Start Spreadin' The News...

Adrian McKinty, one of CSNI's most featured writers has his happy face on today. He got himself nominated for an award! He says:

The uber charming Rebecca Gray, Serpent's Tail's PR guru/marketing whiz/resident genius informed me this morning that The Bloomsday Dead has been long listed for an award. It's from Spread The Word an increasingly important body in the UK who want to encourage people to (gasp) read more books. It's a people's choice award, so after the long listing, the people, i.e. you, will vote to make the short list and the winner will be announced on international book day next year. If you'd like to vote for Bloomsday Dead or any of the other nominees then jump on over to their website.

So, what are you waiting for? It'll take you about half a minute to register as a user on the site, then just go here and vote for The Bloomsday Dead. Maybe leave a wee comment of suport too, eh? Go on, he's not a bad aul sort, like.

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.

Review This!

Our Adrian McKinty has been very busy on the aul Blogosphere recently. In the less than a week he's informed, raged, philosophised and advised.

The majority of the material centres around a rather snooty review of McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead. Now, you should all know by now, my opinion on Adrian McKinty's novels. No? Well, start by reading my review of The Bloomsday Dead. Or even better, just go buy the entire Dead Trilogy featuring the unkillable Michael Forsythe, and read it yourself. I mean, at the end of the day, it's your opinion that counts. I'm only here to tell you what I like about the crime fiction I've read. If what I say helps you choose your next book, then happy days.

And if you want more than my opinion, try Crime Always Pays, Critical Mick, Detectives Beyond Borders, Crime Scraps, Euro Crime, Petrona, The Rap Sheet, It's a crime! (Or a mystery...) or In Reference to Murder. And there's more out there. Ordinary Joes and Josephines with good taste in books. Forget the snobs. Us bloggers are the wave of the future.

Verbal Magazine - Issue 15

This month's Verbal is now available in PDF on their website. It meets its usual high standards, despite the fact that they've printed my reviews for Adrian McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead, Aifric Campbell's The Semantics of Murder and Colin Bateman's Orpheus Rising.

You'll also find a review of John Connolly's The Reapers, penned by Tammy Moore.

And, if you live in the North of Ireland, be sure to pick up tomorrow's Belfast Telegraph. They have an article on crime fiction by Adrian McKinty! If you can't pick up a copy, I'll provide the highlights in the near future.

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.

Last McKinty Post of the Day

Yesterday I attended the Belfast launch of Adrian McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead. The venue was the super-cool No Alibis. As usual, Dave Torrans was the host with the most. As usual, I had to turn down the free wine. Damn my respect for the drink driving laws! But seriously, I can't say this often enough; Dave owns the best independent bookshop I've ever been to. And you'll have a hard time finding a friendlier, more knowledgeable shopkeeper.

Adrian McKinty read very little from his Serpent's Tail release of the third book in the Michael Forsythe trilogy. Instead he told the very funny story of how the book came into existence. Then he read one of the few short excerpts that didn't contain swearing, sex or violence (his mother was in the audience).

After a very interesting Q&A, I hijacked the fellah for about ten minutes, and we chatted about the booming NI crime fiction scene while he signed my Forsythe trilogy. I gotta say, the guy's a gentleman, and not just as scary as I thought he'd have been. I had a great night, listening to his hilarious anecdotes, his answers to the questions fired at him by the crowd, and getting the opportunity to shake his hand and have a quick natter with him.

Many thanks to Dave Torrans and Adrian McKinty. You rock.

Released Today - The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty

Taking a leaf out of Declan Burke's blog, I've republished my review of The Bloomsday Dead (below) and also wish to draw your attention to a recent interview. Click here for the BBC Radio Ulster, Listen Again page. Find Arts Extra on the A to Z listings and click on Wed. Don't delay now. These Listen Again spots only stay on the site for seven days.

Go on, do it, or you'll piss off the guy on the right.

P.S. McKinty's intrview starts on the 15th minute, so if you're pushed for time, click on the forward 5min button three times and Bob's your mother's brother.

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.

No Alibis Event - Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty

Wednesday 11th June at 6:00PM

No Alibis Bookstore is pleased to invite you to an evening with Adrian McKinty on Wednesday 11th June at 6:00PM, to celebrate the launch of his latest novel, THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD.

Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, when terrorism in Ulster was at its height. Educated at Oxford University, he then immigrated to New York City, where he lived in Harlem for five years, working in bars and on construction crews, as well as a stint as a bookseller. He is the author of Hidden River and Dead I Well May Be, which was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Michael Forsythe might be unkillable, but that doesn’t seem to deter people from trying. He’s living in Lima, reasonably well-hidden by the FBI’s Witness Protection Program, but Bridget Callaghan, whose fiancé he murdered twelve years ago, has an enduring wish to see him dead. So when her two goon assassins pass him the phone to speak to her before they kill him, Michael thinks she just wants to relish the moment. In fact, out of desperation, she is giving him a chance to redeem himself. All he has to do is return to Ireland and find her missing daughter. Before midnight.

Tenacious and brutal, with the hunted man’s instinct for trouble, Forsythe leaves a trail of mayhem as he tries to end the bloody feud once and for all. The Bloomsday Dead pulsates with break-neck action and wry literary references; McKinty’s distinctly Irish voice packs a ferocious punch.

To book a spot for this event, call the store on 9031 9607 or email David.

Adrian will also appear at Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green on Friday 13th at 6.30pm.

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.