Good Evening, This is Phizzfest Calling...

I had the great, good fortune to be interviewed on the Arena Arts Show on RTE radio last night alongside fellow scribbler Ed O'Loughlin.  The show was done live from the Woodstock Cafe in Phibsboro--a great little spot, incidentally; lovely food and hospitality and it's tripping distance (next door to) one of Dublin's finer pubs, The Hut.

The occasion was the launch of this year's fabulous Phizzfest, the Phibsboro Art Festival, at which Ed and myself are doing a gig, titled Crimes of the State.  We'll be chatting about genre, state terror and other stuff brewed up to make a bank holiday weekend just that little bit better.  It's on upstairs in the above mentioned Hut at 5 p.m. on Sunday.  There will be pints after...or during should you need them.  (You just might!)  So, RTE was in the Phib last night with a live broadcast to launch the Fest.


Now, I've done some radio in the past.  Ok, I've done radio twice in the past, the first time being in Aberdeen, Scotland of all places.  The occasion was the Aberdeen International Football Tournament and my team were to play the Aberdeen F.C. junior side.  (Just remembering this now, I wonder was Alex Ferguson then senior manager at Aberdeen...this was in 1985 so...no idea...would have to Goggle it,)  Anyhoo, local radio wanted one of our number for an interview in advance of the match and myself and another lad, a Columbian named Mauricio, were volunteered for the gig.  Mauricio was delighted and told me and everybody else how wonderful he'd be on the radio...in Spanish.  So it was down to me and Mauricio, who piped in now and again with 'Si, si...', to field the questions.  The first one was about the name of our team.  How was it, the presenter asked, that a team from Tampa Florida came to be called Blackwatch Tartan FC?  In my wisdom, I answered that perhaps we were named after the Tartan Lager beer that we had enjoyed on the train up from London.  The presenter laughed.  I laughed.  Mauricio said, 'Si, si...cerveza...' and laughed.  And the next day the warm and welcoming fans of Aberdeen FC showed their warmth and hospitality by showering us with empty Tartan Lager cans every time we took a throw-in or corner.  'Here's yer Tartan Lager, ye wee Yankee strip of shite!'  My teammates, needless to say, thought it was a whole can of laughs, me and my radio schtik.

These hurt when thrown.

The second time was a few weeks ago, on the History Show on NearFM which I linked in the last post.  Needless to say, no one threw cans of anything at me the next day.

All of this to say that radio is fun but nerve-wracking in its own way, particularly live radio.  The presenter is everything on radio and the man behind the mike last night, Arena and Lyric FM's Sean Rocks, made everyone feel at ease.  He's a real pro, as is his researcher, Nuala O'Neill.  So all in all, a fine evening, followed by even finer pints of the black stuff in the Hut.  And no one has thrown anything at me today or called me a 'wee Yankee strip of shite'...yet.  A podcast of the show can be found here.

Ed O'Loughlin

Incidentally, the Booker nominated Ed O'Loughlin has just published his latest tome, an Irish zombie political satire cum gorefest, titled All You Can Eat.  He's going all new-fangled and high tech and launching it into the Kindle-sphere himself.  It's a steal at the moment.  Get it here.  I read an early draft and it's bloody, pulpy, and bloody well brilliant.

This is not the cover to All You Can Eat...but it should be!

Radio Daze or Recent Developments and The Terrifying Sound of One's Own Voice

I know, I know, it's been awhile and still no sign of Irregulars.  Like the proverbial boy who cried wolf, I can now safely say that, yes, the wolf is at the door.  Or something like that...

Late May Release Date

I spent a week over Easter doing the final galley edits and then there was some waiting for blurbs to come back from the very kind folks who agreed to read proof copies so sadly, Irregulars won't be out in time for my In Conversation gig with Ed O'Loughlin at the Phizzfest  but it will be out in late May, definitely!

We've called the Phizzfest gig Crimes of the State and as the title should tell you, it'll be a ball of laughs! (No, actually, it should be quite funny.  Ed's satire is both razor sharp and quite hilarious.  And sure, what else would you be doing on a Bank Holiday Sunday in May?)

In the meantime, I was interviewed  by John Dorney and Cathal Brennan, both of The Irish Story.com on their fine History Show that airs on NearFM in Dublin.  If you're faced with a choice between Geordie Shore re-runs or something vaguely more edifying, here's a link to a podcast of the show.  I heartily recommend any of their podcasts to history buffs.  John and Cathal know their way around the clusterf...the labyrinth that was the Revolutionary/Civil War period in Ireland and are all round great guys who bring both lucidity and enthusiasm--a rare mix, certainly--to Irish History.  Their show on the 1913 Lockout in Dublin is particularly fascinating.  Here's the link:  https://soundcloud.com/nearfm/the-history-show-episode-15#play

And lastly, RTE Radio 1 Arts Show Arena will open Phizzfest this Thursday, May 2, with a live broadcast from Woodstock...  http://phizzfest.ie/2013/arena-launches-phizzfest-2013/...the cafe in Phibsborough not the farm in upstate New York, though I was thinking of playing Purple Haze in lieu of rambling on about using crime fiction as a Trojan Horse of sorts to address the use of terror in the founding of nation states yadda, yadda, yadda....  Listen in if you've the time or inclination.  Or, click the link on Purple Haze above and listen to Jimmi playing it at Woodstock...the farm, not the cafe...

I'll be back in the next week or so when I've a firm date of release and launch details for Irregulars, information on pre-orders etc.  Until then, enjoy the sunshine...(alright, I know...that's not funny, I've crossed a line there...)

Go Ahead and Judge a Book...Part Deux

So here it is, the cover for the new book.  I have to say, I'm delighted with it.  The skyline you can see through the open window is, in fact, Dublin.  I love this fact.  It brings what's inside the book and what you see on the cover together in some way I can't explain but which works.

I'll say it again:  Emma Barnes, the cover designer over at Snowbooks is a pro.  We went through four or five drafts total, with New Island kindly letting me look over each one and kick in my two cents.  Some of what I suggested was taken on board, some of it wasn't and thank God for that!  I suggested adding blood, a la Peeler. Bad idea.  It's not that kind of book, though it is bloody in places...  I suggested this font or that font.  I was ignored.  Rightly, properly, and strategically ignored.  But isn't it my work?  Shouldn't I know what's best in a cover enshrouding my precious work? No, actually.  Not at all.

You see, writers write.  I know something about writing, something about what's inside books--novels, anyway.  When it comes to cover art, I know what I like, as the saying goes.  But what book designers/cover artists and publishers know is why I might like what I like. It's not an exact science, obviously, or every author would have sales like James Patterson or JK Rowling, but there is much expertise employed in the presenting of the product being sold in the form of the packaging.  I know, I know, I hate that way of speaking about books, novels in particular.  They're art, they expand the consciousness, tap the senses, mine the emotions and...they only do these things if people bleedin' buy them.  And people buy books based on the cover art.  Not always and not alone this, but often.  I do it and you do it too.  The packaging is important and, though I know what I like, I really know nothing about what sells books or why.  So I leave that to the experts at New Island and Emma Barnes over at Snowbooks.  Blood you say?  Ummm, yeah...we'll look into it...

Go On...Judge A Book By Its Cover...

So, it's February and you might be wondering where that promised follow-up to Peeler is.  What?  You weren't?  Not to worry.  It's coming, next month.  April at the latest.  Irregulars, it's called and I've been beavering away at corrections and editorial suggestions as of late.  We're expecting galleys back soon for a big, old final peruse and just yesterday I received a first draft version of the cover design which was very, very cool.  I won't post a pic of it up just yet as it is in early form.  (No more would I publish any of my own work in draft form.)  When we get a more finalised version, I'll post it up.  Needless to say, it's always a great moment when you're sent cover art for your book.  It makes it all seem real somehow, cheesy as that might sound.

I think I've mentioned cover art before, but I'll say it again here:  it's really important in selling a book, whether in print or ebook form.  New Island were kind (and savvy) enough to accede to my request to once again use cover designer Emma Snow of Snowbooks in the UK for the cover.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  She's exceptionally talented and if you're in the market for a cover, get in touch with her at the above linked sites.

Featuring a modified(?) Banksy...must've cost a bomb.

My friend Ed O'Loughlin's most recent novel, the brilliant Toploader, published by Quercus, has my favourite cover of recent years on any novel, featuring a booby-trapped version of Banksy's iconic donkey/soldier image from the West Bank Wall/Barrier to great effect.  Read the novel and see how apt the cover is.

Cover art for Declan Burke's
Absolute Zero Cool is...well, cool

Same designer for Slaughter's Hound... 

I've also recently been hugely impressed by the covers on Declan Burke's novels for Liberties Press.  They're hip, retro and indicative of the wiretight mayhem on the pages inside.  (Is that possible?  For mayhem to be wiretight?  Hmmmm...)  Anyway, they're great.  I was told the name of the woman who designed them but for the life of me I can't remember it.  When I figure it out, I'll post it here.

...and Eight Ball Boogie

Anyone know of any recent crime novel covers that have impressed?

The Joys of Research

Lodge Trail Ridge as seen from behind the picket at Fort Phil Kearney

Been a long time, folks.  In mitigation, I've been working on a new novel, reading and research mainly.  I've done some writing, scenes here and there, snippets of dialogue that may or may not make it into the book when I start writing in earnest, the odd character outline.  But mostly research, research, research.  It's one of the great, fun, fascinating things about writing historical fiction, the research, but it can also be a slog at times.  A lot like homework when you were a kid, Sunday night looming and that Monday-due essay unfinished (in my case, mostly, unstarted) in the bottom of your school bag.  'Damn, I have to go upstairs and read that woman's account of her trip up the Bozeman Trail in 1865...or do I?  I could finish this newspaper and then watch Match of the Day 2 and read that dull, dull and oh so prim and romanticised account tomorrow...'  Some of it's like that, the books you feel you have to read because somewhere in them will be that gem, that phrase or detail that will open up wide vistas, change the plot, make a character or scene more authentic.  Others, most really, are fascinating.  You wouldn't be writing about the period or subject matter if you weren't interested in it in the first place.  Currently I'm reading primary and secondary sources, diaries (as above) of soldiers who served in the American West, Indian accounts, histories etc.

The arid western side of the Big Horn mountains.
It was 110 F
when we took this photo.

 But the best part of research, by far for me, is actually visiting the places where the events in the planned novel happened (or will happen in your fiction).  With out giving too much away, the new novel will be set in the Powder River country of what is now Wyoming.  Here are some photos I took on a trip my wife and I made there this past summer.  My lousy photography aside, it is truly one of the most spectacularly beautiful places in America, if not on earth.  Sadly, you can see why men (and women) would fight and die to keep/claim it.

The scene of the Wagon Box Fight at dusk, the Big Horn mountains (eastern side) in the background. There is a herd of antelope in the distance in this photo.  Take my word for it, they're there.

Some News...

Greetings all. It's been ages...two months, actually, since I last posted.  Life intervenes, as they say.  Any news? you ask.  Yes, in fact, there is.  Good news.  New Island will publish the follow up to Peeler, titled Irregulars, in February 2013.  I'm delighted, to say the least, and am confident New Island will do as fantastic a job publishing Irregulars as Mercier did with Peeler.

Irregulars is set during the Civil War in 1922 and deals with the search for the missing son of one of Monto's most powerful brothel owners while Free State and Republican death squads stalk the streets and back lanes of Dublin.  Sean O'Keefe, recently demobbed from the RIC is hired to find the boy amid the tumult and terror of a country at war with itself.   Much like Peeler, I used an actual crime--war crime?--I discovered in my research as the basis for Irregulars.  More on this anon...

Free State soldiers during Civil War raid house in Dublin

Anyone wanting to read up on the Civil War in Ireland should head over to The Irish Story website and take a gander at John Dorney's The Irish Civil War--A Brief Overview.  A short, brilliant, objective account of the conflict.  While there, have a read of some of the more comprehensive pieces on the Civil War as well.  Cheers!

A June of Ordinary Murders: Review

Some weeks ago I mentioned the publication of Conor Brady's new historical crime novel, A June of Ordinary Murders.  The book's publisher, New Island, was kind enough to send me a review copy and here, alas, is the review!

'J.G. Farrell, the Liverpool-born, Irish novelist, renowned for his historical fictions, who died, too young, in 1979, wrote: “History leaves so much out … It leaves out the most important thing: the detail of what being alive is like.”  In his debut historical crime novel, A June of Ordinary Murders, Conor Brady goes a long way toward showing us what being alive was like for a Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) detective working a murder case during a heat wave in Dublin, circa 1887.  A crime novel rich in period detail and confident characterisation, the reader of A June of Ordinary Murders can almost feel the heat oppressing Dublin, smell the stench of the rancid Liffey at low ebb.  

Dublin Castle--the seat of British rule in Ireland
and headquarters for G-Division of the DMP

Set against the backdrop of the Irish Land War, in a city set to host a Jubilee visit by Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, the novel presents us with Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow, a man tasked with solving the brutal murders of an unidentified man and child found in Phoenix Park.  To compound matters, the Queen of the city's criminal underworld, Ces 'Pisspot' Downes, has died and her retinue of vicious underbosses are beginning to jostle for control of her empire.  In a time when murders in Ireland were declared 'political' or 'ordinary'--with the bulk of resources devoted to  investigating 'political' murders in a country chomping at the bit of independence from the Crown--Swallow must negotiate the corridors of power in Dublin Castle as well as the mean back lanes and rough pubs of criminal Dublin in an effort to solve the murders.

Brady shows us early adaptations of
supposedly cutting-edge CSI 

It is Brady's portrayal of the murder investigation that is one of the book's strongest suits.  As a former journalist, Irish Times editor, Garda Ombudsman and author of the definitive history of the Garda Siochana, Guardians of the Peace: the Irish Police, Brady knows his cops and knows how they work.  In places, he exhibits this too well, one feels, with perhaps one too many scenes of crime conferences, which, while believable and fine summary of the story-so-far, could have been dealt with in a paragraph or two rather than pages.  This is a minor quibble, however, as Brady moves his tale along at a fine clip, pausing only to relish the minutiae of Victorian police work.  Much of this feels surprisingly modern, with revealing insights into the origins of much of what we take to be cutting edge CSI, such as the science of ballistics or facial reconstructions from the human skull.  He is especially good on the uneasily familiar relationship between detectives and their gangland nemeses which again, rings true.  There is a particularly fine scene where two young and ambitious detectives are somewhat too eager to believe the last-words of a dying underworld enforcer, and the results of their inexperience sail as close to real life as anything I've read recently in a crime novel.    


Swallow is a believable and sympathetic protagonist and his relationship with the publican, Maria Walsh, is particularly well drawn.  Another of the book's strengths, in fact, is its portrayal of female characters as rounded and modern in a way in perfect keeping with the waning Victorian setting.  All of the characters in the novel live on the page in a way that is never anachronistic.  It is the duty of the historical novelist to remind us that, while times change, people don't, and Brady pulls this off with panache.


His writing is clear and comfortable, as one would expect from a former journalist of Brady's stature, and the research, historical and criminal, exudes authenticity.  Again, a minor quibble, but perhaps too much of this fascinating research is evidenced in the early chapters; there is a long explanation of the Land War which, while interesting, admirably objective and well presented, would be better suited to a history textbook and could have been summarised neatly in a paragraph or bedded in the dialogue.  This tendency to over-inclusion of hard-won research--an occupational hazard for all historical novelists, myself very much included--fades, however, as the narrative progresses and we are left with a cracking whodunnit, rich in period detail and peopled with wholly believable, complex characters of whom I hope to see more of in future Joe Swallow novels.  All in all, a powerful, well-researched debut from Brady.  A June of Ordinary Murders is no ordinary historical novel and comes to you highly recommended by this reader.