Win Proof Copies of THE TWELVE and COLLUSION

I'm giving away five signed pairs of proofs of the Vintage paperback edition of THE TWELVE and an advance copy of its sequel, COLLUSION. The special paperback edition of THE TWELVE is a very limited run and has never been for sale, and you can also get to read COLLUSION two months before anyone else!

To enter, you need a Twitter account to answer a very simple question: Which major literary prize did the American edition of THE TWELVE, called THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, win? The answer is right on my home page at http://www.stuartneville.com/! To enter, just tweet the following, replacing the asterisks with your answer:

THE TWELVE, aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, by @stuartneville won the *** ******* ***** Book Prize!

Remember, your tweet has to be exactly those words, including my Twitter name, @stuartneville, or I won't see your entry.

The contest closes at 12:00 noon UK time on Monday 7th of June, after which five entries will be chosen at random. Good luck!

On Recognition, Or Otherwise, And Why My Diamond Shoes Are Too Tight

I did a live radio interview today with Wendy Austin on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme. I've long since gotten over any nerves that I might have had in earlier radio appearances, so even when we couldn't get the microphones to come on in the remote studio (I was in Armagh, Ms Austin was in Belfast), I didn't panic. You can hear the results here, if you so wish.

Anyway, right up front, Wendy rattled off a list of quotes from the great reviews I've had on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the best-of-2009 nods from both the New York and LA Times, as well as mentioning that THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (a.k.a. THE TWELVE) has been optioned for a movie. Wendy asked how all this recognition felt, and at first I could only answer: "Not bad."

Then on further consideration, I made the point that recognition for one's writing is a wonderful thing. And it's not entirely because of vanity, though in all honesty, that must be a part of it. In reality, it's more about insecurity. I've made this point repeatedly in interviews, but it bears even more repeating: In my experience, writing seems like a completely ridiculous thing to waste one's time on. To sit for hour upon hour, staring [delete as appropriate] (a) at a blank screen (b) out the window (c) into space, deleting more words than you leave on the page, with no realistic prospect of anyone ever reading what you've done, is a completely daft thing to do. There are so many things one could do instead: clean the bathroom; take a walk; gather together bank statements and invoices for the accountant; play Grand Theft Auto 4. The list goes on. But instead, you sit there and grind it out, word after word.

Apart from the people I knew online in that clandestine way one knows people online, I didn't tell anyone except a very close friend that I was writing. I kept it secret, even from my closest family members. Why?

Because I was embarrassed.

If you come from the kind of working class background that I do, intellectual and creative expression don't come as second nature. And if, like me, you somehow get promoted from the working class educational stream to the lofty heights of a predominantly middle class grammar school by way of passing a few exams, you're taught to keep your mouth shut and be grateful for the chance to study algebra in such a rarefied environment.

I've told this story before on my blog, but here it is again: I spent my first two years of education at the little school on our housing estate that normally kept kids for three years. Because my reading was ahead of my classmates, I was moved a year early to the big school in town. On my first day there, at the age of six, the headmaster came around to see the new boy. He said he'd taught my dad years ago. He asked me if I was as stupid as my father was. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of my school life.

So, when the Observer or the Daily Mail, or indeed the NY or LA Times, heap praise upon my novel, it's not just the massaging of my ego that I enjoy (and of course, I do enjoy that a lot, I'm only human after all), but most of all it's the vindication. It's knowing that I haven't wasted years of my life chasing a dream that I could never hope to make real. It's realising that despite Mr Moffat dismissing me as just another dimwit from the estates, I can prove that old bastard wrong and achieve something truly worthwhile. Something I can be proud of.

And the recognition doesn't have to come from a famous newspaper or a well-known author. I get more emails from readers than I can ever hope to reply to, and they all make my day brighter. If someone tells me they couldn't put the book down, that it scared the bejesus out of them, then fantastic. If they tell me they learned something in the process, then even better.

The great reviews on Amazon mean a huge amount too, both in the UK and the US. But the shine can be dulled, if you let it, by a few people. I've had overwhelmingly positive feedback from Irish Americans who bought THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST for the obvious reasons. Many have told me they connected with the book in a very personal way, and that's wonderful. It would be easy to let a tiny minority of readers spoil that buzz when they express how much they dislike having their green-tinted glasses dislodged, but really, what's the point?

If, like one Amazon.com reviewer, one of your main criticisms of the book is based on where I went to school, and its sports curriculum, how can I take your views seriously? I didn't like my school either, or its sports, so what does that prove?

Or if, like a couple of Amazon.com critics, you start throwing words like "orange" around, then that says more about your prejudice and ignorance than it does about the book. As soon as your review is tainted by sectarianism, no matter how well-informed about the land of your forefathers you might think you are, I stop placing any value on your opinion.

And then there's the charmer who has so far placed six negative reviews, under three different screen names, across two editions of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST/THE TWELVE, spread between the UK and US Amazon sites. The same wannabe critic also has grudges against my friend Tom Piccirilli, crime writer Laura Wilson, and, of all people, the velvet-voiced radio and television presenter Terry Wogan. On the spectrum of offensiveness, Terry Wogan is somewhere between vanilla ice cream and warm scones, so I really can't imagine what he's done to upset this particular critic.

A few days ago, I expressed a small amount of chagrin to my girlfriend about these minor blemishes on my otherwise shiny and bright critical landscape. As girlfriends are wont to do, she responded with some simple but truthful wisdom: Me complaining about such trivial annoyances is rather like that scene in FRIENDS where Chandler says, "Oh no! My wallet's too small for my fifties, and my diamond shoes are too tight!"

Yep, she nailed it.

Instructive, constructive, intelligent critique is a good thing. Affirmation from those who appreciate what you do is also great. Attacks from the ignorant and ill-informed are nothing more than a minor annoyance, like flies buzzing around the arse end of a cow.

So, with joy in my heart, here are a few other things that are currently floating my boat:

Tomorrow night, Thursday 8th of April, I will appear on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. I'll post a YouTube clip as soon as it's online so that, even if you're not domiciled in the USA, you can witness me blinking like a bunny in the headlights and mumbling incoherently on national television.

THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is a finalist in the Mystery/Thriller category of the LA Times Book Prize! The winner will be announced at the LA Times Festival of Books, where I'll be appearing on a panel with fellow nominees, as well as signing at the Mystery Bookstore stand. Check my website over the next day or two for details.

THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is also nominated for a Spinetingler award - you can vote here!

The audiobook of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST has been awarded the Earphones accolade by Audiofile Magazine in a rave review that described it as "everything a listener could want from an audiobook."

And that's all for now. I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

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.

#GhostsOfBelfast Contest: At last, the winners!

At long last, at least three weeks late, here are the winners of the Ghosts Of Belfast twitfic contest. I'm very pleased that my favourite scary tweet was also the most popular amongst voters, but more of that in a second. I had originally planned to choose the top five tweets, then select one as the outright winner based on votes, but as it turned out there were eight finalists with a clear first and second, but third place was a two-way tie, meaning fourth places was skipped, while fifth place was tied three ways, leaving one finalist unplaced. In the circumstances, and also by of apology for taking so long at this, I've decided that all eight finalists will each receive a signed copy of The Ghosts of Belfast. So, can each one of you please DM an email address to me via Twitter, or email me at info@stuartneville.com?

But what you probably want to know is: who was the ultimate winner? This tweet stood out for me because it had voice, a wonderful economy of words, painted a vivid picture, and let my own imagination do much of the work - exactly the kind of writing I enjoy, whether it's just a few words or a whole novel. That tweet was by @portiaalex, and it read thusly:

"Saw on the floor. Blood in the sink. Hair in the drain. Pie in the oven. Lunchtime."

Isn't that brilliant? Whatever @portiaalex's literary ambitions are, I have no doubt she will succeed. Writing like that isn't a fluke - that's skill and talent. So, well done to @portiaalex, drop me a line and we'll get your prize sorted.

#GhostsOfBelfast Contest: The Shortlist!

Finally, more than two weeks late, here are the ten finalists for the #GhostsOfBelfast twitfic contest. For those who missed it, the idea was to write a scary story in a single tweet, including the hash tag #GhostsOfBelfast so I could find it. There were hundreds of entries, but due to a glitch with Twitter some of them were lost. Apologies to those whose tweets fell through the cracks, and thanks to those with the patience to tweet again so I could find you.

So, without further ado, here in alphabetical order are the ten tweets that most shivered my scary-bone:

@current_self: The long fingers pressed inexpertly at my throat. I gasped awake. "Just a dream, child," mother shushed me. "Just a dream."

@current_self: /Dress to Impress/, said the invite. Val began her cutting and stitching at her legs, adding the ribbons of her dreams.

@danielkjarrell: The Hunters Moon sets. Life ebbs as my clothes refill with straw and I sag against the post. Yearly cursed to a night alive.

@djpyle: My dog's spirit howled nightly until I tossed a yowling sack in the river and made him a litter of ghost kittens to chase.

@OHNOITSKEN: Fifty people pressed against each other for protection, scared. The lights flickered off and on. Only forty people now.

@portiaalex: Saw on the floor. Blood in the sink. Hair in the drain. Pie in the oven. Lunchtime.

@portiaalex: Dark alley. Man pets his cat. 'Sorry old friend,' he says. He clutches chest and dies. Cat nuzzles close and starts to eat.

@stacy_chambers: In his virtual world, he was God, and everyone did his bidding. In real life, he was a nobody. A nobody with a gun.

@stephy442: In life, I jilted my lover from afar. In death, she kept my best bits in a jar.

@twitbork: Half asleep, she felt his familiar form press against her body bringing waves of ecstasy. Even in death he knew her so well.

And there you have it. I'll blog about this at another time, but I've got to say how impressed I was by the entries. Painting such vivid pictures in so few words is no easy task, and my hat's off not only to the finalists, but to all those who almost made the cut.

Now for the voting...

Simplicity itself. To vote for your favourite finalist, simply tweet their screen name along with #GhostsOfBelfast. For example, if you wanted to waste a vote on me, you'd tweet "@stuartneville #GhostsOfBelfast". You can add other comments if you like, but it's those two key ingredients that will count. So, finalists and anyone else following this, get tweeting!

NOTE: Most unique votes wins - Each voter may only vote for one finalist - No multiple votes allowed - Voting closes at midnight on Saturday 21st November.

#GhostsOfBelfast Emergency Contest Judgment Contingency Plan

So, Twitter is a big bag of arse. When I launched the #GhostsOfBelfast TwitFic contest just over a month ago, I assumed the entries would be available for searching in perpetuity. Apparently not. Therefore, I propose the following:

If you entered the #GhostsOfBelfast contest, just tweet the hash tag #GhostsOfBelfast one more time before midnight on Saturday, and I will spend Sunday finding all the entries using a third party website that can look back further given a username and a search term. It'll be a bit of a slog, but there were so many great entries that I don't want to let any slip past.

With any luck, I'll have the finalists some time on Monday. Apologies to all those who entered for the extra hassle this entails, and I thank you for your patience.

Today's the Day: THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST Published in the USA

So, today is October 1st, and by debut novel THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is officially published in the USA by Soho Crime, the respected independent New York press. I'd like to thank all at Soho, including my editor Laura Hruska, marketing director Ailen Lujo, and publicist Justin Hargett - you've all been a pleasure to work with so far.

Don't forget, there's a chance to win one of five signed copies of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST in my previous post, as well as one of the very last copies of the limited edition signed and numbered short story collection, THE SIX.

To celebrate the launch of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, I'll soon be setting off on a six city US tour:

13th October, 7:00pm: Partners & Crime
44 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY

15th-18th October: Bouchercon 2009
Hyatt Regency, Indianapolis IN (visit www.bouchercon2009.com for details)

19th October, 7:00pm: Poisened Pen (with Peter Lovesey and James Benn)
4014 N Goldwater Blvd., Suite 101 Scottsdale, AZ 85251

20th October, 6:30pm: Murder by the Book (with Peter Lovesey and James Benn)
2342 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX 77005-1512

21st October, 7:00pm: M is for Mystery (with Peter Lovesey and James Benn)
86 East Third Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94401

23rd-25th October: Mile Hi Con 2009
Hyatt Regency Tech Center, Denver CO (visit www.milehicon.org for details)

Ghosts of Belfast TwitFic Contest: Scare me in 124 characters or less for prizes!

As you may be aware, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST will be published in the USA by Soho Press this Thursday, the 1st of October. I'll be embarking on a US tour (details here) to celebrate the launch, so please come and say hello if you're near any of the venues.

The other thing that happens in October is, of course, Halloween, when our thoughts turn to the ghostly and ghoulish. We all have our own personal ghost stories, so how about you share yours as part of a special Twitter contest? Here's how it'll work:

Go to your Twitter account (you do have one, don't you?) and tweet your own experience of a ghost, along with the hash tag #GhostsOfBelfast so I can find it. That leaves you 124 characters to tell your story. The shorter the better, the scarier the better, the funnier the better.

The contest will close at midnight on 31st of October 2009, and I will choose ten finalists. Each of those tweets will be re-tweeted by me and the good folks at Soho Press (or linked to a special page on my website if they're too long). The finalists will then be put to the vote on via Twitter, and the top five will each win a signed copy of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, as well as be featured on the home pages of StuartNeville.com and GhostsOfBelfast.com. What's more, whoever gets the most votes of all wins one of the last remaining copies of THE SIX, my limited edition signed and numbered short story collection - only fifty of these will ever be printed!

So, here are the three simple rules:

1) Tweet your scariest, funniest ghost story in 124 CHARACTERS OR LESS.

2) It's VITAL that you remember to include the hash tag #GhostsOfBelfast or your entry won't be seen.

3) Tweet it before MIDNIGHT 31st OCTOBER.

You can enter as many times as you like, but each tweet must be a different story. So, get tweeting, and good luck!

Catch a(n Amazon) Rising Star and Put it in You Pocket...

Now that Declan Burke has put the Crime Always Pays blog out to stud, someone has to come up with cheesy puns for blog titles. It might as well be me.

Anyway, it's been a while - just over three weeks, in fact - and a busy three weeks it has been. Most of my time has been taken up by finishing the sequel to THE TWELVE (a.k.a. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST), and giving it a very quick spit and polish before sending it to my agent, and a couple of critique angels. Now I am filled with dread, wondering what my agent Nat is going to think of it. Nat Sobel does not mince words, so I am bracing myself.

There has also been a rather splendid development, which I would like to illustrate with the following image:


THE TWELVE has been selected by Amazon UK's reading panel as one its eight Rising Stars for autumn 2009. Once every six months or so, Amazon chooses eight debut novels as part of the Rising Stars initiative to highlight new authors. I am delighted to be one of them. And there's more - at the end of the promotion, whichever book has the most good reviews will be deemed the winner! So, if you've read THE TWELVE, please do me a solid, and click here right now to see my Amazon page and submit your review. And as an extra favour, you could spread the word and encourage other people you know have read it to do the same. My book is the first to be featured, and the page includes a brief Q&A with yours truly.

In other news

More press reviews of THE TWELVE have been coming in, including the Sunday Tribune who said it was "A stunning first novel", while London Lite said it was "an unqualified triumph."

It may have escaped your attention, but the USA publication of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is fast creeping up. I've temporarily taken down the dedicated website for it with a view to revamping it in the coming days. I will have much more to say about that in the coming weeks, including getting all gushy and excited about the accompanying American tour where I will cross the entire continent just a few days, and meet lots of people I've been dying to meet for ages, including a certain Betsy Dornbusch, and hopefully Aerin Bender-Stone. Which is nice.

I'll make another blog post next week in which I will officially reveal a very poorly kept secret about an event in Belfast this coming November...

New Book Trailer for The Ghosts of Belfast

I've just uploaded a new book trailer for The Ghosts of Belfast to YouTube - hope you like it!

Readers of the Lost ARC

My apologies for using a pun worthy of Declan Burke for my title, but I'm a little over-excited because I received the advance reader copies (or ARCs, or Uncorrected Proofs, or whatever you wish to call them) of The Twelve today from the wonderful Briony Everroad at Harvill Secker. I got ten, and they're already all spoken for. I'll be lucky if I get to keep one for myself. See, aren't they lovely?



For the sharp-eyed amongst you, the white cover is not a departure from the original design - it is simply to mark these out as advance copies, rather like white label demos from music's vinyl days (yes, I'm that old).

I've been flicking through my single copy all day, and something strikes me as very odd: This doesn't feel like my book any more. I recognise words and passages, remember what was going through my head when I wrote that particular line of dialogue and so on. It is all comfortably familiar, yet somehow different, like a friend who moved away and has come back changed.

Almost two years of growing and nurturing this strange thing, gutting it and putting it back together again, then months of incremental changes - they're almost over. There have been minor tweaks since the version I now have in my hands (like the word 'Acknowledgements' really needing an 'A' on the front, or several continuity blunders I spotted on the last read-through, e.g., magical disappearing and reappearing coats), but the next version I see will be it - done, finished, final, forever cast in stone.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. To steal a line from the wonderful movie Swingers, "Baby's all growed up."

In Other News...

Here's the revised Soho Press cover for The Ghosts of Belfast, as The Twelve will be known in the USA (the grey type will be silver in reality, by the way). I like it a lot more than the previous version. In fact, I like it a lot.

Gerard Brennan is Having a Good Month

My blogging friend Gerard Brennan just announced some exciting news on his blog: he has been taken on by literary agent (and acclaimed crime writer) Allan Guthrie of Jenny Brown Associates. I've said it several times already, but it bears repeating - congratulations, Gerard, this is well deserved and long overdue.

And it comes in the wake of some short story successes. I posted the other day about Gerard's recent appearance in Thuglit, and he also just had a story appear in Three Crow Press.

Keep up the good work, Gerard.

In Other News

Congratulations are also due to Chris F Holm for a fine horror-crime mash-up that recently appeared in the Beat to a Pulp ezine.

I have received the final version of THE TWELVE's UK cover...

The differences are subtle, but I do think this version seems more balanced and cohesive. And that tag line is a nice touch. It's a recurring line of dialogue from the novel, so well done to whoever thought of putting it on the cover.



I also received the US design for THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (as THE TWELVE shall be known there). This time it follows the corporate branding of Soho Press, with the characteristic white stripe for the title.

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.

Two-Book Deal with Rivages, France

I got yet another pleasant surprise today when Judith Weber, the foreign rights specialist at Sobel Weber Associates, got in touch to tell me she had just secured a two-book deal with the French publisher, Rivages. Rivages is France's leading publisher of noir fiction, including a few names you might have heard of, like James Ellroy and Ed McBain. Of course, I'm delighted.

A Cover, and an Announcement

Here's the jacket design for my debut novel. I just got this yesterday, and I must say I'm delighted. The eagle-eyed among you may notice something amiss, though. Have you spotted it yet?

Yes, the title for the UK edition has been changed to THE TWELVE. The title for the American edition will still be THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, but it was felt that that title would regionalise the book within a UK market when my publisher Harvill Secker is thinking Big Bestselling Thriller. And I'm happy for my publisher to think Big Bestselling Thriller, thus the change. Outside of the UK market, specifically the USA, the original title will have more resonance, so my American friends get to keep the ghosts.

Anyway, title aside, what do you think of my cover? :)

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

The Ghosts of Belfast to be Published in the USA by Soho Press

I'm delighted to report that THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST will be published in the USA by Soho Press, the independent New York house. Laura Hruska acquired it as part of a two-book deal from my ever-excellent agent Nat Sobel, and the book has found a wonderful home. Soho Press publish a range of literary and crime fiction, often set in foreign locales, and quite a few UK authors pitch their American tents there.

I'm particularly excited to receive this news among the doom and gloom currently shrouding the publishing industry. This report at TheBookseller.com was especially discouraging. It's good to know there are still publishers like Soho Press, and indeed Harvill Secker in the UK, who are willing to take a chance on a new author even in these uncertain times.

I'm told I'll have a cover design for the UK edition very soon, and when it appears I'll share it here along with some breaking news...

Forget the US Election, Celebrate Two Years of Moonrat!

Some of you may think the result of the US presidential election is the most important thing happening in the world today. Well, you're wrong. One of my very favourite bloggers, Moonrat, the anonymous New York editor, has been online two years today at editorialass.blogspot.com. Anyone who follows the Editorial Ass knows that Moonrat is one of the kindest, smartest, funniest publishing professionals online. I know her advice has helped me more than I can say, both through her blog, and through emails we have exchanged.

So, thank you, Moonrat, for taking the time to educate and entertain us. A special blog has been created to rejoice on this special anniversary at moonielove.blogspot.com. And to help celebrate, I'll be offering a signed proof of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST to one Moonrat fan. So, for a chance to read the book a good six months before anyone else, head on over there.

God Bless John Connolly

I met John Connolly, the hugely successful author of the Charlie Parker series as well as such stand-alones as THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, at the Dun Laoghaire crime writers' weekend last month. I was a bit cheeky and asked Mr. Connolly if he wouldn't mind giving THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST a quick once-over, and I was surprised when he graciously consented. My editor at Harvill Secker, Geoff Mulligan, promptly whisked a manuscript off, and a few weeks later I was shocked and delighted to receive this quote from John:

"Ghosts of Belfast is not only one of the finest thriller debuts of the last ten years, but is also one of the best Irish novels, in any genre, of recent times. It grips from the first page to the last, and heralds the arrival of a major new voice in Irish writing. I don't know how Stuart Neville is going to improve upon such an exceptional first novel, but I can't wait to find out..."

I am flabbergasted.

The Ultimate Me-Me: the Author Questionnaire

Some of you may already be familiar with the Author Questionnaire - a kind of form you have to fill in for your publisher's publicity department, telling them all about you and your book. I'd heard of them, and was quite looking forward to getting mine, but now it's here and I'm a little perturbed.

It's a bit like an exam paper or a job application. It starts with the easy stuff, like your name, date of birth, that sort of thing. Then you fill in some blurb for the book. Then it gets harder.

The first question I'm struggling with is 'Other Comparable Books'. I've got a couple, but it seems awfully vain. Another is who you think the book will appeal to. Tough one, again. I know you're supposed to know this stuff if you're writing commercial fiction, but it's pretty hard to translate that vague picture I have in my head to a description of a real demographic.

Then there's the book's key selling points. That's like the bit in a job application where you list your key skills. This will take some thought. It's all starting to get a little exciting, though...

The Next Book - In Full!

That's right, here's the next book in all its glory!



For about the fifth time in a year, I have started a new novel. This will be a sort-of-sequel to THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, with several returning characters, but a different protagonist.

Just a few thousand words in, I'm finding the experience of writing a book under contract, knowing it will published ,very different from writing one on spec, with only a faint hope that it will ever see the light of day. Whether it's easier or more difficult remains to be seen. It will certainly be a more thoroughly planned and researched novel, rather than the seat-of-my-pants approach that was used for the first book. Wish me luck.

PS: I am fully aware that my handwriting may be the worst in the world.