet died. The work seems straightforward and Victor's life starts to change in both positive and weird ways - he gains a new friend and a surrogate family; people keep letting themselves into his apartment and leaving him things. He also starts to notice that his obelisks are starting to be printed with unnerving regulatory. And more unsettling still, the grieving families want Misha to attend the funerals. As the truth behind his work emerges, Victor feels increasingly alienated and trapped.

Death and the Penguin is a black tragic-comedy. It is written in short, simple sentences and told through a series of short scenes in a deadpan style. The premise of the story is interesting and the telling is deceptively effective. There is a nice building up of additional characters and there is a good sense of place in post-Soviet Kiev, though some wider political contextualisation would have been useful. The inclusion of Misha was, I thought, was a nice touch and was well used. There were, however, two main issues with the story. The first was that Victor was very one-dimensional as a character with little emotional depth or resonance. He seemed quite monotonous regardless of circumstance or context. The second is that towards the end of the story, the narrative veered towards the absurd and for me, at least, started to fall apart. Overall, I enjoyed the read, but wasn't bowled over by it.

Banksters

2011-12-08T12:02:00.005Z

I'm having a bit of an understanding banking binge at the minute. Last night I watched Inside Job, a documentary about the global financial meltdown with a particular focus on the US banking system. On Monday, I watched The Bank that Ran Out of Money about the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a provincial bank that over a period of a decade grew through acquisitions and dodgy products to briefly become the world's largest bank. I'm also still working my way through Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank That Broke Ireland about Anglo Irish Bank and its rapid rise and catastrophic failure. What all three reveal is how, on the one hand, bankers, insurers and other financiers' greed led to them forgetting that they were entrusted to manage customer's money and to provide sound and prudent financial advice and loans, and, on the other, that government and financial regulators failed the people who elected and trusted them by not regulating the financial system. Bankers used to be prudent and careful, partly because it was often their own money they were investing, and partly because they were regulated sufficiently to stop them gambling other peoples' money. In the last couple of decades, the bankers and politicians got into bed with each other and forgot that they were working for their constituents. The sad thing is that practically nothing has changed post crisis. Financial regulation is still almost absent and bankers are still making massive bonuses for taking risks with other peoples' money and losing it. This is the first generation in the US that are poorer than their parents and have less opportunity for class progression than their parents. The country seems to be being driven into the ground through the process of wealth transfer from the lowest earning 90% to the top 1% aided and abetted by government; the wealthy are literally asset stripping the country leaving poverty and homelessness in their wake. Heaven knows where the country will be in twenty to thirty years time if it continues on the path its on. The society portrayed by William Gibson's Virtual Light or Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash seems very possible. Anyway, take a look at Inside Job. It'll enlight and infuriate.

Rotten from the top down

2011-12-07T09:07:00.000Z

Ashes by Sergios Gakas has a strong theme of institutional corruption, including the police itself. Here's a short passage revealing how the problem stems from the top down.

I decided to tell him. Not because he was my friend; it had not taken me long to realize that in this job you cannot have friends. I had to talk to him because he was my boss and in this case I needed him onside. The Chief was one exhausted technocrat, handpicked by the Prime Minister himself, a dull negligible character, who, for the last three years, had been failing to keep the ship afloat, a ship sailing under too many different flags. A ship that in its hold concealed some very good intentions, as well as bad ones, incompetence, corruption, hard work, bureaucracy and, above all, personal ambition. He had spent quite some time on the other side of the Atlantic, and was in all likelihood, in the pay of the Americans. Perhaps that was why he moved with such ease through the huge, worm-infested, third world sewer the Hellenic Police was still fed on. However convinced he was that the police were dealing heroin, he was just as convinced that the situation would never change in a million years. Besides, Zorro had never been a particular hero of his. He preferred to proceed with caution and settled for small improvements. "The police force is never going to change society, get used to that," he would say when we had been knee-deep in shit on various cases.

The problem with thinking ...

2011-12-06T12:24:00.004Z

I've started to read R.N. Morris' The Cleansing Flames. Only sixty or so pages in, but came across a nice passage last night about the opportunities and dangers of thinking.

To think - to think deeply and honestly and freely - was to make yourself vulnerable. It involved cutting yourself loose from the security of received ideas and laying yourself open to new ones. It was an unsettling activity. Eventually, if one perservered, it led to greater strength. But first there was a period of uncertainty and anxiety to endure, from which some never emerged. They would spend their whole lives in a state of crippling doubt, cowering beneath a shell of cynicism.

One of the joys of being a social scientist, I think, is to spend an entire career intellectually vulnerable and in doubt, though hopefully not of the crippling kind.

Ashes by Sergios Gakas (MacLehose, 2011)

2011-12-05T12:13:00.003Z

When a small cottage owned by an alcoholic lawyer, Simeon Piertzovanis, is burned to the ground the only survivor is Sonia Varika, a former actress. She is badly burned and is rushed to an intensive care unit. The three victims are an elderly man, an African woman and her young daughter. Colonel Halkidis of internal affairs pulls in a favour to be assigned the case. A former lover of Varika, he's determined to bring the people responsible for the arson to justice. Halkidis soon discovers that the cottage has been targeted by a right wing group for some time. Teaming up with Piertzovanis, also one of Sonia's former lovers, they start to uncover the truth. However, their investigation is quickly blocked by powerful forces both within and outside the police. Rather than retreating, the pair decide to fight fire with fire, pursuing justice and revenge with deadly consequences.

Ashes is a fine slice of Greek noir. All of the principle characters and institutions are deeply flawed. Although in charge of internal affairs, Colonel Halkidis is addicted to cocaine and is prepared bend the law in savage ways, though he does so for justice not financial gain. Piertzovanis is an alcoholic and prone to depression and melancholy. Raina is cheating on her boyfriend. Sonia is vain and a lush. Just about all the other characters are corrupt or prepared to turn a blind eye. The police, the government, the Church and businesses are all riddled with taken-for-granted corruption and cronyism. The story is well plotted, though it does become a little unconvincing in the latter pages as Halkidis' revenge spirals out of control and goes unchallenged. The story is told in the first person from three perspectives - Halkidis and Piertzovanis in alternating chapters, and Sonia whilst in a coma. This works surprisingly well, with Gakas able to maintain three distinct voices whilst revealing what each thinks of the other, as well as fleshing out their back stories. Indeed, the characterisation is strong throughout. There is a good sense of place and as well as being a fine crime story, Ashes is a searing social commentary on the Greek society and its institutions. Having read the novel it is certainly much easier to understand the events in the country over the past couple of years. I thoroughly enjoyed Ashes and if any of Gakas' other books are translated I intend to give them a go. There's an interesting interview with the author on the publisher's website.

Lazy Sunday Service

2011-12-04T09:55:00.003Z

I've just finished Sergios Gakas' Ashes set in Greece just prior to the 2004 Olympics. The whole book is searing social commentary on Greek society and its institutions, but one sentence in particular made me pause for thought. 'If your funeral was a ticket only affair, how much would you make?' Now there's strong assumptions here about what constitutes a valuable life, but an interesting question to reflect upon ...

My posts this week
Cover rage
Review of Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason
Animal sidekicks
November reviews
Review of LA Requiem by Robert Crais
China's ghost cities
I'm meant to be grateful?

I’m meant to be grateful?

2011-12-03T07:57:00.003Z

‘To NAMA!’ Jimmy raised a pint of Guinness.

‘Fuck NAMA!’ Tom snapped.

‘We’d be bust without them. The whole lot gone.’

‘Has to be better than being slowly bled to death on life support.’

‘Ah, come-on, Tom. You’d have lost your house. Your cars. Holiday homes. Everything.’

‘House is in the wife’s name and we’ve a wee nest egg in a daughter’s account in the Isle of Man. Fuck’em.’

‘They bailed us out big time,’ Jimmy persisted.

‘They bailed themselves out. They get our developments at half price, we pay back the full whack and I’m meant to be grateful?’

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of LA Requiem by Robert Crais (Orion, 1999)

2011-12-02T13:47:00.002Z

Elvis Cole runs a PI agency in LA with the silent, brooding Joe Pike. Both are former elite soldiers and are highly skilled investigators. When Karen Garcia goes missing her father calls on Pike, a former lover of Garcia, to find her. A few hours later she's found next to a lake, shot in the head. The investigation is to be conducted by detectives from Robbery-Homicide headed up by the weasely Krantz. Pike and Krantz have a troubled history stretching back to when Pike was a rookie cop and his partner was under investigation by internal affairs. Garcia's father has some political juice and uses his influence to allow Cole and Pike to shadow the police investigation. Frustrated by Krantz's lack of cooperation and ineptness they strike out on their own, quickly discovering that Garcia was the fifth victim of a serial killer, one who seems determined to exact revenge for some unknown reason.

Without wishing to offend either author, LA Requiem reminded a lot of Michael Connelly's LA stories, especially those concerning Harry Bosch. The writing style, setting and focus seemed very similar to me - LA, Robbery-Homicide, serial killer, investigators who are Vietnam vets. This is no bad thing as I think both are very fine writers, rather just an observation. LA Requiem rattles along at quick, steady pace. Crais writes with an assured hand. The story is well crafted, with a nice layering of various subplots and back story that add to the overall narrative rather than detracting from it. Crais paints a good sense of place, the characters are well penned, and the story builds to a nice climax. There were a few elements that unsettled me a little, however. Maybe it's because I don't live in the US, but I had a hard time believing that two private investigators could get any meaningful access to a serial killer investigation, especially not through a councilman (perhaps maybe something more significant like a governor I could have gone along with). The Samantha Dolan character didn't quite seem to ring true, especially in her quest for Cole. And regardless of any material evidence relating to Pike, the fact that he escaped from incarceration would have legal consequences. Despite the niggling doubts about credibility, LA Requiem is an enjoyable read and I'll be looking out for other Elvis Cole books.

November reviews

2011-12-01T18:18:00.004Z

I've five 4 star reviews for November. A reasonably good month, though on reflection I suspect I've been a little over-generous with the ratings for a couple of them (they felt right at the time). Difficult to pluck one from the pack, but I'm going for The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still by Malcolm Pryce. Whilst it was a little uneven, the first half was excellent; it was inventive, witty and engaging.

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridson ****
Call for the Dead by John Le Carre ****
The Red Coffin by Sam Eastland **.5
The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris ****
The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin ***.5
The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still by Malcolm Pryce ****
Greenwich Killing Time by Kinky Friedman ****

Animal sidekicks

2011-11-30T13:18:00.005Z

Two books have recently arrived in the post, both of which have a lead character encumbered with an usual animal. In Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, a journalist, Victor, shares his apartment with a depressed penguin rescued from the city zoo which could not afford to feed it. In Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, the lead character, Zinzi, wanders around with a sloth on her back which she must sustain, penance for a crime she committed. I think I'll probably read these back to back. I have to say I'm quite taken with the premise of an unusual animal sidekick. Lots of room for some imaginative storytelling. Hopefully they'll live up to expectation - they've both certainly been showered with good reviews. If you were going to pick an animal sidekick for your fictional self, what would you go for?

Review of Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason

2011-11-29T08:45:00.003Z

Inspector Erlendur is away and Elinborg, one his trusty colleagues, is left to deal with any new cases. As a senior detective she is trying to balance the pressures of work with home life and looking after her three kids and husband. When the body of a young man is found in his apartment with his throat slashed she is assigned to the case. The investigation quickly alters track when a date-rape drug is found in his possession. It seems that one of his victims, or someone known to them, has exacted a terrible revenge. Despite her revulsion for his crimes, Elinborg patiently pieces together the events leading to the young man's death, whilst also trying to maintain a harmonious domestic life.

I finished Outrage just over a week before I sat down to write this review. What is unsettling is the fact that a lot of the plot had already started to slip away from my memory. I know I enjoyed reading the book a lot, but a fair bit failed to stick to the old grey cells. This has led me to reflect a little on Indridason's other translated books - all of which I've read. I've a mixed memory with respect to them. For example, I remember Jar City very well even though it's a few years since I've read it, but although Hypothermia was one of my books of 2010, I can't for the life of me recall what it was about (and I'm usually pretty good at remembering books and their plots). I think this is because Indridason's forte is ordinary characters and exposing the mundane and banal aspects of everyday life and police investigations. His stories are carefully layered and reflective, are philosophical in a literary sense, and have fairly ambiguous endings. It is the style, atmosphere and the central characters that linger not the plot. They're books that create a certain mood, rather than a visceral impact. That's also the reason why I like them so much. Outrage is a fine addition to the series, allowing one of the support characters to come to the fore. The reader finds out much more about Elinborg and her family circumstances and history, which was a nice complement to simply tracking Erlendur from book to book. Despite the fact that the stories seem to slip away from me, I'll be in the queue for the next one.

Cover rage

2011-11-28T08:33:00.005Z

I've recently finished reading Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason and LA Requiem by Robert Crais (reviews shortly). In both cases, I had the same experience every time I picked the book up - the cover just didn't match the book. In the case of Outrage, the murder victim was killed in the living area of an apartment, not at a bus stop in the middle of winter. In fact I can't remember snow being mentioned once in the entire book, but that might be my memory. In the case of LA Requiem, although there a couple of trips to Palm Springs the vast majority of the action takes place in the city and the atmosphere is one of enclosure and claustrophobia, not wide open spaces. I've no real problem with generic style covers, but for me they have to be reflective of the story to some extent. Neither did in these cases. Not that it detracted from the stories themselves, which were very good. What about you, does a cover that doesn't match the book induce some mild form of cover rage?

Lazy Sunday Service

2011-11-27T12:53:00.006Z

The power of blogging was revealed to me once again this week. On Monday, ten minutes after posting on the other blog I contribute to, RTE Radio 1 were on the phone asking if I'd go on their Drivetime programme to talk about the argument I'd made (starts 52.2 mins in). Thankfully it was a radio interview and not TV as two minutes in I started to have a nosebleed. With no tissues at hand and not wanting to pinch my nose in case I changed my voice too much I tried my best to keep my concentration and deal with the blood. The slot lasted seven and a half minutes. Certainly the messiest interview I've done!

My posts this week
Six reasons why the property market is going to be very slow to recover
Agents for short stories
Call for the Dead
Review of Call for the Dead by John Le Carre
Property register, house price and rental yield mapping
iphone, your phone

iphone, your phone

2011-11-26T07:45:00.002Z

'It's exactly as you'd get in an Apple store,' the young man said conspiratorially. 'They retail at six hundred euro. It's yours for two hundred.'

'It's three fifty in the shop,' a lank-haired youth replied.

'But that's with a contract. Eighteen months. They sell you the phone cheap to lock you in.'

'What's the catch?'

'There isn't one. It's brand new. Never used.'

'It just fell out the back of a van?'

The seller shrugged, casting an anxious glance round the bar.

'I'll give you one fifty.'

'One seventy.'

'And it definitely works?'

'Lifetime warranty. Your life, not its, capiche?'

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Call For The Dead by John Le Carre (1961, Gollancz)

2011-11-25T09:44:00.001Z

The day after George Smiley interviews and clears Samuel Fennan, a Foreign Office worker, of suspected espionage after an anonymous tip-off, Fennan's found dead having seemingly committed suicide. Smiley's boss at MI5 and the police seem to be content to accept that Fennan took his own life. However, after visiting the scene of death and interviewing Fennan's wife, a concentration camp survivor, Smiley is not convinced and neither is a local policeman, Mendel, who is about to retire. Unwilling to drop his investigation, Smiley quits his job and continues to work at the thin trail. A short time later he is viciously attacked and hospitalised. Undaunted, Smiley and Mendel patiently unravel clues and continue their hunt convinced that there are sinister forces at play.

Call For The Dead was Le Carre's first book and also introduced George Smiley to the reading public. It's a moderately thin read (157 pages) and the plot is relatively straightforward, with no substantive subplots. What marks Le Carre out is his voice and the careful layering and rhythm of the prose. In many ways, the storytelling style of Call for the Dead reminded me of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series, which was first published a couple of years later, in that the style is social realism (rather than noirish style of American hardboiled or the more swashbuckling style of spy thrillers such as Ian Fleming) and the pace is quite sedate as the story works its way to a somewhat understated climax. Like Martin Beck, Smiley is a fairly ordinary character who works through a case patiently and dogmatically, though he is a little more impetuous and foolhardy, and shares the donnish qualities of Colin Dexter's Morse. I read a number of the Smiley books when I was a teenager and it was interesting to revisit him now, especially since the character I remember was slightly different to the one presented (I thought of him as more enigmatic and calculating). Having looked around on the internet it seems that Smiley's character did mutate a little and his back story and career timeline altered quite substantially between books. He nevertheless remains one of fiction's enduring spy characters.

Call for the Dead

2011-11-23T11:27:00.003Z

I finished John Le Carre's 'Call for the Dead' at the weekend. It was his first book and introduced George Smiley. There's much to like about the book. One thing that caught my eye was that the back cover blurb which simply states:

Why did a routine security check make Fennan kill himself?

Short, to the point and does the job of piquing a potential reader's interest. There's no longer blurb on the inside either. Quite a refreshing approach.

The book also has some nice philosophical asides. Here are two of them.

What did Hesse write? 'Strangers to wander in the mist, each is alone.' We know nothing of one another, nothing, Smiley mused. However closely we live together, at whatever time of day or night we sound the deepest thoughts in one another, we know nothing. How am I judging Elsa Fennan? I think I understand her suffering and her frightened lies, but what do I know of her? Nothing.

He was going to tell Mendel how he had wrestled with Goethe's metamorphoses of plants and animals in the hope of discovering, like Faust, 'what sustains the world at it inmost point'. He wanted to explain why it was impossible to understand nineteenth-century Europe without a working knowledge of the natural sciences, he felt earnest and full of important thoughts, and knew secretly that this was because his brain was wrestling with the day's events, that he was in a state of nervous excitement.

Agents for short stories?

2011-11-21T14:51:00.003Z

To date I've only submitted a relatively small number of short stories to magazines but my hit rate is not particularly good. However, rather than get reject letters (although I've had those as well), the pieces seem to just disappear. In part, this is because the magazine seems to go into suspended animation. In one case the editor quit a few days after submission and it took a while for a new one to be appointed. In another the site continued to post stories, but my submission just seemed to vanish into thin air with enquiry emails ignored. In the latest case, the site seems to have become frozen in time, with no new stories posted for a couple of months. I've no idea if there are agents for short stories - folk who will help you select the right outlet and shepherd it through the process - but I feel like I could do with one. If I had a choice, Patti Abbott or Paul Brazill would be top of the list - they know how to write good stories, have great records of getting them published, and genuinely care about other authors and the changing publishing world. That's not an out and out cry for help, but I'm happy for it to be taken as such!

Lazy Sunday Service

2011-11-20T09:39:00.006Z

The gongs for the Irish Book Awards were announced last Thursday. The winner of the Ireland AM crime novel of the year was Bloodland by Alan Glynn. My review of the book can be found here, the other nominees here. My review of Winterland, the first book in the loose trilogy is here. I attended the launch of Bloodland just a couple of months back in the Gutter Bookshop and despite only being available for a short while the book has clearly made a positive impression on the reading public. Congrats to Alan. And if you haven't yet read Bloodland, get yourself down to your local bookshop; it's a real page turner. I'll be toddling down there when his forthcoming third book, Graveland, is released.

My posts this week:
Continuity
A ghost of a chance
Review of The Red Coffin by Sam Eastland
Review of The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris
Tactics without strategy: decentralisation and post-decentralisation
The end of a dream

The end of a dream

2011-11-19T09:00:00.002Z

This was the dream. To be a professional singer. Bright lights, screaming fans, world tours, fame and fortune. It was now or never. At thirty he was already halfway over the hill.

The auditorium was massive; a sea of faces.

The music started, he sang, the song faded.

There were titters of laughter and a few boos. The panel looked pained.

He stared at his feet hoping the stage would swallow him.

‘Simon?’

‘Look, Michael, I’ll be straight with you. I’m not saying no, I’m saying never.’

The world faded to a fuzzy haze, the dream dying in public humiliation.

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.