Rob Kitchin's Blog, page 177

The morning after

David rolled onto his back, his arm sliding across lower ribs.

‘The morning after,’ Katie whispered.

‘The night before,’ David muttered, his head thick with a hangover, his stomach queasy.  ‘Now what?’

‘I ... I don’t know.’  She stared at the wallpaper, trying to untangle emotions. 

‘I’m trying to decide if that was the best or worst night of my life.’

‘What about Rosa?  And Neil?’

‘They don’t need to know.  Do they?’

‘I ... I suppose not.  But ... what if they find out?’

‘I can keep a secret, if you can.’ His hand found her hip, squeezing gently.

Review of Once in Another World by Brendan John Sweeney (New Island, 2013)

Holland was recruited into the Movement as a teenager.  Just over twenty years after the 1916 Easter Rising and the Movement is at a low ebb, increasingly marginalised by a society wanting some sort of closure after independence and civil war.  Holland, however, is still filled with idealism and is prepared to fight for the liberation of the six counties of Northern Ireland.  When he’s offered an assignment chauffeuring and protecting Farkas, a Hungarian businessman working in Dublin, he reluctantly takes the job.  The perks and the clandestine nature of some of the work are welcome, as is hanging out with the cold and distant Sabine, a Jewish refugee from Berlin.  It seems that Farkas is operating a shady scheme to get Jewish assets out of the Reich and the Movement is protecting him for a cut.  But all is not quite what it seems and on a trip to England, Holland ends up shooting a man dead.  When they return to Ireland, Farkas disappears and the Movement wants answers from Sabine.  Fearing for both their lives, Holland takes Sabine deep into rural Ireland hoping that their pursuers tire of the chase and they can slip across the Irish sea to Britain.  The secrets that Sabine hold, however, are worth the chase.

Once in Another World is an excellent debut novel set in Dublin and Meath in 1937.  Sweeney captures the political intrigue and games of the time, as well as the atmosphere, sense of place, and social relations of urban and rural Ireland.  The historical contextualisation is very well done and is woven into the story without it ever feeling like a history lesson.  Indeed, the narrative is all tell and no show, and the prose is nicely crafted.  The plot is well executed, effectively divided into three acts, with urban and political scenes bookending a rural sojourn.  The register in the rural part of the novel is slightly different, focusing on the awkward relationship between Holland and Sabine, and whilst evocative it would have be interesting to get a little more of their back stories.  Nevertheless, the characterisation is strong and by keeping the focus tightly on the lead characters of Holland, Sabine, and a handful of others, Sweeney is able to flesh out their interactions and personalities.  Overall, a very enjoyable story that is easy to imagine being adapted as a television drama or a play.

Cover for next academic book

A couple of days ago I received the proof for the next academic book to hit the shelves, which should happen sometime around November.  I'm meant to provide some feedback.  What do you think? (click on it to make it larger).  It's a wrap around for a hardback, hence the flaps to the left and right of the main cover.

Review of Crocodile Tears by Mark O’Sullivan (Transworld, 2013)

In the wealthy, seaside suburb of Howth, on the north side of Dublin city, property developer Dermot Brennan has been clubbed to death with a crowbar.  Having only joined the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation a couple of days before, Detective Sergeant Helen Troy is a little anxious about undertaking her first case, especially given her boss DI Leo Woods is still en route home from a holiday break.  Woods is a first rate cop but a wounded soul, disfigured from Bell’s palsy, haunted by a troubled youth, a disastrous marriage, and secondments to Angola and Bosnia.  He makes his way from the airport to the murder scene under instructions from his superintendent to tread carefully as Brennan had been involved in a ghost estate development with a junior minister’s cousin and a bunch of other influential individuals.  The superintendent has also assigned a rookie detective to the case, Ben Murphy, who’s competence and efficiency gets under Woods’ skin.  Given Brennan’s dysfunctional family, his collapsed business interests, and the disenfranchised residents of his unfinished development, there’s no shortage of leads for Woods’ team to follow.

Crocodile Tears is a very nicely written police procedural that has a strong blend of unpicking the mystery surrounding the death of Dermot Brennan, capturing the aftermath of the property crash in Ireland, and charting the interactions and tension between the cops and with the suspects.  O’Sullivan creates vivid characterisation, particularly with respect to the guards, and rather than concentrating on a single cop traces a handful from junior to senior rank, each well penned with a decent back story.  The dialogue and interactions are first rate.  In particular, I thought the first interrogation with Sean Doran, a resident on one of Brennan’s ghost estates, was excellent: all lies, threats, feints, and violence waiting to explode.  For the most part the plot worked well, though I felt it became a little derailed towards the end as it veered towards a more fanciful ending.  Overall, a very promising start to what I assume (and hope) is going to be a series and highly recommended.

Review of Screwed by Eoin Colfer (Headline, 2013)

After years of working the doors of night clubs, ex-Sergeant Dan McEvoy is preparing to open his own in Cloisters, New Jersey.  Life is just about on an even keel.  He’s a delusional girlfriend who thinks he’s her long-lost husband, a lecherous best friend who practices backstreet plastic surgery, and a truce with Mike Madden, a local mobster, so long as Mike’s mother remains alive.  But then lightening strikes, Mrs Madden is toast and the local boss is back on the war path.  To help pay off his debt, McEvoy agrees to be the middle man between Madden and a Manhattan-based boss.  But before he can deliver the bearer bonds he’s picked up by two local cops who have other plans for him.  A few hours later and McEvoy is the target of two sets of mobsters, the police and his own family, and is a viral hit on a porn site.  It’s taking all skills as a veteran soldier and a lot of luck to stay alive, especially given his aversion to killing those who are trying to kill him.

Screwed is a screwball noir that rattles along a quick clip, with McEvoy pinging from one dose of slapstick violence and gallows humour to another.  Colfer has an engaging voice and the narrative is witty and sassy, with a number of laugh out loud moments.  As with all comic crime capers the plot is a little ridiculous and the characters lean towards caricature, but that’s a key part of what makes them work.  Colfer sets out a series of quirky plot strands then weaves together to form a story full of collisions and ricochets, whilst also filling in more of McEvoy’s family back story.  As I noted with respect to the first book, Plugged, McEvoy seemed a little out of key - he’s meant to be scarred with deep psychological flaws courtesy of an abusive family upbringing and his time as a peacekeeper in the Lebanon, but he seems way too together, clear thinking and assured in his own violent abilities to fit that mould.  Moreover, some of the humour seems a little forced at times.  Nevertheless, Screwed is good rollicking fun and an enjoyable second book in the series.

May reviews

May was a month full of okay reads.  Rising out of the pack, my book of the month is Clare Mulley's The Spy Who Loved, a biographical account of the remarkable life of Krystyna Sarbeck (Christine Granville).

Behind the Battle by Ralph Bennett **
Death of a Nationalist by Rachel Pawel ***
The Woman Who Walked into the Sea by Mark Douglas-Home ***
The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke ***
Black Irish by Stephan Talty ***.5
The Dance of the Seagull by Andrea Camilleri ***.5
Bogmail by Patrick McGinley ***.5
The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel ***
The Spy Who Loved by Clare Mulley ****.5
Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier **.5

Lazy Sunday Service

June is set to be a busy month of work travel.  I'm off to Aberystwyth this coming week to externally examine at the university, the following week I'm in Iceland, and the week after I'm in Durham.  I haven't yet bought my reading for Iceland, but I'm thinking of Michael Ridpath's 'Where the Shadows Lie' and Arni Thorarinsson's 'Season of the Witch' - good choices?  (I've read books in the past by Arnaldur Indridason, Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates, so looking to try new authors). 

My posts this week:

Review of Behind the Battle by Ralph Bennett
The value of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Review of Death of a Nationalist by Rachel Pawel
Irish exchequer tax receipts 2000-2012 data viz
Once in Another World
Academic and social media: opportunities, challenges and risks
Fearing rejection

Fearing rejection

‘Dreams don’t just come true, Terry.  They need a helping hand.’

‘They’re not good enough.’

‘You know that’s bullshit.  What’s the worst they can say?  “Thanks, but no thanks.”  So what?  People have different tastes; just send them to someone else.’

Terry stared at the sea, watching the breakers.

‘People can’t read your stories if they’re locked in a filing cabinet.’

‘I don’t want people to read them.’

‘If you didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  The problem is you’re afraid of how they’ll be judged.  But they won’t be judged at all if you won’t set them free.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Once in Another World by Brendan John Sweeney

A new book from New Island turned up in the post this morning - Once in Another World by Brendan John Sweeney.  It's a historical crime thriller set in Ireland and England in 1937 and the blurb is below.  I've already zipped through the first four chapters and it's excellent so far. 

Dublin, March 1937. Holland, an idealistic young IRA recruit, is offered a strange assignment. He is told to guard and spy on a sinister Hungarian businessman and Sabine his secretary – a Jewish refugee.
The mission tests Holland’s loyalties and his idealism to the utmost and ends with a sordid shooting match in a field in England. Holland finds himself fleeing with Sabine into the depths of the Irish countryside, where treacherous swamps and dense woods protect them from their pursuers. An intense love affair between two young people from vastly different worlds suddenly becomes possible. 

But Holland’s closest friend in the Movement knows his mind too well, and seeks him out, leading to a confrontation as fateful and tragic as any Irish myth.

Review of Death of a Nationalist by Rachel Pawel (Soho Press, 2003)

The civil war in Spain has just drawn to a close with Franco's Nationalists taking Madrid.  A young school girl walking home witnesses the death of a Guardia Civil and drops her school book.  Her aunt, a communist now in hiding, offers to retrieve it for her since paper is rationed.  At the body she is disturbed by two Guardia Civil officers and summarily executed for killing the nationalist policeman.  Sergeant Carlos Tejada, a hero of the siege of Toledo, feels no shame or guilt for killing the young woman; as a Red she deserved what was coming to her, but he is distressed to find that the dead man is his best friend, Paco Lopez, who he has not seen for some time.  Something about the crime does not add up and Tejada starts to suspect that the killing of his friend is not as straightforward as he first suspected.  He starts to investigate the case and discovers his friend was connected to the black market.  He’s not the only one investigating a death, however.  Gonzalo Llorente is searching for the sergeant who murdered his lover whilst she was trying to retrieve his niece’s school book.

The strengths of Death of a Nationalist are the atmosphere and sense of place.  Pawel captures the general paranoia and landscape of Madrid at the end of a civil war, where neighbours are not sure who they can trust and sections of the population are being hunted and arrested, people are starving and either hardened or broken, and the buildings and streets are damaged from bullets and bombs.  Sergeant Carlos Tejada is a complex lead character, a learned and cultured man but also a battle hardened veteran.  He is capable of torturing prisoners and killing in cold blood, and is generally standoffish, but can also be empathetic and romantic.  It’s an interesting mix, creating an anti-hero that is at the limits of reader sympathy.  The other characters are reasonably well penned, but there is little in the way of back story with regards to the Llorente family with whom Tejada finds himself tangling.  Moreover, the plot is a little convoluted and thin at times, and the ending is mostly told through an epilogue.  Nevertheless, this first book in the series shows promise given its historical setting and lead character and I’d be interested to give the second a read.