Irish Times review of DISORDER

This review, written by Declan Burke, appeared in The Irish Times on Saturday 21st April 2018.

Potential for violence

Set in Belfast, Gerard Brennan’s Disorder (No Alibis Press, €9.99) opens with stoned student Jimmy McAuley wandering into some “recreational rioting” and sounding off to TV journalist Grace Doran about “the subhuman imbeciles throwing their toys out of the pram over flags and marches”. When the clip of his rant goes viral, Jimmy finds himself at the heart of a maelstrom, caught up in corrupt DI Tommy Bridge’s long-running investigation into Loyalist hard man Clark Wallace.

Disorder reads like Adrian McKinty adapting one of Carl Hiaasen’s shaggy dog tales for a Northern Ireland setting, a coal-black comedy caper in which everyone seems to be feeding off the manic energy generated by the potential for violence that seems stitched into every page.

McAuley is an endearingly shambolic creation, his innocence in sharp contrast to Belfast’s brutal cynicism and the overall tone of world-weary acceptance, a tone leavened and accentuated by Brennan’s dust-dry humour: “the sound . . . swelled and faded in the form of a passing siren. There was an emergency somewhere in Belfast. There always would be.”

Declan Burke is an author and journalist. He is currently Dublin City Council / UNESCO writer-in-residence.

Original link.

Get your copy of Disorder from No Alibis Press,

The Gerard Brennan Disorder Podcast

I've finally done it. After years of thinking about it, months of talking about it, and weeks of reading about it, I've figured out how to record and distribute a podcast from the comfort of my own bedroom/office/studio. And by the time you read this there might even be a second or third episode available for you to sample.

For now, I'm still experimenting with the format, but I'd like to get some feedback on what the sweet spot for a one-man crime fiction show is, so tell me if it's over too quickly or runs too long. As I say in the first episode, I do want to address questions about the creative writing process, and to talk about the books I'm reading or have recently read.

Tuning in will also keep you up to date on my upcoming releases and all that jazz, because self promotion.

These early podcasts are basically for the people who have asked for audiobook versions of my work. I'm starting with my novella, BOUNCE. It's free, the sound quality is pretty good, and my accent is weird.

Why haven't you downloaded it already?

Links:

iTunes

PodBean

TuneIn

Three Crime Writers and Hopefully More Than One Microphone

Luca Veste, his Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast partner, Steve Cavanagh, and I (yeeeooo!) will be chatting about books and stuff in less than a week. In real life and in the same bookshop.

We'd love to see No Alibis packed to the gills next Thursday. This is a special book for Luca. New characters, a different side of Liverpool, a blurring of the genre lines that pays off with twisted beauty. I loved it and it's an honour to participate in the Belfast launch.

Steve and Luca are a riot on their podcast, and with Steve fresh off the American tour circuit for his cracking new novel TH1RT3EN, you'd be mad to miss this. I'm going to have to try really hard to actually participate in the event rather than just sit back and enjoy a great night of craic from both.

More details, you say?

Fill your boots:

Luca Veste at No Alibis Bookstore
Thursday 15th March 2018 at 6:30PM
Tickets: FREE

No Alibis Bookstore are pleased to invite you to celebrate the launch of THE BONE KEEPER, the latest novel from Luca Veste, on Thursday 15th March at 6:30PM. Luca will be joined by local authors Steve Cavanagh and Gerard Brennan. Tickets for this event are free, and can be booked through EventBrite.


THE BONE KEEPER

What if the figure that haunted your nightmares as child, the myth of the man in the woods, was real?

He'll slice your flesh.
Your bones he'll keep.

Twenty years ago, four teenagers went exploring in the local woods, trying to find to the supposed home of The Bone Keeper. Only three returned.

Now, a woman is found wandering the streets of Liverpool, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the Bone Keeper. Investigating officer DC Louise Henderson must convince sceptical colleagues that this urban myth might be flesh and blood. But when a body is unearthed in the woodland the woman has fled from, the case takes on a much darker tone.

The disappeared have been found. And their killer is watching every move the police make. 

Disorder on Kindle (et al)

Oi! You know that book I wrote? No, not that one. DISORDER.

Aye, well you can get it on your Kindle now. And on other e-readers, I believe. I haven't checked because I don't have those kind of e-readers. But sure, have a hoke about the site if you're into Apple Books or whatever.

Here's a wee blurb for it, in case you need convincing:

"Tommy Bridge is on a mission. A Yoga mat, his Buddhist teaching and a Glock, his main weapons of choice. Tommy has had a tough time as a Cop. Now he has a clear and definite purpose. Deal with a local crime Kingpin and he may just achieve some sense of redemption.

Patricia, “Dev”, Devenney, Tommy’s partner. Made from more traditional stock. All Dev wants is for Tommy to be at peace with himself…hopefully keeping him alive along the way.

Clark Wallace, the Kingpin. Clark has values, traditions, honour- unfortunately, none of them are really traits that normal folk would adhere to. Clark is like a bad nightmare in technicolour and this movie is about to go into 3D.

Jimmy McAuley. The student. Failing at University. Soaring with the Weed. Quite simply, Jimmy is in the wrong place at the wrong time - stoned and about to learn a harsh life lesson. Hopefully he can pass this exam.

Grace Dornan. The reporter. Grace knows what her Prize should be. The only problem for Grace is that she may let the “truth” behind this grand saga be the last thing she seeks."

Sounds like a cracker, so it does. Grab a copy and see what you think, ye rocket ye.

Peace.

Disorder in Order

Following a meeting with my PhD supervisor yesterday, it would seem that my novel, DISORDER, is on the right track. There is more work to be done (isn't there always?), but not quite as much as my worst-case-scenario thoughts might have suggested. It's all good.

So, now follows a period of thinking time before I tackle it again. This will be facilitated by the kind folk who will be sending me their thoughts when they get a chance to look at the early draft. A few have even gotten back to me already. Many thanks, you absolute stars.

And so, mostly because I can't just sit on my arse ALL day and think about one book, I have other things to get done. Most of them involve sitting on my arse and typing. Thankfully, I'm back at the gym following an injury that became an excuse to be lazy long after it was healed, so I'll spend some time on my feet (and my back) as well.

Again, paranoid that if I release too much info on any of this stuff it'll curse it all, I'll be a little vague for this next paragraph or two.

I still need to seek out and woo agents of various stripes. My screen and stage writing badly needs representation. I have two television scripts, a movie script and I'm working on a play, but I have no idea what to do with this stuff. And while I would like to have a literary agent again, I can get by without one for now, so I haven't put much energy into securing a new one yet. So, maybe this would be a good time to look at agencies that could accommodate all three of my writing streams. Certainly, there's been little response to my half-assed "can anybody recommend an agent?" approach that I sometimes indulge in on Twitter or Facebook.

And while I know that the agent thing is important, I try not to allow myself too much time off from writing. That is the number one concern for a writer, surely? It might also be the reason why I've got stuff on my computer that I keep forgetting to send out to be read/considered/rejected. On the bright side, it also means that I'll be able to release a fourth novel through Blasted Heath this year. Not another Cormac Kelly just yet (but that's coming, trust me). I have a new character to put out there first. Detective Shannon McNulty's first adventure will be available in the near future. No actual date yet, but I'm hoping it'll hit virtual bookshelves by the summer.

So, that's an update that ran longer than I intended. It was my intention to simply list the books that were very important in the writing of DISORDER but I got a little chatty. Here's the list anyway:

Fiction
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett
The Friends of Eddie Coyle, George V. Higgins
The Hunter, Richard Stark
Cotton Comes to Harlem, Chester Himes
The Prone Gunman, Jean-Patrick Manchette
Interface, Joe Gores
The Man With the Gloved Hand, Joe McKimmey
Stumped, Rob Kitchin

Non-fiction
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith
Writing Mysteries, ed. Sue Grafton
Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon
The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield

There may be one or two books that I've forgotten about that contributed directly to the writing of DISORDER, but if they come to mind later I'll slip them into the list. I read quite a bit of academic non-fiction as well, but that was for the critical component of my PhD, and so it's not really relevant to this particular post. I'll maybe put a full bibliography on the blog when I've completed the whole thing in another year and a half, but the above will do nicely for now.

Disorder and Reorder

This image (from The Belfast Telegraph website) hints at the subject of DISORDER

I'm still a little discombobulated following the completion of my novel, DISORDER. Now, I say completion, but there will be more work, no doubt. Even if my PhD supervisors, by some great miracle, consider it a work of genius, they'll have suggestions for improvement, as will the small band of beta readers who have received the manuscript over the weekend. That's the thing with books. You'll find something to tinker with right up until the day it's published, and sometimes after that.

But back to the discombobulation (I'm getting my mileage out of that word -- yeah spellcheck, it's real). I happen to be a good chunk into another manuscript already and have ideas for another book that I'd like to start and finish this year. There are other projects in the works as well, but since the best way to hear God laugh is to announce your plans (hat-tip to Sam Hawken for that little pearl of wisdom) I'll not go into any detail about what they might be or how quickly I need/want to complete them.

So what's the point of this post? I don't know, really. Maybe I just want to mark the occasion of having completed another novel. Could be I'm procrastinating because today is the day that I plan to get neck-deep in my other novel-in-progress. Most likely I just want a reader or two to give me a virtual pat on the head and say, "Well done, Gerard."

In other news, my reading pile is diminishing at a quicker rate than it did in 2014. That was an example of God laughing at my plans, I think. I'd set myself the task of reading 100 books in that year. I stopped counting about five months in because I was running way behind schedule, but I'm sure I didn't make it to 100. Probaly closer to 50, truth be told. I did start reading faster after I stopped counting, though. A revelation that probably means something. I should note a few stand-outs that I never got around to reviewing. Just the NI ones for now:

Blue is the Night by Eoin McNamee

The FANTASTIC conclusion to McNamee's 'Blue' trilogy. I'm not sure what McNamee has planned next, but I feel like I could go back to the start of the 'Blue' trilogy and read it again before his next work of genius comes out anyway. There was a distinct closing of the circle at the denouement of this novel that drew my mind back to the The Blue Tango and Orchid Blue. I just wonder if I'll get around to that reread before the next McNamee becomes available to me.

The Final Silence by Stuart Neville

The Final Silence is the fourth of what has been dubbed the 'Belfast' series. I read this one during a busy time (hence the lack of review), and blazed through it. Neville publicly 'fessed up to a long bout of writer's block a little after the release of this novel. It was The Final Silence that bore the brunt of his dry patch. I'll not make light of the difficulties he experienced (which Neville outlines in this very honest blog post), but what I will say is that The Final Silence eventually became an excellent novel. A fine example of how to write a thriller. In fact, it's my favourite of his works now, a spot previously occupied by Collusion (which Neville also had trouble completing, if I remember right). The Final Silence very recently picked up an Edgar nomination. It seems I'm not alone in realising that this is a particularly strong book.

The Blame by Michael Nolan

Nolan does not see himself as a crime writer, and neither do I. However, due to the subject of The Blame (the aftermath of a bad batch of Ecstasy tablets), the work cannot help but touch on criminal activity in Northern Ireland. But this novella is not about the crime. It's about the protagonist trying to figure out if he is to blame for the death of a friend. And it's not just himself he has to convince. The question still remains unanswered for many in his circle of family and friends and those within his wider community. It's a fast and energetic read and a wonderful showcase for Nolan's developing writing talent. I hope to see a novel from him in the near future.

There may have been other NI novels that I failed to review, but they've yet to occur to me, and this post is getting too long as it is. In my next post, I'll simply list the books that inspired and facilitated the writing of DISORDER.

Currently reading The Dead Ground by Claire McGowan, by the way. I'd started it before the new year. Before I went to LA, in fact. The only reason I stopped after the first few chapters is because I didn't want to bring it on my journey to Bouchercon. It's a signed hardback, y'see. More on that one when I finish it.