Alan Glynn in the Gutter

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Another Fine Night

Yesterday I attended the No Alibis launch of John Connolly's The Burning Soul and Alan Glynn's Bloodland with a musical intro from the uber-talented Isobel Anderson. The authors drew such a crowd that David Torrans had to pull a few strings and get the event moved to the Crescent Arts Centre for the sake of public safety. And I'd wager that every person who showed up enjoyed the evening as much as I did


I've been to a number of John Connolly readings and he was as charismatic and entertaining as usual. His talk raised more than a handful of chuckles, though it was a few shades darker than his usual quasi-stand up routine. But it was a fitting tone, considering the hard-hitiing nature of his latest tome


Alan Glynn read two stand-out passages from Bloodland. He fared very well in the company of the seasoned Connolly and his excerpts drew perfect responses from the tuned-in audience. What really made my night was his introduction, though. He quoted from my review of his most recent offering! Little hat-tips like that can be a powerful motivator to continue my often waning mission to spread the word about the quality Irish crime fiction that is out there. I was chuffed to bits

David Torrans then hosted an interview with the scribes that covered a range of subjects. From Alan Glynn's Hollywood experiences on the set of Limitless to John Connolly's eye-opening episodes amongst the London Irish in the years he worked as a journalist, the content was far-reaching, to say the least. What really captured my imagination was the subject of violence in crime fiction and the degrees of responsibility utilised within the genre. Fascinating stuff.

Author spotters would have been delighted to see Stuart Neville and Brian McGilloway in the audience.

Can't wait for the next event!

No Alibis Event - John Connolly and Alan Glynn

No Alibis are very pleased to invite you to celebrate the launch of John Connolly's latest Charlie Parker novel, THE BURNING SOUL, and Alan Glynn's latest novel, BLOODLAND, on Thursday 1st September at 6:00PM. A musical introduction will be provided by Isobel Anderson.

Please note: due to unprecedented demand for this event, it will now take place in the Crescent Arts Centre, rather than the shop. If you have already booked a spot, you do not need to do so again, as we have already transferred the reservations.


Randall Haight has a secret: when he was a teenager, he and his friend killed a 14-year-old girl.

Randall did his time and built a new life in the small Maine town of Pastor's Bay, but somebody has discovered the truth about Randall. He is being tormented by anonymous messages, haunting reminders of his past crime, and he wants private detective Charlie Parker to make it stop.

But another 14-year-old girl has gone missing, this time from Pastor's Bay, and the missing girl's family has its own secrets to protect. Now Parker must unravel a web of deceit involving the police, the FBI, a doomed mobster named Tommy Morris, and Randall Haight himself.

Because Randall Haight is telling lies...


A private security contractor loses it in the Congo, with deadly consequences, while in Ireland the ex-prime minister struggles to write his memoir.

A tabloid star is killed in a helicopter crash and three years later a young journalist is warned off the story.

As a news story breaks in Paris, a US senator prepares his campaign to run for office.

What links these things and who controls what we know? With echoes of John Le Carré, 24 and James Ellroy, Alan Glynn has written another crime novel of and for our times – a ferocious thriller that moves from Dublin to New York via West Africa, and thrillingly explores the legacy of corruption in big business, the West’s fear of China, the fate of ex-military, the role of back room political players, and the quick fix of online news.

Alan Glynn is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, where he studied English Literature, and has worked in magazine publishing in New York and as an EFL teacher in Italy. His second novel, Winterland, was published to huge acclaim in 2009, while his first novel The Dark Fields was released as the film Limitless - starring Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro - in Spring 2011.


Isobel Anderson will be providing a musical introduction to the evening.

As usual with John's event, we expect this one to be extremely popular, so please do book a spot to avoid disappointment. Book your spot now, by emailing David, or calling the shop on 9031 9607.

A Wee Review - Bloodland by Alan Glynn

Alan Glynn’s Bloodland begins with the mental breakdown of a private security operative in the Congo and then follows the shockwaves that it creates in Ireland and the US. An out-of-work journalist is warned off writing a book about Irish TV star, Susie Monaghan. An ex-Taoiseach gets knocked off the AA wagon. A once-successful property developer skates along the brink of bankruptcy. A US senator with presidential aspirations needs all the spin his people can provide to explain a broken hand. The senator’s brother wants the respect of his octogenarian corporate mentor. And they’re all linked by a helicopter crash that claimed Susie Monaghan’s life.

Bloodland follows the trend set by Glynn’s previous novel, Winterland. It explores the far-reaching ramifications of corruption in politics and global business right down to the frontline casualties. Shit runs downhill. Glynn’s writing is engaging and urgent. Each line counts as he expertly develops his characters and plot without sacrificing his wonderful skill for evocative prose.

Bloodland will enrage that sleeping anarchist within. More of the same, please, Mister Glynn.

I'm dead cultured, me...

My review of Adrian McKinty's Falling Glass is now up at Culture NI.

You can also read a feature on the very spiffy site in which Adrian chats about his previous novel, Fifty Grand, making the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year long list.

Four Irish writers on that list this year, which is a fantastic representation on the great work coming out of this island. Huge congrats to Adrian McKinty, Stuart Neville, Alan Glynn and William Ryan. Peruse the list here.

Here, There and Everywhere!

International Thriller Writers are hosting an article of mine that takes a look at three excellent Dublin-set novels; Winterland by Alan Glynn, All the Dead Voices by Declan Hughes and Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan. Click here to read it.

Also, there's a great interview with Ian Sansom on the Arts Extra Listen Again thingy from Friday. I recommend listening to Ian Sansom any time you can. Having attended some of his creative writing workshops I rate him very highly as a writer, a reader and a literary guru. Plus, the conversation swings around to JD Salinger at the end...

And, finally, I found out from his Facebook page that Colin Bateman's short film Jumpers is available to download on iTunes, he's thinking about writing a new Dan Starkey novel and the University of Ulster is giving him the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature for 'services to literature'. Pretty decent week for him, then!

An Interview - Alan Glynn

About Alan Glynn...

I live in Dublin, I’m married and have two small boys. My first novel, The Dark Fields, was published in 2002 and is currently being made into a movie by Universal Studios – though I have been saying that for seven years. My second novel, Winterland, is being published in November by Faber and Faber and in February by Minotaur Books in New York.

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

I’m about halfway through Bloodland which is a sort of lateral sequel to Winterland. What’s a lateral sequel, you ask. I have no idea. I’m not writing a series in the traditional sense, but some characters from Winterland are carried over and the style and structure is very similar. But whereas Winterland was firmly set in Ireland, Bloodland has a more international dimension and deals with aspects of the global resource wars, and commodity supply chains, especially in relation to illegal mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Alan Glynn’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

I get up very early, 4.30-ish, and work until my two boys get up. When they’ve gone to school, I work until early afternoon, at which point the boys re-appear and take over. That may seem very disciplined and structured, but within it lies a universe of chaos – lots of displacement activity, staring at the wall, toast. It depends on what stage of a book I’m at. The further in, the more intense and productive it gets. The very early stages are the hardest, drawing ideas together into something half-way coherent. It’s like trying to pick mercury up with a fork. It often doesn’t feel like work at all and you can easily end up being convinced that you’re clinically insane.

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

I don’t want to sound pretentious, but when you’re a writer, you’re never not writing, it’s always there – but away from the laptop, no surprise, I like reading and watching that latest version of the sprawling Victorian doorstop, the DVD boxset. I like going for walks, plugged into my iPod. I lived in Italy and picked up a love of cooking, so I do that a lot.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

Not really. I’ve been at this seriously for fifteen years and Winterland is only my second novel to be published (there are several others in a drawer), so I mightn’t be the ideal go-to guy for advice about breaking into anything. Having said that, I would agree with the idea that you shouldn’t “write for the market”. That never seems to work. Be true to your own style and vision, and don’t give up.

Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?

One is Gillian Flynn, whose Dark Places is a great book that isn’t afraid to mess around with time-frames and the reader’s sympathies. Adrian McKinty is another. His Fifty Grand is a powerful and violent revenge thriller that seems to operate on some kind of rocket-fuel from the very first page. And Megan Abbott is a delight, James M. Cain reincarnated. I’ve read Queenpin and am looking forward to her earlier two.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

Mainly research stuff. I’m reading Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost and also re-reading Michela Wrong’s In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. What I wish I was reading – and will be soon – is Blood’s a Rover.

Q7. Plans for the future?

Finishing Bloodland is about as much future as I can deal with at the moment - I write painfully slowly so there’s still plenty of it left. I have a couple of screenplay ideas I want to work on, but there’s something quixotic and slightly bonkers about writing screenplays – unless, that is, you happen to be best mates with a studio boss, which I’m not. Whatever the next novel presents itself as, that’s what I’ll be working on. There’s something about the novel form – one hundred thousand words, however many pages, sentences, paragraphs – that is incredibly satisfying to write. If I can keep on doing just that, it’ll be fine by me.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

Yeah, I‘d do a lot less sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and fretting about what people might think. I’d waste a bit less time doing unnecessary research and would trust instinct and intuition a bit more. And when Mephistopheles called by the house that night all those years ago, I guess I would have said, ‘OK, feck it, you’re on’.

Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?

Tech-wise, I once lost eighty pages I’d absolutely slaved over – eighty pages, I seem to remember, of the most exquisite, shimmering, Banvillean prose ever committed to a computer screen. Clicked the wrong button or there was a power-cut or something. So I’ve been obsessive about doing multiple back-ups ever since.

Thank you, Alan Glynn!

New Dublin Noir

WINTERLAND

Alan Glynn

5 November 2009, £12.99 original paperback

A gripping thriller set in the Dublin underworld of hitmen, big business and government corruption.

The worlds of business, politics and crime collide in contemporary Dublin when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night - one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That’s the official version of events. But when a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions, this notion quickly unravels.

Devastated by her loss, Gina’s grief is tempered, and increasingly fuelled, by anger - because the more she hears that it was all a coincidence, that gangland violence is commonplace, that people die on our roads every day of the week, the less she’s prepared to accept it.

Told repeatedly that she should stop asking questions, Gina becomes more determined than ever to find out the truth, to establish a connection between the two deaths - but in doing so she embarks on a path that will push certain powerful people to their limits...

'Winterland sets a dramatically high benchmark for emerald noir. With all the operatic inevitability of Greek tragedy, it anatomises what greed has done to Ireland . A resonant, memorable and uncomfortable read.' Val McDermid

‘Both a crime novel and a portrait of contemporary Ireland caught at a moment of profound change, Winterland seems set to mark Alan Glynn as the first literary chronicler of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Timely, topical, and thrilling, this is Ireland as it truly is.’ John Connolly

‘Clever and intense; a dark and powerful slice of Dublin noir. I loved it!’ R. J. Ellory

‘A terrific read … completely involving.’ George Pelecanos

‘This is the colossus of Irish crime fiction, what Mystic River did for Dennis Lehane, Winterland should do for Alan Glynn, it is a noir masterpiece, the bar against which all future works will be judged.’ Ken Bruen

‘A thrilling novel of suspense from a new prose master.’ Adrian McKinty

Alan Glynn is a graduate of Trinity College , where he studied English Literature, and has worked in magazine publishing in New York and as an EFL teacher in Italy . His first novel, The Dark Fields, was published in the US in 2002. He is married with two children and lives in Dublin .

Depression Obsession

There's an interview with Declan Burke over at Rafe McGregor's blog. Dec makes some very insightful comments on a range of crime fiction and literary topics. But the following really caught my eye:

"Ireland has just fallen out of a boom into a depression, and I think that’s going to have a very interesting effect on the kinds of books that are written over the next few years. In fact, it’s already provided the backdrop to three terrific novels – Gene Kerrigan’s Dark Times in the City, Declan Hughes’ All the Dead Voices, and Alan Glynn’s forthcoming Winterland."

And as of today, I have all three of the above mentioned books on my shelf. Thanks to Gemma Lovett from Faber for sending me the Winterland proof. Alan Glynn's second novel has garnered serious kudos from the likes of Ken Bruen, Allan Guthrie and, of course, Declan Burke. Can't wait to get stuck in.

In fact, I think I'll read the triumvirate of Celtic Tiger death throes in quick succession. And here was me thinking I was done with the prozac thing after I got over my David Peace binge...