LA Confidential, California Dreaming, etc, etc...

It's been the most hectic autumn (or fall, for my American friends) of my life, following the most hectic summer of my life, all as part of the maddest year of my life. Therefore blogging has not been as high on my list of priorities as it perhaps should have been. There have been many things I should have blogged about, not least of which being the follow-ups to my US tour post, or most glaringly absent of all, my account of interviewing James bloody Ellroy on stage in Belfast, which was one of the greatest moments of my thirty-seven years on this planet. I will try to catch up with these momentous events at the end of the year in some sort of 2009 round-up, but I'm posting now about a few things. First of all (deep breath):

I'M COMING TO LOS ANGELES!

Yep, it's rather short notice, but I'll be reading from THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST at the Mystery Bookstore, 1036 Broxton Avenue, Los Angeles on Thursday 10th of December! For anyone in the area, I'd be delighted to see you there to help me celebrate the conclusion to an extraordinary year.

In case you're wondering, no, I'm not travelling all the way to LA just for this reading. Alas, I cannot yet say why I'll be in LA next week, but hopefully all will be revealed soon. In the interests of quelling speculation, however, I will say that it's nothing to do with movie deals.

TALKING OF 2009...

THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST was named as one of the best crime novels of 2009 by both the LA Times and the New York Times in separate features today. Read the LA Times piece here, or the New York Times piece here. Obviously, this is wonderful news.

But there's more...

A week or two back, the ever excellent Declan Burke launched an unofficial Irish Crime Novel of the Year poll over at his Crime Always Pays blog. Voting was mostly conducted by secret email ballot amongst the Irish crime scribbling fraternity (who have a secret handshake and wear embroidered aprons and bowler hats at their clandestine meetings), and I am delighted to say that THE TWELVE (a.k.a. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST) clinched the top spot! While this is a rather ad hoc sort of an award, it means a great deal because it was voted by the same people who I've come to know and count as friends over the last year or two. So, thank you Dec, and the whole crime fiction family from the Emerald Isle.

A New Website for a New Title

I've been a busy boy over the weekend and built myself a brand spanky new website. This is largely because no suitable variant on THE TWELVE was available as a domain name, and the old site needed a good going over anyway. Have a look at the links section - I've tried to include as many people as I could in the rush to get it online, concentrating mostly on authors with specific promotional sites, and I've left the 'Friends' section rather bare. If you'd like a link and I've neglected you, please let me know in the comments.

In other news, I have received editorial notes from my other editor, Briony (yes, I have two editors!), and I have to say I'm astounded at her eye for detail, and slightly embarrassed at all the mistakes she's found. I've got another busy period to come as I work through revising the manuscript.

And finally, just thought I'd mention I'm off to New York in March, and I'm as excited as the first time I went.

Tom G's Bench

I've not gotten round to a proper post on my recent New York trip (and it grows less recent by the day) but here's one thing I really wanted to share. In Central Park, they have an Adopt-a-Bench scheme whereby you can donate anything from $7500 upwards and have a plaque put on the bench of your choice with your own inscription. Most of them, as you'd expect, are dedications to loved ones, or corporate messages. But one in particular caught my eye. I'd like to thank Tom G, whoever he is, for making the smile I had on my face at the time even bigger.