Rob Kitchin's Blog, page 175

Review of Little Criminals by Gene Kerrigan (Vintage, 2005)

Frankie Crowe is a career criminal who dreams of moving up from the junior ranks to a high flyer.  All he needs is a lucky break and a hefty pile of cash to set himself up as a player.  Justin and Angela Kennedy appear to be his meal ticket, two Celtic Tiger cubs who have become wealthy through finance and property.  Jo-Jo Mackendrick is a gangland boss, determined to protect his position and what dirty jobs do and do not happen in the city.  Crowe feels he doesn’t need Jo-Jo’s blessing, he’s earned his right to step up to the big time.  His plan is to assemble a small group of four, kidnap one of the Kennedy’s and demand a million euro ransom.  And nothing is going to get in his way: Mackendrick, the Kennedy’s or the police.  If that means the taking of lives, then so be it.

Little Criminals is a cracking read and a lesson in how write all tell and no show, using tight, sparse, expressive prose.  There isn’t a single sentence that doesn’t propel the story forward.  Rather than following one person, Kerrigan shifts the point of view, telling different elements of the story from the perspective of a handful of characters, principally the main criminal Frankie Crowe, his reluctant sidekick, Martin Paxton, kidnap victim Angela Kennedy, and copper John Grace.  The characterisation is excellent, with each character's back story, neatly and efficiently set out, with a series of wonderful scenes and realistic dialogue.  The plot is tight and gripping.  There is no real mystery element to the story, nor unlikely coincidences or melodrama, instead it simply charts how the Crowe’s attempt at making the big time unfolds, which in and of itself is highly compelling.  The whole book is wonderfully evocative of Dublin before the crash, colliding together the worlds of criminal gangs and the corporate elite.  Overall, an excellent tale, very well told.  Highly recommended.

Irish crime binge

I'm having a bit of an Irish crime binge at present.  Yesterday I reviewed Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett.  Tomorrow I'll post a review of Little Criminals by Gene Kerrigan, followed early next week by Irregulars by Kevin McCarthy.  Hot on its heels will be Michael Clifford's The Deal and Alan Glynn's Graveland.  I bought the latter two at the weekend.  I'm not usually too fussed about covers, but I'll admit I wouldn't have picked up The Deal if it hadn't got Michael Clifford's name on it.  Just doesn't appeal to my taste.  His debut novel, Ghost Town, ensured that it reached the checkout till.

Review of Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett (Bloomsbury, 2007)

Dr Otto Spethmann is a widowed psychoanalyst working in St Petersburg in 1914, a city bracing itself for an impending war with Germany, whilst also in turmoil as reactionary forces seek to foment a revolution.  Amongst his patients are Anna Petrovna, a rich heiress who is troubled by a past event, and Avrom Rozental, a chess master on the verge of a nervous breakdown who is about to take part in a tournament, whom his famous musician friend and chess rival, Kopelzon, has asked him to treat.  As a chess player, Spethmann is keen to help Rozental overcome his demons, but he’s distracted by his attraction to Anna and a murder that the police have linked to him and his daughter, Catherine.  Despite his efforts to distance himself from the case, including seeking the intervention of influential citizens such as Anna’s father, Spethmann finds himself the target of a persistent police officer who suspects him of being implicated in a revolutionary plot to kill the Tsar.  Whichever way he turns he appears to be in Zugzwang: a position in chess in which a player is obliged to move, but every move available will only make his position worse.

Zugzwang moves along at quick clip, the story laced with intrigue and twists.  The historical context of St Petersburg in 1914, and its various conspiracies and revolutionary plots, forms a nice backdrop to the story without dominating the narrative.  The characterisation is well realised, if a little clichéd at times, and whilst the writing is engaging and plot intricate, the tale felt a little over-contrived, with various, complex inter-relations between several characters and interweaving subplots.  This is partly a result of Bennett seemingly trying to position every major character in a position of Zugzwang.  One nice touch is the inclusion of a chess game (including a picture of the board, the positions of the pieces and the moves) between Spethmann and his friend, Kopelzon, that mirrors Spethmann’s movement through the plot.  Overall, an enjoyable, if melodramatic, page-turner with an interesting backdrop.  

June reviews

I read and reviewed nine books in June.  The two standout stories were Crocodile Tears by Mark O'Sullivan and Once in Another World by Brendan John Sweeney, both set in Ireland, but seventy years apart.  The latter, set in 1937, edges it as my read of the month.

Exposed by Liza Marklund ****
Countdown City by Ben Winters ***.5
Season of the Witch by Arni Thorarinsson **.5
Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath ***
Penance by Dan O'Shea ****
Roll With It by Nick Place ***.5
Screwed by Eoin Colfer ***.5
Crocodile Tears by Mark O'Sullivan ****.5
Once in Another World Brendan John Sweeney *****

Lazy Sunday Service

This month has largely been a washout in terms of researching and writing.  I've spent most of it on the road for work-related stuff, either in Wales, England, Iceland, Northern Ireland or Dublin.  I managed just four days in Maynooth.  In fact, the first half of this year has felt slow with respect to drafting material.  I've managed three and half chapters for an academic book I'm writing, and co-written four other book chapters and two journal papers, which now I've jotted it down doesn't seem too bad.  The problem is I should have six chapters of the academic book written by now and am finding the slow progress frustrating.  The plan is to try and catch up and get back on track during July and August.  I have meetings all day tomorrow, but from Tuesday on I plan to have my head down and fingers tapping away.  We'll see how it goes.

My posts this week
Review of Exposed by Liza Marklund
Review of Countdown City by Ben Winters
Night swimming

Night swimming

Bored and restless, Jodie wandered from the tents to the lake shore.  Her friends had gone to the local pub and she’d stayed behind to mind their belongings.

The sun had long disappeared behind a ridge, but it was still warm and muggy.  Smiling to herself she stepped out of her flip-flops, removed her clothes, and waded out into the chilly water.

Once her thighs were submerged she pitched forward, breaking into a choppy stroke.  Three minutes later she was treading water when movement on the shore caught her eye.

A man stood next to her clothes removing his own.

Review of Countdown City by Ben Winters (Quirk Books, 2013)

There’s only 77 days until an asteroid ploughs into Earth causing an apocalypse.  Hank Palace has lost his job as a police detective and is counting down the days to doomsday hanging out with his dog, Houdini, and chatting at a local diner.  All around them society is crumbling in advance of the impact.  To try and keep order, the US Department of Justice has invoked a police state, but regardless people have organised themselves into collectives and communes, and many have abandoned their lives in order to undertake their bucket list.  When Martha Milano, Palace’s old babysitter asks him to look for her missing husband, Palace thinks that Brett Cavatone might have fled the nest.  As he tries to track him down, he senses that Brett had another agenda.  Finding Brett, however, is no easy task given the lack of modern amenities and Palace is forced to rely on the help of his anarchist sister who still has hope that the apocalypse can be avoided.  The general consensus is that Palace should abandon his hunt and concentrate on keeping himself alive, but his sense of obligation and duty and his desire to act as a detective compel him to find Brett and bring him home to Martha.

Countdown City is the second book in the Last Policeman trilogy and picks up Hank Palace’s story a couple of months after the first.  The real strength of the series is the premise and the character of Hank Palace.  Despite the impending doom of an asteroid hitting Earth, Palace feels compelled to continue acting like a detective and serving his fellow citizens, despite having lost his job and the woman he loved.  Everyone around him might be selfishly acting out their desires or plotting how to survive the apocalypse, but Hank is determined to stay a decent, humane fellow to the end.  Having such a civil lead character enables Winters to inflect the story with a series of philosophical questions concerning social relations and how people treat each other in extreme circumstances.  He does so, however, subtly so that the story remains very much a crime novel rather than a reflective literary text.  The plot for the most part works fine, with Palace trying to track down a wayward husband who has abandoned his wife.  However, it did very much read as a bridging book to the final instalment, moving elements of the plotline and characters into place for the denouement.  As such, the reader really needs to have read the first book to fully understand what is happening and has to appreciate that they will need to read the third to experience closure given the open ending of this instalment (I’m assuming the third book will provide closure).  Overall, an entertaining read, but probably not best read as a standalone.

Review of Exposed by Liza Marklund (2011, Corgi; 1999, Swedish)

Annika Bengtzon is a trainee journalist working as a summer intern at one of Sweden’s largest tabloid newspapers.  She’d like to be sourcing and reporting stories, but instead has been assigned to the tip-off phone, trying to weed out the genuine items of interest from pranksters and crazies and passing them onto the news desk.  When a caller rings in to report that the body of a naked woman is lying in a nearby cemetery she senses the chance to move from office lackey to reporter.  She manages to persuade her boss to let her follow up on the tip and sets off to investigate.  The tip proves to be true and Annika quickly starts to source facts about the woman and the police investigation, determinedly tracking down leads and making a nuisance of herself.  When a government minister is named as a prime suspect in the case she knows that something is not quite right.  But why would a minister sooner be a murder suspect rather than revealing the reality about where he was and what he was doing?  Annika knows that she potentially has a much bigger story, but forces are conspiring to ensure that she doesn’t get the chance to discover the truth.

Exposed is a very readable investigative journalist procedural set in Stockholm.  It follows the travails of rookie reporter Annika Bengtzon as she investigates the death of a local sex club worker and seeks to secure a permanent post with a tabloid newspaper.  Annika is a well realised, complex character who is determined to succeed, but has a habit of undermining her own efforts through instinctive, but poorly judged actions.  The story rattles along at a quick clip and the central plot is engaging, with Marklund threading the story with a number of subplots and rivalries and alliances between characters.  The telling is a little melodramatic at times and there are two twists at the end, one concerning Annika, the other another central character, neither of which were needed nor rang true.  Nevertheless, Exposed is an entertaining read that introduces a character whose life is as messed up as those on whom she reports for the tabloid press.

Lazy Sunday Service

Snubnose Press, the publisher of Stiffed, is celebrating its second birthday by reducing the ebook cost of all of its titles to 79p (UK) and 99c (US) for a limited time.  There are loads of great books to be snaffled up at a bargain price, including titles by authors such as Patti Abbott (Monkey Justice; Home Invasion), Tom Pitts (Piggyback; my review), R Thomas Brown (Hill Country; my review), Eric Beetner (Dig Two Graves; my review), Dan O'Shea (Old School; my review), Heath Lowrance (City of Heretics; my review), Andrew Nette (Ghost Money; my review), Keith Rawson (The Chaos We Know), Aaron Philip Clark (A Healthy Fear of Man) and loads of others.

 



Stiffed can be purchased for 99c from Amazon US or 79p from Amazon UK

Bishop to G3

‘Queen to E5’

‘I heard you the first time.’

‘Well, you didn’t acknowledge me,’ said the voice from the speakerphone.

‘I was thinking.’

‘Panicking more like.  You’re in trouble now, John.’

‘Maybe.’  He stared at the board and the ivory figures, his head in his hands, hair sticking up through fingers.

‘Come on.’

‘Dad, will you let me think.’

‘How about you call me back when you want to resign, the roses need pruning.’

‘How about you be quiet and patient?’

‘You’re not going to be a sore loser, are you?’

‘No.  Bishop to G3.’

‘Huh.  Oh.’

‘Now who’s panicking?’




A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.