Brian McGilloway's fourth Benedict Devlin novel is one of his best. It's safe to say that he has now become Northern Ireland's equivalent of Ian Rankin and because McGilloway writes about the borderlands between the Irish Republic and the north, with the ever present danger of the paramilitaries lurking in the background his stories seem to have more at stake than Rankin's. They also seem much more plausible to me than the police procedurals that take place in Edinburgh or, say, Iceland. For a convincing crime novel, it's long been my contention that you really need a background of criminality if your suspension of disbelief is to remain suspended. The Rising begins when Devlin gets summoned to a farmland where gunshots have disturbed the quiet of the wee hours. Devlin discovers a burning barn with two people inside. He's only able to rescue one of them before getting overcome. The dead man is Martin Kielty (no relation to BBC celebrity Patrick I hope) who is a drug dealer shipping product north and south. Devlin is put on the case. Ok that's it. No more plot spoilers in this review. The story twists and turns like a twisty turny thing (as Blackadder would say) and the characters are believable, morally complex and always interesting....
Unlike so many procedurals these days McGilloway is not solely interested in the end result. The pages do turn but he takes his time to establish landscape, back story and character and he's careful with his language and selection of words. The Rising is a terrific, complex mystery novel. Northern Ireland is indeed fortunate to have such a talented Derry twosome as Brian McGilloway and Garbhan Downey who are at the forefront of the Celtic New Wave in crime writing.
35 comments:
Nice cover too, dont you think?
Suitably bleak, it's true. What's the reaction in NI to novels dealing with subject matter so close to home and still sensitive?
David
Its coming around. For the longest time The Troubles were taboo. I remember having a meeting at the BBC in Belfast in 2004 and they told me they'd love to work with me on something as long as it wasn't anything about The Troubles, or the IRA or paramilitaries or "the past". For them the whole thirty years from 1968 - 1998 were something to be quickly forgotten about and brushed under the rug. That wasnt something I to do - those were the first 30 years of my life and instead of ignoring things like The Hunger Strikes and the Maze Prison Escape and the Enniskillen Bombing and Lord Mounbatten's assassination and Bloody Sunday etc. I think we should begin looking at them intently for the very first time.
I dont know what Brian's sales numbers are like, but I know that Stuart Neville was told to change the title of his novel The Ghosts of Belfast to The Twelve for fear that no one would buy it.
I think you hit the nail on the head about Brian McGilloway's success as an author dealing with the 'troubles' when you said that the ever present danger of the paramilitaries was 'lurking in the background'.
My two top cringe factors when Irish writers write about the troubles are:
a) when they are grinding some axe about their own take on politics or history,
and,
b) when it is (yet again) the Romeo/Juliet story of Protestant boy meets Catholic girl and love conquers all (or doesn't as the case may be).
You wouldn't believe the amount of trash that has been churned out under these two central themes.
Happily, Brian McGilloway (and you of course) fall well outside those categories. If the troubles have been a big part of life experience, of course it will colour creativity, and constantly lurk in the background of our consciousness. I really like it when Irish writers rise above the banal but still remain true to their own personal backgrounds, without playing to a stereotype for the benefit of an imaginary international gallery.
Phil
I dont see why see why this stuff should necessarily remain in the background. I havent done a Troubles novel, true, but someday I might. I just have to try and avoid the pit falls.
As Oscar Wilde said bad art is just as sincere as good art. I think the themes of love across the sectarian divide etc. etc. are just fine as topics but the problem is the cheesy way in which they get handled.
Hollywood in particular has a problem with this. Bloody Sunday was the first good movie about Northern Ireland in any genre that I've seen. And there are SO many embarassingly bad ones.
Thanks for the heads up THE RISING and Brian McGilloway.
The Ghosts of Belfast had some of the religious man / women thing going on in the background, but that was the first IC novel I ever read, so for me it worked fine.
Yes, I agree with everything you say about Brian's novels and I have to add one more thing - Insp. Devlin is a family man, he has a wife and kids. For me that's a very big part of these novels and another thing that sets them apart from so many "lone heros" in the genre.
The implications of Devlin getting on with his marriage and raising his kids (and dealing with office politics) on top of the current crimes and, as you say, the stuff that's lurking in the background adds a big layer to the books for me.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll look for McGilloway's books next time I head to the book store. I'm enjoying trying out all of these new authors lately.
Breithlá sona duit Striker
I don't think we've got McGilloway at our store--I'll have to check when I go in to see whether he is gettable.
I'm not sure I buy your idea about suspension of disbelief requiring a background of criminality, though. What about Sayers? What about Christie? Or do you put them in a different category? Or looked at another way, what place doesn't have crime?
I was just thinking the other day that you could do a whole crime detective series on just what's happened in Santa Cruz over the last couple of years, and crime is hardly the first thing that springs to mind here, or at least all the cars pouring into town over the summer don't lead me to think so.
Sean
Yeah that didnt bother me at all. I didnt read like cliche to me.
John
Yes. I should have mentioned that. I LOVE that aspect of the story. No lone wolf he. He's embedded in family and a culture and that complicates his life. He doesn't drift from town to town like the Littlest Hobo.
Glenna
Thats all part of the service.
Anon
Go raibh maith agat, Duke.
Seana
Thats just me. And I'm only talking about hardboiled.
Did you ever read Sayers's Gaudy Night? Crazy from start to finish but I really liked it.
I think I did read it after I saw the Masterpiece Theatre version. In any case, it's overdue for a reread.
Should we take it that birthday felicitations are in order, Dinky Manic Rat? Or is that an allusion that's over my head?
Happy Birthday Adrian, (assuming I translated that right..)
Seana
Why thank you. I am sick as a dog of course with a virulent cold and shall retire from the lists for the rest of the day.
Glenna
Thank you.
Nah, Benedict Devlin is a nicer fellow than Rebus.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I thought that was nice news from Dec's site. I'm looking forward to reading your book chapter.
Lists are one thing from which you'll never retire.
There's much to be said about McGilloway. I called Benedict Devlin a nicer guy than Rebus, which is just another way of saying what John did: that he's a family man, a normal guy, and so on.
And the first things I noticed about Briam McGilloway are that he called his first novel "Borderlands," he begins it with a body found on the border between the north and the Republic, and that he, an author from the north, writes in the persona of a police officer from the Irish Republic's Gardai -- and fills the sidekick/colleague roll with an officer from the P.S.N.I.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Two chapters from me, mate.
Maxim just sent us notes announcing the publisher has advance copies from the printer, and seeking verification of our postal addresses for sending out of said copies. I am excited
Grá mór on your birthday agus get well soon.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
Yes it looks like I am doomed to spend much of my birthday in the St Kilda Superclinic which is as how one imagines it to be.
As long as Maxim doesn't show you his erotic art collections I think you'll be fine.
Peter
And that was collections, plural.
Peter
And I'll review it here and possibly in The Age too if he would send me a galley.
That sucks, and another downer is that no seems to have a thought of bringing McGilloway out in paperback over here, which would seem to be kind of crucial to build an audience. Personally, of course, I have my ways.
Not sure if the crime scene collection will make it over here either.
But on the plus side, sort of, that Scribner POD of Fifty Grand just came in and it looks good! Got that original cover on it. Yes, everything about the pricing is bad, but at least I can stop just telling people about it.
We've also sold 67 copies of Fifty Grand in paper, which is small potatoes in the bigger scheme of things, but not too shabby as things go here, and right in my projection to sell 100 by Labor Day. So Happy Birthday!
Yep, I had to wear dark glasses adn a little turned-up hat when I visited Maxim's shop on Charing Cross Road.
Seana
Thanks for that! If only all booksellers would be so dedicated.
McGilloway is published by Macmillan who have so many pbk imprints its ridiculous. I would have thought with a John Connolly endorsement, a solid series, and rumors of a TV production that this would be worth a pbk. But then I clearly understand nothing of the publishing world.
By original cover you mean what exactly? The cover of the hardback or pbk? I have asked S&S for information but it has not been forthcoming.
It's the hardback cover with the guy on the bed, and it's got a kind of goldenrod border, which looks better than it might sound. It doesn't look PODish to me.
I think what's even more of a compliment to you is that somehow I've gotten a lot of the staff to read it and they've all really liked it. Well, one person thought it would be too violent for her, but she admitted that that was her and had nothing to do with the worth of the book. I was kind of surprised because there isn't usually that much consensus of opinion around the place and people tend not to read too much as you say hard-boiled crime there.
I don't get the rationale of publishers. People aren't buying much hardback fiction these days other than the obvious brand names. I don't know why they don't bring out McGilloway in paper and market him as Northern Ireland's answer to Ian Rankin. It seems so obvious, but they aren't doing much of anything for midlist authors these days, which was part of my point in pushing Fifty Grand. Even in the ebook age, it's not that hard to sell trade paperbacks if they're well-written and you're willing to vouch for them.
Peter, if you're still reading down here, are both articles on Iceland, or what exactly?
I meant a lot of the staff has read Fifty Grand, not Dead I Well May Be. Yet.
Seana, I'm still reading here. One article is on Arnaldur's Iceland, the other on Camilleri's Sicily.
I'd assumed that the other contributors' assignments were similar: one detective, one territory. But I see that Declan wrote about several detectives in his Dublin piece, and that makes sense. The book includes chapters on London, Paris, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, each of which has been the home to any number of fictional detectives who would have much to say about their cities.
I think Northen Ireland deserves a place in a hypothetical second volume of "Following the Detectives."
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Er, NortheRn Ireland. That was a typo, not a dialect pronunciation.
Sounds great. I ran out of time at work tonight before I could find out whether it's easy to get through the normal bookstore channels, which are somewhat different than, say, Amazon channels. I'll check tomorrow.
Seana, I suppose it is possible that my Camilleri piece might have been cut from the book. On the one hand, that would be a disappointment. On the other, I have already been paid for it. On the third, insh'allah ...
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