Mike's Second Opinion - A Triple Review

I think I’m under the CSNI influence. I’m predominantly a science fiction/fantasy man, so will somebody explain why I recently came home from a shopping trip with Lucy Caldwell’s Where They Were Missed, Adrian McKinty’s Dead I Well May Be and The Dead Yard (I won the third book, The Bloomsday Dead, in a CSNI competition), and two Ian Sansom books, The Case of the Missing Books and Ring Road.

There seems little point reviewing these books as the CSNI blogmeister has already done just that. Consider the following a second opinion.

First of all I read Lucy Caldwell’s book. I was a tad confused at first by the setting. What era was I in? The cover places it in the late sixties/early seventies, whereas the narrative suggested a later date. And so it was. The moral is: pay no heed to covers, they be the work of someone who hasn’t read the book!

This is the story of two young sisters growing up in the mid-eighties. scarcely comprehending the social chaos around them, whether it’s the Troubles, their Catholic mother’s depressions or their Protestant daddy leaving home. It’s told from the POV of the seven-year-old Saoirse and the innocent voice never falters: an adult perspective is not allowed to intrude on the child’s world. I was massively impressed when I turned a page and thought, oh, she’s grown up. Lucy Caldwell had advanced the timeline nearly ten years and I knew it straight away, just from the central character’s voice.

This is a quiet book, and there’s a melancholy undercurrent, but it manages to avoid being depressing. I actually found it uplifting without being sappy or mawkish, thanks mainly to Saoirse being strong and feisty. She makes mistakes, but learns from them and grows. At the end I closed the book and wished her well for the future. It’s that kind of read.

I could easily argue that Where They Were Missed isn’t a crime novel and doesn’t really merit a place on CSNI, but that would be silly. Who gives a fig about genres when a book is this good. I loved it. Four stars out of five.

For contrast, I then picked up Adrian McKinty’s Dead I Well May Be. I knew from the reviews I’ve read on these webpages that there was going to be violence, bloodletting and, most importantly, top quality writing. What can I say that hasn’t already been said?

The main character, Michael Forsythe, is a complex bloke. He genuinely looks for the good in people . . . but that doesn’t stop him from putting a bullet in a guy’s elbows, knees and ankles – a Belfast sixpack – in the first chapter. Well, Forsythe reasons, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would’ve, and likely made a hash of it too. Better for the victim that he does it. See? The guy’s all heart really. OK, I’m making a joke of it it, but really, Adrian McKinty does a bang-up job of presenting us with a central character who is incredibly resilient and at times ruthless, but allows us to see him experiencing pant-wetting fear, self-doubt and suicidal despair. Forsythe’s a bastard, but he has his reasons and you can’t help but admire him. From a distance.

I haven’t even waxed lyrical about the Adrian McKinty’s prose yet, which borders on the poetic, or how effectively he uses fragments, something I’ve hitherto not cared for. Nor have I said how bloody good he is at creating a sense of place, or how cleverly he uses foreshadowing to keep you reading one more chapter before you put the book down. I’m not going to prattle on about these things because this isn’t meant to be a review, just a quick appraisal. Dead I Well May Be is an awesome book, the best I’ve read in a long time. Some folks are telling me the second book is even better. That takes some doing. No hesitation, five stars.

I wanted to read the first of Ian Sansom’s Mobile Library books next, but my dad borrowed my copy without returning it so I started Ring Road instead. It’s not crime, but it’d be criminal to overlook it! (Ha bloody ha.)

How can I describe this book without making it sound as dull as ditch water? God knows how Ian Sansom pitched it to his agent. It’s about a small Irish town that has declined over the years, the decline symbolised by a busy ring road and a shopping mall. There is no central character, in the same way a TV soap doesn’t have a central character. Everyone’s life counts. And they have small town lives. Nothing exciting ever happens in this town, unless you consider a mayor on the make exciting, or a newspaper editor sacking the writer of the bat-watch column, or care about Mr Donnelly’s dog getting arthritis.

So how does Sansom make it all come to life? Well, I think this passage from the final chapter gives you a fair idea:

Strange, how even here in our town, a place where we all went to the same schools, wear the same kind of clothes, pretty much, give or take the occasional item of eccentric holiday headgear or party high heels, and where we watch the same television programmes, and eat the same kind of food at the same kind of time, and read the same papers, even here it’s possible for two people occupying the same space and time and the same brand of jeans and trainers to misunderstand each other completely and utterly. It does not bode well for the future of humankind – if we can’t read each other right around here, then where?

In the simplest language possible, and with the longest sentences possible, the author makes these insightful observations throughout Ring Road. It’s a warm and funny book, respectful to its subject and, dare I say it, slightly eccentric. Footnotes can go on for over a page. The acknowledgements run for three pages and throws up names like Stevie Wonder, Jim Carrey, the Specials, George Clooney. Ring Road is the only novel I’ve read that features an index.

So yes, definitely eccentric, but also a work of genius, I think. A five star book I will read again.

A Wee Review - The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty

The Dead Yard is the second of Adrian McKinty’s ‘Dead’ trilogy featuring Michael Forsythe, and is bookended by Dead I Well May Be and The Bloomsday Dead. The American release of The Dead Yard was picked as one of the twelve best novels of 2006 by US Publishers Weekly. Not the best crime novel. The best novel! And the audiobook version won audiobook of the year. Inside information suggests that it didn’t sell incredibly well in the UK by comparison, and this reader has some difficulty understanding why.

The Dead Yard sees the hard-as-coffin-nails protagonist, Michael Forsythe’s, return to action. For five years, since his violent deeds in Dead I Well May Be, he has lain low in the Witness Protection Programme. Unfortunately, his itchy (ahem) foot takes him to Tenerife, and because trouble follows him like ‘sharks trailing a slave ship’, he finds himself right in the middle of an Irish vs. English football riot. He does what he can to keep out of it, but gets scooped by the authorities. He’s in a lot of trouble. Especially since he’s wanted in Mexico for drug trafficking and escaping a Mexican prison. In the face of ten years jail time and then extradition to Mexico, when an offer is extended by the English government he really has no choice. In exchange for his guaranteed freedom he agrees to go under cover and infiltrate an IRA sleeper cell in New England, America. Bad enough, but don’t forget to factor in that the Irish Mob in New York has a price on his head. Can it get worse? Well, yeah. This is Michael Forsythe we’re talking about. It’s about to get deadly.

I happened to read this book slightly out of sequence with the other two Forsythe books. The Dead Yard, however, is certainly the more standalone of the trilogy. There are some hints of what is to come in The Bloomsday Dead, but no spoilers. Just a book full of shit-hot writing. McKinty’s prose is a thing of beauty. Awe and envy-inspiring poetry. And then, next to this beautiful use of language, McKinty’s protagonist and subject matter provide you with enough ugly to spin the yin-yang symbol out of orbit. Michael Forsythe imagines himself as Death’s apprentice more than once in this gripping tale, but I think he’s downplaying his status. The boy is Death with a limp. He’s a literate, scary, emotional, violent, wonderful, horrible enigma of a thug. A Belfast protagonist to be proud and ashamed of. A fascinating bastard. I’m a little depressed that I’ve read the whole trilogy and that McKinty has put an end to the Forsythe series. But there’s a logic behind the author’s decision. One more dance with the Grim Reaper and readers might yell, ‘Oh, come on!’ and click off. There are only so many times you can expect Forsythe to get through the fug of violence that follows him around.

So, here I am, trying to dream up a criticism of The Dead Yard to balance this review out a little. But I’ve come up blank. Maybe because it was the most recent read, but this could my favourite of the ‘Dead’ trilogy. Which begs the question once again, why is The Dead Yard the least popular of the three Forsythe books in the UK?

I’ll speculate a little.

Maybe it’s because this is McKinty’s ‘Troubles’ book. Yes, it plays out in America, but this story is set on the verge of the IRA’s 1997 ceasefire, just before the Good Friday Agreement. A shaky peace deal is on the horizon. The English government wants to stamp out a maverick group, known as The Sons of Cuchulain, before they destroy the budding Peace Process. We have seen a hell of a lot of work based on the ‘Troubles’. Ireland and the UK are coming down with IRA stories. Some are better than others, and in this case, much better, but at the end of the day, people are looking for new settings and themes. America, however, still has quite an interest in this kind of thing, especially among the Irish-American communities. With the luxury of distance, they maybe have a romantic idea of the struggle and are open to more from this sub-genre. And McKinty has given it to them in spades.

My conclusion; if you’re going to read one more work of fiction based on the ‘Troubles’, make it The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty. It’s a Belfast/Boston blinder.

Happy Bloomsday!

And to celebrate, I've got one signed copy of Adrian McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead, released just a few days ago through Serpent's Tail, that will go to a lucky CSNI reader.

What do you have to do? First person to name the book's protagonist gets it. Just put your answer in the comment box. Easy Peasy.

Then email me at gerardforpresident(at)yahoo.co.uk with your postal address, and I'll send it off to you ASAP.

You know you want it.

Please note, this is the third in a trilogy and due to my abhorrence of spoilers I highly recommend that you read Dead I Well May Be before reading The Bloomsday Dead.

A Wee Review - The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty

Impressed as I was with Dead I Well May Be, I jumped right in to the next Adrian McKinty book I could get my hands on; The Bloomsday Dead. This is the final part of McKinty’s Dead trilogy featuring the un-effing-killable protagonist, Michael Forsythe. For a full appreciation of the novel, I highly recommend that you read Dead I Well May Be first. And as rumour would have it, so does Mr McKinty, actually. Oh, and see his extended interview on Crime Always Pays for a real insight into his whys and what fors in writing the trilogy. A CSNI review of The Dead Yard will follow in due course, but since the Serpent’s Tail paperback of The Bloomsday Dead is set for release on the 12th of June, I thought it’d be a good idea to give you readers time to crack open those piggy banks and get to buying McKinty’s work.

On with the review!

The Bloomsday Dead finds Michael Forsythe living it down in Lima, Peru. He’s on the run from the New York Irish Mob through the FBI Witness Protection Programme. His past sins against the mob include a bunch of spoilers for Dead I Well May Be, so forgive me for not going into further detail. Just know that this book takes us from Lima to Belfast with some flashbacks to Forsythe’s time in New York. And again I’m impressed by McKinty’s skill at painting his surroundings vividly by showing rather than info-dumping a knowledge that he’s obviously gleaned through personal experience. Google and read up a thing or two about Adrian McKinty and you’re not long figuring out he’s a wandering soul, as is his protagonist from the Dead Trilogy (though for slightly differing reasons – I hope). However, Forsythe’s love/hate relationship with Belfast is made all the more real, I suspect, by the fact that McKinty has not lost touch with his Northern Irish roots.

Michael Forsythe’s role has matured as has his characterisation. He’s no longer the white-hot fury that scorched the pages of part one. That’s still part of his make-up, but he’s also developed a world-weariness that is put across expertly. And revenge is not his sole driving-force in this final part. He has taken on the part of an investigator. A badass, heavy-handed and morally complex investigator, but all the more interesting because of it. So many times in this downward character arc I was convinced the guy had to give up the ghost and lie down for the next two hundred, then one hundred, then fifty then ten pages of the book. Michael Forsythe struggles towards the denouement scrapping, spitting and cursing, always considering surrender but finding it beyond his nature. A fascinating thing to witness.

The ending, I can’t really talk about (I’m anti-spoiler, remember?), though at one point Forsythe compares it to a Spanish Soap Opera, which is hard to argue against. And as the reader wrestles to suspend his disbelief and allow the impact of the surprise twist, so does the protagonist. A risky way to play it, as some critics could argue that McKinty’s having trouble believing it himself, but I personally think it works. And it makes for some real emotional writing from the expert in heart-wrenching that is Adrian McKinty.

And so, this bastard child of Tony Soprano morality and James Joyce literacy ends the Michael Forsythe trilogy. I’m sad to see the thug go, but hey, everything has to end some time. And we’ve Adrian McKinty’s Fifty Grand to look forward to in the not-so-distant future.

Incidentally, Adrian McKinty is journeying all the way from Australia to launch the release of The Bloomsday Dead at No Alibis Bookshop, Botanic Avenue, Belfast. The event is set to start at 6.00pm on Wednesday the 11th June. Not a kick in the arse off the actual Bloomsday date, 16th June (A James Joyce related celebration). Be there! But if you can’t, he’ll be in England as well. Will post dates and locations soon for you English McKinty fans.

A Wee Review - Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty

What does that merry aul codger Frank McCourt have to say about Adrian McKinty’s work? “His prose is so hard, so tough, so New York-honest, you’ll find yourself taking a knife to your work. He is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyon - the toughest, the best. Beware of McKinty.”

Not a bad recommendation, eh? Well, if my opinion means anything to you, I think McKinty is a hard-hitting writer with a serious attitude problem. But he’s not just dealing out a violent gangster tale with Dead I Well May Be. This novel oozes elegant prose and poetic internal dialogue.

Michael Forsythe takes the narrative helm in Dead I Well May Be. The story is set in the early nineteen-nineties and Forsythe is a young man approaching twenty, feeling the pinch of unemployment in his native Belfast. Although he’s not keen on it, he goes to New York to seek employment through a contact with Irish Mob boss, Darkey White. He soon rises through the ranks, proving himself time and again as the most competent and ballsy member of his crew. But he makes one fatal error and Darkey shows no mercy.

The first thing to strike me while reading Dead I Well May Be was the ease with which McKinty introduces us to Harlem. In just a few pages he builds a real world of sights, smells and sounds. I was right there in the middle of the humidity, clamour and squalor. Any writer could learn a lot from those pages of prose. In fact, every writer should. From then on, I was hooked into this book and couldn’t wait to get to the end, just to write a glowing review. From Harlem to Mexico to Belfast, the descriptive prose invigorates this novel.

One of McKinty’s greatest strengths is his ruthlessness. He seems to hate his protagonist, placing him time and again in impossible situations and never letting him escape unscathed. But the beauty of it is, with each trial and tribulation, the reader’s respect for young Michael goes up a notch. Seriously, if I had the chance to shake this man’s hand... well, I’d pass. Just in case I insulted him in some way and ended up on his bad side. But I’d give him a nod of admiration before turning on my heels and putting a lot of distance between us.

There aren’t really any weaknesses in Dead I Well May Be, in my opinion. The decision to ignore the concept of speech marks caused me to stumble over a sentence or two, which had the annoying effect of pulling me out of the story. But other than that, we have a huge story that is poignant and exciting. Dead I Well May Be is as brutal and unforgiving as a Belfast Six-pack but it’s told with literary eloquence and style. Is it any wonder I picked up The Bloomsday Dead minutes after putting down this one?

BUY THIS BOOK!

And while you do that, I’m going to email a few people and see if we can get it on a few Northern Irish bookshelves. You never know, somebody might take note.

Finking About Fings On Friday

Been an excellent reading week for Gerard “Bookworm” Brennan (a wee nickname I’m trying out – dashing, eh?) as I’ll now explain.

I’m taking a half day at the aul dayjob so I can swoop home, pick up the missus and make my way to No Alibis for the Connolly-Hughes event. But in a rare moment of peace, I’m contemplating the Norn Iron crime fiction scene and how little attention it gets. No taking away from the hugely accomplished and talented Dublin boys, but they sure are whipping up a media frenzy round here. Well, I recycled the post the other day, but for a one man show, that’s a frenzy, okay?

Anyway, at the minute I’m reading Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty. And I’m loving it. What bugs me is I tried to buy it from four or five high street bookshops in Belfast, Newry and Lisburn cities and came back empty handed each time. In the end I snagged a copy at the Belfast Central Library’s Irish and Ulster Studies Department. I’m sure I’d have gotten it from No Alibis, but the last time I was there, Dave Torrans was overrun by a bunch of unruly Glen Patterson fans and I didn’t want to add to his stress by asking him to shift a display of Patterson’s recently released work. I might have to today though. The book’s a blinder!

I’m closing in on the denouement at a nice pace, and I have The Bloomsday Dead (courtesy of Serpent’s Tail) waiting to be read after this one. Expect some McKinty reviews soon. I don’t want to be straying from my point.

So listen, right? WHY AREN’T WE PROMOTING THE HUGE TALENTS FROM THIS PROVINCE?! Well, I am, and so’s Verbal Magazine and a good number of starving stalwarts such as Declan Burke and Critical Mick (and they live south of the border too); but come on the high street. Make it a bit easier for us scamps out buying books on our criminally short lunchbreaks. Same thing happened a few years ago when I was set to meet SF superstar Ian McDonald. Couldn’t get a hold of one of his books for love nor money so I don’t think it’s because McKinty fecked off to live in another country.

Who do I see about this?

Oh, and just so I’m not ending this on a ranty note, Declan Burke’s book, The Big O, thumped the doormat this week too. I had a peek at the first couple of chapterettes, and unfortunately it looks like the CAP GV isn’t going to be held up to ridicule here. Of course, he might drop the ball in later chapters... we’ll see.

A Micro Review - Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty

Gerard is eager to read this one, but until he has a chance to get his grubby mits on a copy and do his own review, Colman Keane, an avid fan of the noir and hardboiled has helped out by sending some thoughts on the first Michael Forsythe novel, Dead I Well May Be. So without further a foreword, take it away, Mr Keane.

I’m a bit late to the party considering Serpents Tail first published this in the UK in 2004, but as the saying goes better late than never!

Michael Forsythe, intelligent but unemployed, makes an enforced jump from Belfast to Harlem and swaps a grim future for an uncertain one. Soon in the employ of Darkey White – an Irish crime boss, Michael shows his mettle in the growing conflict with the Dominican gangs in the New York turf wars. Whilst proving his worth, Michael soon finds it doesn’t pay to cross his leader.

I enjoyed the change of settings as Michael moved from NI to the US and Mexico and back– flitting through the differing landscapes, and backwards and forwards through time as he recalls events from his past. His struggle to journey back and wreak violent revenge on Darkey is compelling.

Whilst there’s a fair bit of action throughout it’s not all bish, bash, bosh as McKinty’s prose is thoughtful and intelligent, without ever disappearing up his own arse.

The pace is relentless and the satisfactory conclusion cleverly leaves scope for a follow up.

What defines an Irish crime novel?

Is it the author’s birthplace or the scenery where the action plays out?

By any standards and whatever the definition, McKinty has crafted a superb book that is worthy of a place on the top table, on either side of the Atlantic.

Like a decent pint, Dead I Well May Be will leave you thirsting for more

Colman Keane