Off out into the world

Today is the official publication date for The White Gallows. It would have passed me by except for two reviews appearing this morning. So far I've discovered four reviews, which can be found at:

Reactions to Reading
Kittling Books
International Noir
Mack Captures Crime

Thankfully, they all say positive things, which is a relief!

There is a YouTube video/promo thingy, which can be found here.

The back cover blurb is:
In post-Celtic Tiger Ireland the murder rate is soaring and the gardai are struggling to cope with gangland wars, domestic disputes, and drunken brawls that spiral into fatal violence. To add to Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy’s workload are the deaths of two immigrants – an anonymous Lithuanian youth and an elderly German billionaire. While one remains an enigma, the murky history of the other is slowly revealed. But where there is money there is power and, as McEvoy soon learns, if you swim amongst sharks, you’d better act like a shark.

I doubt the book can be found in many bookshops given the limited marketing resources of the press and their emphasis on online sales through Amazon, Book Depository and others. Bookshops can order it through the book distributors - Gardners (UK/Ireland) and Argosy (Ireland). For those outside of UK/Ireland, then Book Depository (UK or US) do free shipping to anywhere in the world. Publication details: published by Indepenpress. ISBN 978-1-907499-37-1 £8.99, €10.99

Anyway, the book is now officially published, and hopefully anyone interested can get hold of a copy either online or through their local bookshop. Thanks to all the support I've received through the blog as The White Gallows has meandered its way into the world. It has been very much appreciated.

Not sure if this bodes well ...

The White Gallows is set in west Meath, in and around the towns of Athboy and Trim. There isn't a huge amount of action in the town of Athboy itself, but I give a plug to a couple of businesses, including McElhinney Fashions, a department store that runs down one side of the main street. Opening in 1937, it became something on an institution, with people travelling from all over Ireland to buy outfits for special occasions such as marriages, communions and confirmations. Yesterday it announced that it is closing with the loss of 56 full and part-time jobs, one of hundreds of businesses that have closed in Ireland during this recession. McElhinneys for Men will continue to trade as it is not part of the same company (and comes recommended - I bought a couple of good shirts there), but even so, it doesn't seem to bode to well when one of the places mentioned in the book shuts before the book is even officially published!

Promo trailer for The White Gallows

I've now got a short promo trailer for The White Gallows, which has been uploaded onto YouTube. It's not quite factually correct - the book is not in bookshops yet (release date is June 12th), but it is listed on Amazon now with the cover picture.

I'm slowly getting on top of things. I managed to send off copyedit queries for the second edition of Key Thinkers on Space and Place this week - it was 1,200 pages doubled spaced, so I can't say I'm looking forward to the proofreading. Next stop is a total overhaul of my website, which will probably take a couple of weeks.

Missing your own book launch

I've managed to doubly miss my own book launch. First, I didn't manage to travel to the London Book Fair taking place 19th-21st April. Second, I forgot that the book was officially published yesterday! I suspect that the book fair is a shadow of what it could have been given that a good chunk of exhibitors, authors, agents, etc will be absent. Still it would have been nice to attend, not least so I could have picked up a copy of The White Gallows. Perhaps next year once I've got the slow boat home.

Final decision on cover

The designer has sent me two, slightly different versions of the cover design for The White Gallows. I now need to make a decision. I've shown them to a couple of people and I have a split vote, so I'm hoping you might push me towards the one that you think is the stronger cover (and I appreciate there's not much difference in this - fade out at the top, of fade across the middle). I'm particularly pleased that they have used my photos of choice for both the front and back cover. So, what do you think? Or perhaps it doesn't matter?

Cover design

Patti Abbott's post about cover art yesterday has prompted me to share four possible cover designs for The White Gallows. I like to take an active role in this aspect of a book because, frankly, some of the covers on my other books have been stinkers. Whether I have a good eye or not is though a different issue. The designer is presently away on holiday and when she's back we have to decide on a cover. Whilst she's away I've taken the opportunity to take the initiative and come up with a sample of four designs. It seems that a common theme with contemporary police procedurals for cover design is to use a photo, so I've stuck with that trend. I'm leaning towards one of these, but I thought I'd see what others thought. Which cover do you like best, or do you think I should scrap them all and start again? Click on them to get an enlarged image.

1. 2.

3. 4.

The front cover relates to one scene in the book where a noose is found hanging in an oak tree on the farm owned by the victim in the first case McEvoy is investigating. The back cover is of Trim Castle, where the body at the centre of a second investigation is discovered.

BTW, if you ever want to attract curious attention, wander round a park with a forty foot length of thick rope with a noose tied to one end and then set it up in a tree.

McEvoy rides again …

Apart from all the craziness caused by the viral post, on Tuesday I also received notice that The White Gallows (the second McEvoy novel) will be published by a different imprint of the press who put out The Rule Book. They want advance copies published by April for the London Book Fair which means a tight set of editing, design, copyediting, and proofing deadlines. I’m up for that, but it’ll probably lead to a lull in my reading/reviews as I deal with things. I also have another deadline for an academic book coming up for April/May just to complicate things.

On the viral post front, I’m not sure how many papers have ended up covering the story but a fair few and I’ve also done a couple of radio interviews. I’ve also been asked to appear on the Frontline tv programme on Monday night on the national broadcaster. It’s a political/topical concerns programme that is broadcast live. The format is a small panel who are interviewed by the presenter, field questions with an audience and engage in a debate with them. I suspect the fact that it’s live will greatly increase the probability that I will put my foot right in it. However it goes, I’m sure it’ll be an interesting experience.

Saturday Snippet: The White Gallows

This is a snippet that is unlikey to see the light of day beyond this post. It was the opening of The White Gallows, the next book in the series after The Rule Book, but I've decided to drop it. It took a little bit of persuasion, but on reflection I think the person who made the case is right. It feels kind of funny to edit out because it was written as flash fiction and then the rest of the novel was imagined and built from it. Dropping it somehow feels like erasing the key, initial cornerstone from the foundation of the story, although the book seems to work better without it - it provides some kind of haunting absence, I think. The cover, right, was the best I could mock up in five minutes and I'm lacking a bit of inspiration on that front. Ideas gratefully received. Anyway, here it is:

It was the same recurring nightmare, though nightmare was probably the wrong word. It wasn’t some fantastical labyrinth of cryptic signs and symbols, of ghosts and monsters. It was the Truth – of skeletal people he’d tortured, beaten and shot; of people so dehumanized they were merely automations; fragile beasts in a vast machine that ensnared them, extracted value, and disposed of their broken bodies. They were mules - animals of labour to be worked to death; stupid creatures that needed cajoling, disciplining and punishment to make them comply. They didn’t merit compassion or pity or aid when they broke; they were to be shot as lame mules were shot.

He was shouting at an emaciated figure - his head shorn of hair, face gaunt and drawn - only he couldn’t hear his own words, just the deafening noise of the factory. The man stared back blankly - no sign of comprehension or fear or defiance or hate; just emptiness. He could feel the gun in his hand, his arm lifting, coming into vision. He shouted again, waited for a reaction, then pulled the trigger.

A hole appeared in the man’s forehead just above his left eyebrow. He stayed on his feet a couple of moments, then dropped to his knees, his dark brown eyes still staring back, but now, ironically, somehow alive, his lips pulled in a slight smile. The corpse toppled forward its face smashing into cold concrete.

He moved the gun across the scared and hate-filled faces of witnesses, challenging them to defy his authority. A fellow, older mule hesitantly moved forward, his arms raised, hands open, and crouched down in the blood next to the body offering comfort and grief. His hollow, tear-stained face glanced up as the well polished boot arrived, his head jerking violently, his body toppling backwards, arms flailing. His skull cracked off the edge of a workbench and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

Koch woke with a start, his breathing laboured, heart pounding. His chest felt constricted as if tightly corseted. His striped cotton pyjamas were damp with cold sweat, the bed clothes kicked to the floor. He pushed himself up against the headboard, trying to slow his rapid breaths, and reached for a glass of water from the bedside locker. The room was near dark, dimly lit by a pale orange nightlight.

The nightmare had ended early - the shooting was always near the beginning. It was followed by a sequence of other atrocities he’d performed or witnessed – beatings, torture, rapes, punishments, humiliations, executions - all without mercy; none merited.

He took a sip of cool water and shivered. For over sixty years he’d been plagued by the memories. He could push them away during the day, but they haunted him each night, eating away at his soul, denying him peace. He knew they would never stop; that he could never be forgiven.

He deserved as much, he knew that. He’d killed people in cold blood and watched thousands more die; he’d been a willing participant. He’d thought of them as no more than animals; sub-humans that were devious, conniving enemies of the state. They deserved to pay the ultimate price for the crimes of their race and religion.

It was over thirty years later before he started to change his mind; before he admitted to himself that his victims were as human as he was – were more human than he was. He’d never told anybody else and he had no intention of ever doing so.

There was a sound downstairs, something being knocked over, thudding to the floor. He sat perfectly still and listened. The house was silent, then a creak. The floorboards were as old as the house and they sang with age. He’d once read that Japanese palaces were built with nightingale floors – boards that creaked however lightly and skilfully they were trodden on. That’s what the old farmhouse had become - a Japanese palace. A floorboard sang out again.

He picked up his cheap digital watch and brought it close to his face. Roza, his housekeeper, had long left the farmhouse. She lived in a barn conversion across the yard, although he knew it was unlikely she was there; she’d be spending the night with her boyfriend in Athboy.

It was probably a burglar. If they were going to come for him, they would have done so by now. And they would have come straight to his bedroom and searched the house later. If he could survive the Russians as they swept through Eastern Europe and the aftermath of the war, he could handle a burglar. He placed the watch back on the locker and eased his thin, frail legs out of the bed, sliding his bare feet into cheap slippers.

Koch crept across the room to an old wardrobe, the floorboards beneath a thick white rug revealing his slow progress. His fingers were shaking slightly with age, as they had periodically for the past two years, and he struggled to open the secret panel at the back of the unit. After a few moments it popped open and he pulled free a small handgun. It felt heavy in his hand despite its size, the grip comfortable in his palm.

He moved to the door, eased it open, and stood still listening for movement. The house was quiet; then the creaking of a misplaced step. Stealthily, he headed for the top of the stairs, the gun held in front of him, steadied by both hands, the training from sixty years ago still remembered. He eased himself forward, the gun pointing down into the darkness below.

The house had once again become silent. Gingerly he descended the stairs, the pale light of the night sky eating into the shadows through the semi-circular window above the Georgian door, the dull thump of his heart filling his ears. As he neared the ground floor he flicked on the light switch, swinging the gun round the empty hallway. He nudged open the door to his left, reached in, switched on the lights and slipped into the room. From behind the door somebody yanked the gun from his hand and something heavy landed on the crown of his head.