Lazy Sunday Service

I've decided to go with Ghostland for the new title of the third McEvoy book. It covers the main themes and has a strong contemporary link to what's happening in Ireland at the minute. Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I'm just reading it again before sending it off tomorrow. Then its on to reading the proofs and compiling an index for Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life, which turned up from MIT Press on Wednesday last week.

My posts this week:
Review of Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo
Phantom Roads
Name this book!
Don't worry, about a thing
Review of Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland
Death of a dream ... or why reading the property supplement is bad for your health
Why relying on indirect, cyclical taxes is a folly
638 Steps

638 Steps

The stories 600-700 over at A Twist of Noir are the same length as their entry number. I was a little slow picking up on the call for stories, but when they put up a post saying what slots were still free, I decided to have a go at number 638. Aware time was short I drafted 638 steps the same evening and sent it off. I never received an acknowledgement or reply, so a week later I sent it again. Then they put up another post listing which slots were still free and 638 had been taken. Fair enough. The story either wasn’t good enough, or it got lost in cyberspace, or I was too late, or whatever. The 600-700 series is a great idea and there’s a stellar list of people writing, so head over there and check it out. Below is my lost entry.


638 steps

There is only so much a man can take before he snaps. Mild irritation simmers to anger, then boils into fury, before exploding into rage. Kayleigh knew what was coming before Charlie turned the corner.

‘Fucking ... bastards!’ Anger contorted his fat, sweaty face, his mouth sucking in air. ‘The wee fucking ... skanky bastards.’

The elevators had been working that morning. By midday two had died of their own volition. After thirty one years of servicing the hapless, hopeless and disgruntled residents of a twenty two storey tower block they spent more time stuck between floors than rising and falling. By five o’clock the remaining two had been decommissioned by a rival gang from another block and the stairwell freshened with half a dozen streams of stinking piss.

He looked as if he’d just entered a wet t-shirt contest, the damp material glued to his glutinous body, dark nipples topping his moobs. Four plastic bags, bulging in odd-shapes, hung from his drooping arms, crashing against legs burning with lactic acid.

‘Don’t just ... sit there ... you lazy cow. ... Give me a ... fucking hand.’

Kayleigh toppled forward and skipped down a few steps to meet him. ‘At least you got some exercise.’

‘It’s a wonder ... I’m not fucking dead.’

The word ‘pity’ formed on her tongue before she bit it back. She took the four bags and climbed up to the landing, leaving him leaning against the railing, wheezing like a punctured bagpipe.

She headed to their decrepit flat, battered after three decades of unloving care from a revolving set of tenants, furnished with cheap fittings and crappy second-hand furniture. The only saving grace was the view – south across the sprawling city to the mountains beyond and north to the dark grey sea and an indistinct horizon.

She’d emptied the bags and put most of it away before he staggered in. The stupid bastard had managed to buy his four cans of beer and bottle of whiskey, but forgotten the milk.

‘Fucking council,’ he snapped. ‘Lazy fuckers.’

He’d lost none of his anger. He grabbed one of the cans and popped its lid, sucking down the beer.

‘You forgot the milk,’ she muttered.

She knew it was a mistake the moment she said it; knew that it would tip him over the edge.

‘What?’

She turned away.

‘What did you say, you ungrateful bitch.’

‘Nothing.’

‘You forgot the milk,’ he mimicked and drained the rest of the beer. ‘You forgot the milk!’

The can caught on the side of the head.

‘Well, you better go and get the fucking milk, hadn’t you?’

He’d grabbed her hair and was pulling her out into the hall, back to the door.

She was screaming at him to stop, clawing at his arm. ‘Charlie! Fuck! Oh, fuck! Charlie, please. Charlie! Shit!’

She grabbed hold of the door frame, trying to stop their progress. In response, Charlie gave her a bit of slack before smashing down on one of her arms with his free hand and yanking her hair viciously. They tumbled out into the passageway.

‘Fucking ungrateful bitch.’

She’d reached her tipping point, her fingernails digging into soft flesh.

‘Bitch.’

He let go of her hair and punched her hard, his rage fully ignited, wrapping her in a bear hug and carrying her to the stairs. He released her and pushed.

She tumbled into space, cartwheeling down to the landing below. He followed her down, his body bouncing rhythmically.

Dazed and livid, she was struggling to her feet when he arrived. Instead of cowering away, she launched herself up into him, driving forwards, knocking him backwards and off-balance. The railing dug into his buttocks, providing a pivot, his upper body tipping back, arms flailing, then he was gone.

638 steps bypassed.

‘Low fat, please,’ Kayleigh muttered to herself.

Review of Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland (2010, Quercus)

Emily Tempest has been persuaded to join the Aboriginal Community Police. It wasn’t her first choice of job, but the options in a small, rough and tumble mining town in the middle of the Australian outback are limited. She thought she’d be working for Tom Gillivray, but he’s worse for wear after being attacked with a zimmerframe wielded by an elderly tear-about. Instead, in her first day at work gets off to a rocky start with the pissy, dour Bruce Cockburn, her new boss, a roadside death, and the murder of an increasingly disorientated and disillusioned geologist and prospector. Treated like a dogsbody who doesn’t belong, she finds herself bristling with indignation. And once she realises who the dead man is, having spent half her life being dragged round the mines by her white father, and who has been accused of murdering him, she can’t help but stick her nose in where it’s not wanted and do her own digging around. Cockburn sees an open and shut case; Emily sees lazy policing and a potentially innocent man heading for trial. If this is how justice works, then she figures she can use and abuse the badge until they either take it off her or she discovers the truth.

Diamond Dove, Adrian Hyland’s first Emily Tempest novel, was one of my books of 2009 (review here). It was with great anticipation then that I waited for Gunshot Road. I even pre-ordered a copy, only to be let down by the usually reliable Amazon. I eventually got my hands on a copy a couple of weeks ago and it moved straight to the top of the TBR pile. The novel, thankfully, lived up to my expectations. In Emily Tempest, Hyland has created a wonderfully engaging character; half-aboriginal, half-white, she oscillates between two worlds. Quick witted, head-strong, caring and obstinate, she ploughs her own unique path through life. In fact, the whole book is populated with well penned characters that have depth and inner life. Hyland does a great job of immersing the reader in the small, fractious communities and strained social relations of outback Australia, creating a vivid sense of place. And he has wonderful, expressive turn of phrase and lively and witty prose. The storytelling, as a whole is excellent, the plotting and narrative strong, particularly in the first half of the book. The second half does suffer a little from an attempt to build tension through a series of multiple pressure points, and increasingly shorter chapters. That said, this really is a great read and one I’ve already recommended to friends. It’s definitely going to be near the top of my best reads of 2010 and I’ll be pre-ordering the next book in the series – note to author and publisher, please get a move on!

Name this book!

Nobody it seems is that happy with the working title of 'Digging for Gold' for the next McEvoy novel. It kind of works as a placeholder, but I think I need something else. Unfortunately, I seem to be having a bit of a mental block devising an alternative title. Perhaps it's not that important, but it's bugging me. So far the book has had these working titles:

'In the Bog' (in reference to where it takes place - part of the boglands of the country and a play on where the country is heading)

'Land and Honey' (a play on land of milk and honey, and land and gold digging through sexual charms)

'Digging for Gold' (in reference to the two main murders - both women were gold diggers, using their charms to leverage what they wanted - and the Irish property boom and its pursuit of wealth that led to the landscape being scarred with unneeded development).

These are my present alternatives:

'All That Glitters' (as in 'all that glitters is not gold', in reference to the pursuit of wealth through reckless means does not always end well)

'Ghostland' (refers both to the continued 'presence' of the two dead women, and the legacy of ghost estates across the landscape as a result of the fallout from the property crash in which one of them played an important local role).

I should probably point out that the two women were murdered in different eras. One in the early 1960s when rural Ireland was very conservative and repressive; the other in the here and now as Ireland transitions from boom to bust. In that sense the book does kind of deal with the overlapping legacies of three eras (conservative Ireland, permissive and booming Ireland, sobering aftershock of the collapse). The theme of socio-sexual relations runs throughout the story as well given the gold digging elements and McEvoy's personal life becoming more complex.

You can hopefully see the kinds of ideas I'm trying to play around with in the story and the various working titles - gold digging, property development, boom-and-bust, haunting, etc. and the present version of the backcover blurb is below.

What do people think of these titles? Can you come up with a better alternative? I am leaning towards one, but I'd really welcome some suggestions.

The working backcover blurb:
"The Irish economy has imploded leaving the country littered with shattered dreams and the ghostly remains of the Celtic Tiger property boom. Whilst dealing with the fallout, Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy has got himself ensnared in a tangle of work and women. Marianne Haas, a Dutch national and estate agent, is found hanging in a client’s house. Nearby, the remains of a young woman are discovered in a bog. Along the Irish border, rivalry between fuel smuggling gangs has led to murder and collaboration with a fiery superintendent. None of the three cases are straightforward and are little helped by the attention of an ambitious journalist and the resistance of local officers to outside help. To add spice to the mix, McEvoy finds himself flirting with one of his subordinates whilst relying on his lodger to look after his increasingly distant daughter. Undertaking one case is stressful, managing three and an ever more complex personal life is a potential nightmare. Rural Ireland is proving to be anything but an idyll."

Review of Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo (Bitter Lemon Press, 2010; Spanish 2006)

It’s the late 1970s and Argentina is governed by a military junta, casting a shadow of fear across the country. Amancio is a playboy from a rich, landed family, married to the beautiful Lara, who demands the finest things in life. Having exhausted his fortune he has taken to loaning money from various creditors, finally turning to the loan shark, Biterman, an Auschwitz survivor. When Biterman calls in the debt, Amancio decides to take matters into his own hands to save the family estate, turning to his friend, Major Giribaldi, who specialises in making people disappear. Superintendent Lascano is a homicide detective mourning his wife recently killed in a car accident. On a raid of a brothel he discovers Eva, a left-wing dissident, hiding from another kind of raid a few doors away. Eva is the spitting image of Lascano’s dead wife and he takes her in, a strange bond forming between them. Despite the risk, Lascona seeks new papers for Eva, but then he discovers three dead bodies dumped on the roadside outside of the city. Two are clearly junta assassinations, but the third seems more opportunistic. It doesn’t take long for Lascano to discover the truth, putting him on a dangerous collision course with the military authorities.

Needle in a Haystack is a noir crime novel blended with social/political observation. The story is not driven by a ‘whodunnit’ or ‘howdunnit’ narrative, as it is fairly clear from the start who killed the third body and why. Rather the hook is who will win out between Lascano and Giribaldi; whether justice will prevail. I’ll avoid a spoiler, but needless to say the book has one of the best endings to a novel I’ve read so far this year. Throughout the characterisation and social relations are keenly portrayed and the prose is well crafted. The plot is relatively straightforward, but that doesn’t detract from the reading experience. There were one or two things that didn’t quite ring right, such as Biterman’s backstory, but otherwise one felt immersed in the claustrophobic life of Buenos Aires in the late 1970s. Overall, an informative and entertaining slice of noir, lifted by a great ending.

Lazy Sunday Service

I've started to read Wasters by Shane Ross and Nick Webb about the wastage and mis-management in some Irish semi-state agencies. A fairly depressing read about political cronyism and jollies at the citizen's expense. One area of the Irish public sector that definitely does need reform, and unfortunately tarnishes all elements.

My posts this week:
September reviews
Irish bank collapse thwarts Scottish independence?
National spatial strategy update
Review of The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Coterill
The bust from a bird's eye view
Is giving houses away the answer?
Altering the space-time physics of reading
One parent edit leads to lots of children edits

One parent edit leads to lots of children edits

I took a day off work today to try use a long weekend in order to push Digging for Gold towards submission. Of course, I still spent a couple of hours on email keeping the show on the road, but that's beside the point. Two of my beta readers suggested edits to the end of the novel, so I thought I'd have a go at tweaking. The problem is that one parent edit, then leads to a cascade of children edits to ensure continuity. And make more than one parent edit and all of sudden you're trying to deal with families of edits. Families that co-exist. It can rapidly get complicated and messy. And the danger is that you're left with parentless children as you delete and replace sections. Hopefully it's improving things. We'll see. Better get back to it, before I lose all my latest genealogical thread.