London Calling: Signing at Piccadilly Waterstone's

I'm off to London this week. Among my activities will be an interview for the BBC World Service's Strand programme, which I believe will air on Wednesday (a link to the iPlayer version will be provided as and when).

I will also be doing some drop-in signings at various bookshops around the Big Smoke, and the plan is to be at the Piccadilly branch of Waterstone's between 12:00 and 12:30 on Tuesday 28th of July, so do come and say hello if you're in the area. As an incentive, the fist person to find me there (if any) will win a free copy of The Twelve!

In other news...

I'm led to believe that BBC Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence programme will be "discussing" The Twelve this weekend. Again, a link to the iPlayer version will be provided when it's available.

Competition Results

The winners of the competition to win signed copies of The Twelve plus limited edition copies of The Six by answering two questions are Floriana of Ancona, Italy, and friend of the blog Mary from Cumbria - well done to you two, your books are in the post!

What say you now, doubters? Here's what's coming up...

A couple of you have commented on my previous post, pointing out how fine I'm cutting it if I want to meet my daily target - so here I am, getting in just under the wire. A caveat, however - I promised quantity, not quality...

So, what's in store for the next thirty days? Well, hopefully, lots of links to reviews for one thing. There'll also be some contests to win signed books and collectibles. And a few of those books will be very special.

I think I mentioned a while back, I will be offering a short story collection titled THE SIX as a free download from my website. In addition, there'll be a limited run of fifty signed and numbered paperback editions; these will not be for sale anywhere, and some of them will be given away right here on this blog. You'll have to stay tuned for those giveaways.

And also, there might - just might - be an even rarer collectable being given away before the end of the month. These are so rare that I'll only be able to offer one, if at all. Again, watch this space.

My friend Jospephine Damian has hypothesised that I've given myself such an impossible task that I will end up filling blog posts with random YouTube clips. That's a possibility. More likely, I will be post links to articles on other websites, starting tomorrow with one that has had me smiling all day.

In the meantime, here's a small announcement for anyone in Ireland: THE TWELVE will be book of the month for July in all Irish branches of Waterstone's. There will be more retail promotions (I know some retailers have committed to 3-for-2 offers already) over the coming weeks, but I also would like you to consider the great independent bookshops out there, such as No Alibis in Belfast, where... No, hang on, that's a post for another day...

Spanish Book Deal!

Judith Weber, the foreign rights specialist at Sobel Weber, let me know this evening that Ediciones Urano, the Barcelona-based publisher, has acquired world Spanish language rights to THE TWELVE/THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST in another two-book deal. I'm currently having a Stella Artois to celebrate, but it should really have been a San Miguel. Incidentally, I've been to Barcelona twice, and it's one of my favourite places on earth. This might be a good excuse for a return visit!

In other events, an article and a short story by yours truly have just appeared in the winter edition of Ulla's Nib, the magazine published by Belfast's Creative Writers' Network. The story is a reprint of THE LAST DANCE, the short that first inspired my agent to contact me, but the article (a piece on writing in the Internet age) is brand spanky new. I'll post a link to the online edition when it's available.

Watch Out, America: The Big O by Declan Burke

Today, the 22nd of September, marks the US publication of THE BIG O by Declan Burke by Harcourt. As The Beatles did in 1964, and Led Zeppelin just a few years later, THE BIG O is sure to sweep across America, fuelled by its own tidal surge. Or something.

Some of you will know Declan as the Grand Viz over at the excellent Crime Always Pays blog. I've had the dubious pleasure of going on the beers with the man himself, and can attest to his upright character. Declan was kind enough to sign a copy of the book for me a couple of weeks ago, and it is now atop my teetering To-Be-Read pile. While I cannot provide a review, having not read it just yet (I'm currently immersed in John Connolly's THE UNQUIET, and Bruen and Starr's THE MAX and Adrian McKinty's THE DEAD YARD are ahead in the queue) but some notable dignitaries have. And if their word isn't good enough for you, then I don't know whose is. Namely:

"Declan Burke’s THE BIG O is one of the sharpest, wittiest and most unusual Irish crime novels of recent years … in a similar tradition to, say, Carl Hiaasen, in that there’s a satirical edge to his work that gives it a real bite." – John Connolly, author of THE UNQUIET

"Declan Burke’s crime writing is fast, furious and funny, but this is more than just genre fiction: Burke is a high satirist in the tradition of Waugh and Kingsley Amis . . . but he never forgets that his first duty is to give us a damn good read." —Adrian McKinty, author of THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD

"THE BIG O has everything you want in a crime novel: machinegun dialogue, unforgettable characters, and a wicked plot. Think George V. Higgins in Ireland on speed." – Jason Starr, author of THE FOLLOWER

"This is an extremely funny crime novel that takes Irish crime fiction in a whole new direction. Under the cracking comedy of the book lurks some very subtle and highly skilful plotting and prose." - Brian McGilloway, author of BORDERLANDS

Need I say more? I wish Declan every success with his American debut, and I'm sure it's just the beginning.

Gregory Mcdonald

The author Gregory Mcdonald died this week. Mcdonald wrote one of my favourite ever books, FLETCH, a lesson in economy, characterisation and tight plotting. While the first Fletch movie was enjoyable enough, I never felt it or Chevy Chase did the source material justice.

Fletch is one of the few books which I can distinctly remember buying and reading for the first time. I was in my mid teens, and I bought it from a charity shop in Ballycastle, along the Antrim coast from the seaside village of Cushendun, where I was staying with my best mate and his family. They have a beautiful cottage at the mouth of the river, overlooking the sea. On a clear day you can see the Mull of Kintyre across the water. I started reading the book in the kitchen, and I can remember pausing occasionally to show my friend the funniest passages. Twenty years on, we still sometimes repeat the phrase "Fuck Frank" for no apparent reason.

My copy of Fletch cost 40p (the price sticker is still on the cover), and that was excellent value for money considering I have read it at least once every couple of years in the two decades I have owned it. It stands alongside William Goldman's Marathon Man, Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Mario Puzo's The Godfather as being among a handful of books I have read over and over, and will probably continue to read time and time again for as long as I have the ability to do so.

It's disheartening to read in some of the online obituaries that, despite his massive success, Mcdonald still had to fight to get published, and that his experience of having his books turned into movies was often negative. But he knew how to tell a good story in 200 pages, and that's an achievement in itself.

Careful What You Write...

In one of those moments of vanity Googling (come on, we all do it), I was quite amazed to discover I had been quoted in an article in the Sunday Life, one of Northern Ireland's biggest Sunday newspapers, and part of the same stable as the Belfast Telegraph. Hmm, thinks I, I don't remember talking to anyone from the Sunday Life...

The article in question concerned a recent storm-in-a-teacup involving bestselling local author Colin Bateman. Briefly, a series of children's books by Colin features a young girl with Albinism. Given that Colin has a bit of honesty about him, he doesn't particularly sugar coat the character's experience, and she suffers some abuse because of her appearance. Fair enough, you'd rightly think, a kid with Albinism isn't going to go through life without getting some stick off other kids.

Apparently, some schoolkids didn't agree. Under the supervision of their teacher, they composed a letter of complaint to the author. Somewhere along the way, BBC Northern Ireland picked up on this and ran a story about it on their nightly news bulletin. So far, so trivial.

Anyway, Colin Bateman was rightly peeved and posted a strongly worded, but humorous, rebuttal on his blog. In a spot of media recycling, the Sunday Life ran a story about the whole sorry affair, quoting Colin verbatim.

And down near the bottom is this snippet:

'Fellow Northern Irish author Stuart Neville, who has released his debut novel The Ghosts of Belfast, sprang to Bateman's defence. "The BBC must miss having bombs and kneecappings to report," he said.'

YOU WHAT?!

And then I remembered - I'd left a comment on Colin's blog, which I immediately forgot about. And here I am, a couple of months later, discovering my own throw-away quip has been immortalised by the Sunday Life.

Now, there are a couple of inaccuracies and a possible false impression in this. First, "sprang to Bateman's defence" is a bit strong. I don't think I even got out of my chair when I typed it. Second, my debut novel won't see daylight until late next summer at the earliest (but, hey, thanks for plug, Sunday Life!). Also, this kind of gives the impression that there is some connection between Colin Bateman and me. Aside from a very nice congratulatory email he sent me a while back, Colin Bateman doesn't know me at all, and vice versa. I just happened to chip in on a rather daft topic on his blog one day.

Now, don't get me wrong; part of me is actually quite pleased to get a mention in one of our more popular newspapers, and I don't mind being shown to be on Colin's side in the matter (I am), and I don't even mind that the story is mostly a cut-and-paste job that's hardly a shining example of exhaustively researched journalism. But it does bother me a great deal that a simple glib comment I made with little thought behind it found its way into a national newspaper with my name on it. There's a lesson in that, folks...

Read the offending article here.

Good News Abounds

There have been various triumphs, both large and small, amongst my blogging friends over the last week or two.

Moonrat's Contest

Just a couple of days after having my story accepted by Thuglit, I discovered I was joint winner of Moonrat's cover copy contest along with Josephine Damian. Now I'll have a Robert The Publisher T-shirt to add to my Thuglit one.

And speaking of Josephine...

She's enjoyed a double whammy, having also placed a story in an upcoming edition of Out of the Gutter magazine. Congrats to Josie. :)

Chris F Holm

Chris has not only had a new story appear in Spinetingler mag, his story Seven Days of Rain won the Spinetingler award for online short story of 2007.

And last, but most certainly not least...

McKoala

My favourite blogging-Scot-who-lives-in-Oz, McKoala, has bagged herself an agent. Words can't express how happy I am for the lovely McKoala. I've read several pieces of her work, from some startlingly good short stories, to her excellent YA novels, and I can tell you she deserves this break. Expect to see Sealsong on a bestseller list in the not-too-distant future.

Congatulations to everyone, here's hoping the good news keeps rolling.

Ira Levin

I just discovered via agent Lori Perkins' blog that Ira Levin died this week. Although not prolific, he managed to write some tremendous novels, often with entirely bonkers concepts (Mengele makes baby Hitlers! Lapsed Catholic girl makes baby Satan! Suburban men make robot babes!). He carried these ideas off with such unflinching disregard for 'believability' that the reader has no choice but to be swept along.

Rosemary's Baby is one of the finest horror novels ever written, with an ending so creepy it'll linger with you long after you've finished the book. It also happened to make one of the finest horror movies too, and even after forty years it remains a lesson in the power of subtlety in expressing the unspeakable. When I visited New York recently I spent a little while gazing up at the Dakota building, and while mindful of its place in Beatle history, it was really the The Bramford I was seeing.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to crack out my well-thumbed paperback of Rosemary's Baby and give it another whirl.