4 Belfast Noir Events

November 7th at NYU Irish House in Manhattan the convincingly bearded Stuart Neville, the moderately bearded John Connolly and the clean shaven Lee Child will be launching Belfast Noir!
November 14th The terrificly bearded Peter Rozovsky will be talking all things Belfast Noir at Bouchercon Long Beach with the goateed Gerard Brennan, the bearded Stu Neville and the clean shaven Paul Charles.
November 22nd at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast, Belfast Noir's Irish launch will be hosted by the completely hairless Dave Torrans and No Alibis books and will feature as many of the authors who can make it as possible. (I'm told there's going to be a pretty healthy turn out for this one!)
December 17th at the Celtic Club in Melbourne I'll be shaving, putting on a clean shirt and talking all things Belfast Noir.
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There you go, 4 Belfast Noir events on 3 continents. Maybe the Wall Street Journal and the Irish Examiner are right in saying that Belfast is the hip new Scandinavia or, er, something 

The Cold Cold Ground

COLD COLD GROUND is a beautiful, thrilling heartbreaker of a book, alive with the sorrow and poetry of Ireland.  Adrian McKinty is one of the finest writers working in any genre. ---Tim Hallinan

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It's undoubtedly McKinty's finest novel: a visceral journey to the heart of darkness that was 1980's Northern Ireland. Written with intelligence, insight and wit, McKinty exposes the cancer of corruption at all levels of society at that time. Sean Duffy is a compelling detective, the evocation of the period is breathtaking and the atmosphere authentically menacing. A brilliant piece of work which does for the North what Peace's Red Riding Quartet did for Yorkshire.---Brian McGilloway
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THE COLD, COLD GROUND is a razor sharp thriller set against the backdrop of a country in chaos, told with style, courage and dark-as-night wit.  Adrian McKinty channels Dennis Lehane, David Peace and Joseph Wambaugh to create a brilliant novel with its own unique voice.---Stuart Neville
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The Cold Cold Ground is a fearless trip into the nightmare world of Northern Ireland in the 1980’s:  riots, hunger strikes, murders -- a time when every action from the mundane to the extreme is a political statement, yet Adrian McKinty tells a very personal story of an ordinary cop trying to hunt down a killer.---John McFetridge
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Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground has got to on my five best of the year [list] as it is riveting, brilliant and just about the best book yet on Northern Ireland.---Ken Bruen
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Adrian McKinty is the voice of the new Northern Irish generation but he’s not afraid to examine the past. Through Sean Duffy, his latest protagonist, he applies his unique writing skills to our troubled history expertly. This writer is a legend in the making and Cold, Cold Ground is the latest proof of this.---Gerard Brennan
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The sense of what it must have been like to live through the most explosive days of Northern Ireland’s Troubles is vivid but, more than that, convincing. This goes especially for the book's homely details and the off-hand observations by McKinty's Sean Duffy, a Catholic member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. If McKinty were a tour guide, he’d take visitors to parts of Belfast and its surroundings that no one else does. The world’s most exciting crime fiction these days comes from Ireland, the best of that comes from the North, and The Cold Cold Ground may be the best crime novel – and one of the best books, period – out of Northern Ireland.–-- Peter Rozovsky

George McFly Day!

In an early Christmas pressie for me my author's copies of The Cold Cold Ground arrived today! The book looks fabulous and I'm really pleased with it. (The kids incidentally are dressed up for their school Matsuri Day.)
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Is The Cold Cold Ground any good? Well, I'm not a terrific judge of my own stuff but here are a few words from people that I admire in the crime fiction family:

COLD COLD GROUND is a beautiful, thrilling heartbreaker of a book, alive with the sorrow and poetry of Ireland.  Adrian McKinty is one of the finest writers working in any genre. 

---Tim Hallinan


It's undoubtedly McKinty's finest novel: a visceral journey to the heart of darkness that was 1980's Northern Ireland. Written with intelligence, insight and wit, McKinty exposes the cancer of corruption at all levels of society at that time. Sean Duffy is a compelling detective, the evocation of the period is breathtaking and the atmosphere authentically menacing. A brilliant piece of work which does for the North what Peace's Red Riding Quartet did for Yorkshire.

---Brian McGilloway


THE COLD, COLD GROUND is a razor sharp thriller set against the backdrop of a country in chaos, told with style, courage and dark-as-night wit.  Adrian McKinty channels Dennis Lehane, David Peace and Joseph Wambaugh to create a brilliant novel with its own unique voice.

---Stuart Neville

The Cold Cold Ground is a fearless trip into the nightmare world of Northern Ireland in the 1980’s:  riots, hunger strikes, murders -- a time when every action from the mundane to the extreme is a political statement, yet Adrian McKinty tells a very personal story of an ordinary cop trying to hunt down a killer.

---John McFetridge

Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground has got to on my five best of the year [list] as it is riveting, brilliant and just about the best book yet on Northern Ireland.

---Ken Bruen

Adrian McKinty is the voice of the new Northern Irish generation but he’s not afraid to examine the past. Through Sean Duffy, his latest protagonist, he applies his unique writing skills to our troubled history expertly. This writer is a legend in the making and Cold, Cold Ground is the latest proof of this.

---Gerard Brennan

The sense of what it must have been like to live through the most explosive days of Northern Ireland’s Troubles is vivid but, more than that, convincing. This goes especially for the book's homely details and the off-hand observations by McKinty's Sean Duffy, a Catholic member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. If McKinty were a tour guide, he’d take visitors to parts of Belfast and its surroundings that no one else does. The world’s most exciting crime fiction these days comes from Ireland, the best of that comes from the North, and The Cold Cold Ground may be the best crime novel – and one of the best books, period – out of Northern Ireland.

–-- Peter Rozovsky

The Critical Consensus On Falling Glass

When you've finished writing a novel you have no idea how it's going to be received. It's definitely not like the moment when Paul McCartney played Hey Jude for the rest of the Beatles and everyone in the room knew that they were listening to a classic. No, books are much more subjective. For every person who loves Naked Lunch and thinks it's a masterpiece there are ten who hate it. There are exceptions...I've yet to find someone who hates Charlotte's Web but I'm sure there is a nutter out there somewhere who doesn't dig it. (Apologies if you are that nutter.)
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When I finished editing Falling Glass last October I hated the bloody book. I'd read it through half a dozen times and that was enough to kill any love I had for the jokes, the set pieces, the characters etc. I was also discouraged by the rejections I was getting from American publishers who felt it "wasn't commercial enough." My old house, Scribner, passed, Henry Holt passed, St Martin's passed. We started showing it to smaller presses who often boast about publishing "outsider voices from different perspectives" etc. and they all said no too. My Australian publishers didn't even tell me when the book was coming out and I only knew it was out here because I happened to chance upon it in a shop. 
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My UK publishers Serpents Tail liked it but they've always been very supportive of me and I did wonder if secretly they hated it and just wanted to spare my feelings. I'll chalk it up to experience I thought. No one wants to read a noir story about Irish Travellers in contemporary Ireland. I'll know better next time...
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But then the reviews started coming in...And the reviews told a vastly different story from what the voices in my head were saying. Spinetingler Magazine was one of the first out of the gate and they loved the book. Spinetingler ran a review and an extract and an interview. The next review I read was in The Guardian newspaper and the Guardian loved it too. Next came an extremely positive review in the Irish Times (and this from a paper who have sent me a few rockets in the past). Last week I got a lengthy write up at The Crime Of It All and just yesterday I got a great review in the Irish Independent from Declan Burke - a man who knows his onions where crime fiction is concerned. Declan's review was interesting because Falling Glass got the lead in the paper above John Banville's latest novel. There have been other reviews along the way on blogs, in newspapers and on Amazon. The only people I've come across who really disliked Falling Glass were a couple of listeners on Audible who couldn't get into the story or "found the narrator dry" whatever that means. My old pal Bookwitch wasn't convinced by the ending and I've had a few emails from people who also felt the same...In general though, as I said in a blog post last week, this is the best reviewed book I've had since Dead I Well May Be.
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Johnny Foreigner has also gotten on board. Serpents Tail have sold the rights to Germany, France and a couple of other EU countries which means that you can get Falling Glass in the entire British Commonwealth and most of Europe but, crucially, not North America. I have to say that I beg to differ with all the American publishers who claim that the book is not commercial in the US market. There is one place and only one place where Falling Glass is available in the US and that's on Audible.com. On Audible, as of today I've had 132 ratings, an average rating of 4.11 (out of 5), and twenty one written reviews.  By way of comparison, despite heavy advertising, a recent profile in The New Yorker, radio and TV interviews and a book tour, the latest John Banville crime novel has 10 ratings, 1 customer review and an average rating of 3.30. I'm not knocking Banville but I am knocking the US publishers who think there is no market for me or my novels. The listeners and - a fortiori - the readers are out there!
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Before I get off this solipsistic topic forever I would like to thank EVERYONE who has written a review of any of my books on Good Reads, on a blog, on Audible, in print, on any of the Amazons etc. I do read all the reviews and I take seriously what people say. I often completely disagree with you but if you've taken the trouble to review my book I will read it. And even if the corporate suits in mid town Manhattan don't want to take a chance on me, well there's nothing I can do about that, but I sure do appreciate your support. Go raibh maith agaibh

Following The Detectives

In 1995 I went to Russia for the first time. It was a bit chaotic and slightly dangerous but I really enjoyed myself. Before I'd gone I'd made a map of St Petersburg and I spent a couple of days visiting all the locations in Crime and Punishment. I also went out to the site of Pushkin's duel in the woods and I visited Dostoyevsky's grave. When I moved to New York the first thing I did was visit all the haunts of the beats and when I was at Oxford I decided that my local was going to be The Eagle and Child because that was the local of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien (and I made a little map of all the places those two guys had lived in in North Oxford). I can't help it, I'm a book geek and I like maps which is why Following The Detectives is definitely my kind of volume. Twenty literary detectives and their tales are unpacked cartographically by several well known crime writers and critics. It is not meant to be a comprehensive guide, it's edited by Maxim Jakubowski and thus reflects what Maxim likes and is into...the good (Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco, James Lee Burke's New Orleans, Raymond Chandler's LA), the bad (Peter James's Brighton) and the ugly (Peter James again, sorry).
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I particularly enjoyed Peter Rozovsky's brilliant look at Icelandic crime fiction (one of the things I liked about Jar City was the map at the start) and Dec Burke's intelligent take on Dec Hughes's Dublin. In fact all the contributions are excellent and Maxim has done a fine job editing this book. Following The Detectives is definitely crying out for a volume 2 (an iPhone Ap would be fantastic!) and hopefully next time Maxim will broaden his range a little and not leave as much of the heavy lifting to the commendable Barry Forshaw. (Yeah that's right, that was a hint). You can get Following The Detectives at the old rogue's Murder One bookshop in London or at Torrans's No Alibis in Belfast or at Otto's Mysterious Bookshop in NYC or, of course, on Amazon.

Books For Christmas

The Guardian newspaper has picked my novel Fifty Grand as one of its books of the year and as a recommended book for Christmas (thank you Justine Jordan). Fifty Grand also got a nod as one of the books of the year by John O'Connell in the The New Statesman and I got a hat tip from Chris Mullin in The Observer. So far so good in Britain! but this is a novel which has struggled a bit in the US. The reasons for this are many: the bad economy didn't help; it also wasnt good that my editor left Holt two months before publication and that my replacement editor left two weeks before the pub day. Editors are crucially important in getting blurbs for books and getting them into the hands of reviewers. With 50G review copies were only sporadically sent out, were not followed up on, and there was no budget for publicity. I also think the subject matter may have been too controversial for some American reviewers. Still the success of Stuart Neville's Ghosts of Belfast shows you what a dedicated publishing house can do (it also helps that the book is f**king brilliant) and in the UK the success of Fifty Grand is all down to the hard work of Rebecca Gray, Anna-Marie Fitzgerald, Pete Ayrton et alia at Serpents Tail; and in Oz, Kate Hyde at Allen and Unwin. Word of mouth of course also helps and if you were one of the people who reviewed Fifty Grand on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk or Good Reads or Audible.com rest assured that I not only read your review but showed it around the family and probably sent it to my agent to prove that "some people like me". Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.

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Blurbs are important too and I'd like to thank Ken Bruen for being an early champion of Fifty Grand. Finally a word about the blogosphere. Because I didn't get reviews in the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post etc. I was more dependent than ever this year on bloggers for their support, so a big thank you to Declan Burke, Gerard Brennan, Peter Rozovsky, Dana King, Brian Lindemuth, Seana Graham, Sandra Ruttan, Brian O'Rourke, Liam Hoyle, Dan Wagner, Jolie Jordan, John McFetridge and many others - without you I'd be up the bloody creek. Thank you guys and gals. If there are going to be Adrian McKinty crime novels in the future (something I'm thinking quite hard about right now) it will largely be down to your support. Go raibh maith agaibh.

reviews are like world wars, you wait ages for one then two come along at once

Peter 'The Man' Rozovsky reviews The Dead Yard over at Detectives Beyond Borders. Peter's take on the strange second book of The Dead Trilogy? I'm not going to spoil it, hop on over and find out.

The Sunday Times reviews The Bloomsday Dead. Their verdict on the last book in the trilogy? Again why should I ruin it for you? Jump across to see.

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Gentlemen the pair of them. Sort of like this kindly old gent (right) though hopefully not as drunk. And I'm sure they've got someone to iron their shirts.

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August 10th update. A nice review from Gene McEldowney in the Irish Independent here. Thank you, I appreciate it. Mr. McEldowney's shirts are always pristine.

Dead I Well May Be - A Review

Archmage in chief of Detectives Beyond Borders, Peter Rozovsky has posted his review of Dead I Well May Be over at DBB. Among his many talents Peter is a professional copyeditor, so he doesn't miss a trick. When he reads a book he pays close attention to the text and what he says is always considered and worth listening to. Peter is a well read and very smart guy. What did Peter say about my debut crime novel, my baby? Was he cruel? Jump on over and find out.