Rob Kitchin's Blog, page 196

Review of Slaughter’s Hound by Declan Burke (Liberties Press, 2012)

After a spell in mental health unit after killing his brother, Harry Rigby, one time private investigator, is now driving a taxi and making ends meet shipping drugs round Sligo town on the Northwest coast of Ireland.  Finn Hamilton, his independently wealthy former room-mate, runs a pirate radio station, broadcasting from the top of the old Port Authority tower.  After a late night run to drop off some weed, Harry watches Finn dive from his studio, landing head first on his cab.  Rather than wait for the police to arrive he heads to Finn’s mother to tell her of her son’s death.  It's the early hours of the morning, but Harry’s day is about to get a whole lot worse as everything he does leads to more woes - tangling with an ambitious cop, ex-paramilitaries turned drug dealers, the warring Hamilton family, a dodgy solicitor and his bodyguard, and his former partner and teenage son.  Harry is on a downward spiral, but he’s resourceful and fighter, and he’s determined to get to the bottom of Finn’s supposed suicide dive - especially since if he didn't dive, he's the prime suspect for pushing him to his death.

Slaughter’s Hound is the sequel to Eight Ball Boogie, Burke’s first novel published in 2004.  In the intervening time he’s published three other novels, the last of which, Absolute Zero Cool, was my read of 2011.  Burke’s trademark as a wordsmith is in strong evidence in Slaughter’s Hound, the sense of place and characterisation is strong throughout, and the noir plot was nicely constructed.  However, for me it was a book of two halves.  After an excellent opening scene, the first half I found quite slow and ponderous and I struggled to get into the story.  It lacked the pace, wit and action of his other work, sacrificed to in-depth characterisation and observational asides.  The second half, in contrast, was excellent with dark humour, pathos, and twists and turns aplenty as it hurtled to its sinister, action-packed resolution.  If the first half had been compressed into a third, then this would have been a really great read.  As it stands, Slaughter’s Hound is a good, solid, noir tale, firmly rooted in North West Ireland.       

Lazy Sunday Service

For anyone living in and around Dublin, or fancy trip to the city, there are two crime writing events at this year's Dublin Book Festival. On Thursday 15th November, 6.30-7.30pm, Niamh O'Connor, Conor Brady, Sam Millar and Louise Philips will discuss their inspirations.  Later that same evening, 8.00-9.15pm, Sean Moncrieff and Michael Clifford will discuss writing in the shadows of the recession with Niamh O'Connor.  I have Louise Phillips' new book Red Ribbons on the TBR - I must give it a read. 

My posts this week:
Review of The Untouchables by Shane Ross and Nick Webb
The UK seeks to emulate the Irish model of development, planning and construction?
Manchester side-bar
Review of HHhH by Laurent Binet
October reads
The makings of a grouch

The makings of a grouch

‘What are you doing?’

‘Go back to sleep.’

‘You’re watching a video on your phone?’

‘I’m too tired to read.’

‘So go to sleep then.’

‘I can’t, that’s why I’m watching a video.’

‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No.  I just can’t sleep, that’s all.’

‘You’re working too hard.  You’re head’s so stuffed full of nonsense it can’t slow to a rest.  You need to stop doing so much.’

‘Like that’s my choice.  Go back to sleep, you’ll be tired in the morning.’

‘And you won’t be?’

‘I’m used to it. You’ll be a grouch.’

‘That’ll make two of us then.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

October reads

I'm somewhat surprised that I read and reviewed ten books in October.  It didn't feel like a ten book month.  It was a bit of a mixed bag.  The standout book was Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon, a crime thriller set in the Turkish city in the months after the Second World War.  I've already bought another his books, The Good German, which I hope to read soon.


HHhH by Laurent Binet ***
The Untouchables by Shane Ross and Nick Ross ***
Dust Devils by James Reasoner ***
A Death in Tuscany by Michele Giuttari ***
Restless by William Boyd ****
Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon ******
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin ****
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie ***.5
The Killing of Emma Gross by Damien Seaman ****.5
The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal ***.5

Review of HHhH by Laurent Binet (Harvill Secker, 2012; French 2009)

1942 and two Czechoslovakian parachutists are dropped from a British plane over their homeland.  Their mission, Operation Anthropoid, is to travel to Prague to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, second in command of the SS and the driver behind the Final Solution.  They know that they are undertaking what has been classed as a suicide mission, and that the Nazis will exact a terrible revenge on the local population, but Heydrich is considered one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the Third Reich, a key strategic thinker that needs eliminating.  But how to write this true tale as a non-fiction novel?  A story that involves real people, is surrounded by myth, and has been told many times before?  These are questions that Laurent Binet agonizes over as he tells the story.

HHhH is two stories wrapped through each other.  On the one hand, it is the tale of Heydrich and the parachutists, and on the other it examines through self-reflection Binet’s obsession with the story and his attempt to write it as a non-fiction novel.  Binet is uncomfortable with the non-fiction novel for the same reasons that I generally shun the genre - that the focus is real people and events and by fictionalising the story in whole or part the author plays with and re-writes history.  HHhH confronts these issues head on by writing about the process of researching and writing about Heydrich’s assassination and his doubts and anxieties.  The story thus unfolds through a series of short sections that see-saw between the two threads.  At the start of the novel I was totally captivated by the approach and story.  However, as the book progressed it became increasingly tedious and tiresome.  The self-reflective elements lose their vitality and at one point Binet states: ‘I’m drivelling, aren’t I?’  To which my response was, 'yes, and you have been for quite some time'. It is not helped by the story of the parachutists being relatively mundane, lacking in spark and voice.  Binet is so paranoid about keeping the story ‘true’ that the narrative style reads more like popular history than fiction.  Whilst the book will appeal to literary folk and historians interested in the production of knowledge and the role of the author, as a novel it started with much promise but the format ultimately stymied the story.

Manchester side-bar

I got an email last week asking if I would present a seminar in the Politics dept at the University of Manchester sometime in the coming months.  Since I'm passing through Manchester Airport en route to the Wirral on Thursday, I offered to drop in and present then.  I didn't think they'd go for such a short notice option, but they have, so I'll be talking on public academia between 2-4pm before heading on.  I've just put together the slides, so I'm all set.  It'll be my seventeenth external talk this year and I'm looking forward to it.  I should have asked for recommended Manchester reads for this trip, as well as Merseyside ones.  Oh well, I'm only there for a couple of hours.

Review of The Untouchables by Shane Ross and Nick Ross (Penguin, 2012)

My review of Shane Ross and Nick Webb's new book appeared in the Irish Times on Saturday.  It starts thus:


Shane Ross and Nick Webb’s previous book, Wasters, concerned the misuses of State funds, poor governance, organisational failure and cronyism in public bodies in Ireland. In The Untouchables they turn their attention to individuals in positions of power and influence, and the organisations they work for, who have managed to weather the present crisis somewhat better than might be expected.

Ross and Webb’s principal argument is that the blame for Ireland’s woes extends well beyond politicians and that, despite calamitous failures, most of the architects of the crisis remain in their posts or businesses, and the same mindsets predominate.

Precious little reform has taken place, they write, despite the election promises of Fine Gael and Labour for quick action. Fianna Fáil and the Greens may have paid the price for the disastrous decisions they made in the previous government, but their elite networks, political patronage and poor systems of governance and regulation mean many powerful individuals and vested interests continue to thrive. 

To read the rest, click here ...

As a little experiment I put my twitter address at the end of the piece to see if it led to any more followers.  Over the weekend I picked up five new followers, one of whom was not because of the piece.  So it had some effect but much less than one might have thought.

Lazy Sunday Service

Last night we went to see Joan Armatrading at Sligo Live.  Somewhat unusually for a concert, I'd say we were in the lowest percentile in age.  She's certainly managed to hold onto her fans from the 1970s.  She played a mix of new songs and old classics and put on a great show.  What makes her timeless is she has a unique voice and sound and is skillful songwriter.  Wonderful gig.  Here's Love and Affection from 1976.

 


My posts this week
Review of Dust Devils by James Reasoner
A new splurge
Books for a trip to Australia
A review of A Death in Tuscany by Michele Giuttari
Liverpool reads
A blank page and a blinking cursor

A blank page and a blinking cursor

‘A blank page and a blinking cursor.  You’ve been staring at that screen for over an hour.’

‘There’ve been words on there, but rubbish words.  Flat, lifeless, boring words.  Words you wouldn’t wish on your most creative enemy.’

‘What kind of words?’

‘I don’t know.  You’re asking someone with writer’s block to actually name words.  Bad, soulless, uninspiring words.  What I need are melodious words, strung together to form delightful prose.  I’ll settle for any that produce an engaging narrative.’

‘Why don’t you take a break; go for a walk?

‘Because that blinking cursor is mocking me.  Winking, smirking, bah!’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Liverpool reads

Thanks for the suggestions re. Liverpool-based crime fiction.  Last night I downloaded onto my Kindle (too late to order the paperbacks):

Ed Chatterton - A Dark Place to Die
Martin Edwards - All the Lonely People

A Dark Place to Die sounds like it might also double up as a Aussie read, as half the plot is set there according to its blurb.  I've used the Aussie version of the cover right, which I much prefer to the UK version.