Burke’s Law and Order

Later today, we will welcome to The Rap Sheet the eighth and latest in our series of occasional guest bloggers, Irish writer Declan Burke.

Most readers of this page probably already know Burke from his own excellent Weblog, Crime Always Pays, which for almost a year and a half now has been chattering about and championing Irish crime fiction in all of its colorful manifestations. In addition, Burke is the author of Eight-ball Boogie, a more-or-less private eye novel from 2003, and The Big O, a humorous crime caper that was released in Ireland last year and numbered among January Magazine’s favorite crime novels of 2007. The Big O is finally being made available in the States as of next Monday, September 22. Of that second book, Kirkus Reviews opined: “Imagine Donald Westlake and his alter ego Richard Stark moving to Ireland and collaborating on a screwball noir, and you have some idea of Burke’s accomplishment.” A fine clip, indeed.

Readers looking for more Burke should know that he spent part of this last summer posting original installments on the Web of a novel called A Gonzo Noir, which he says he “wrote about five years ago” and a few months ago “started messing around with” again. “Why am I posting it on a blog?” he asked rhetorically on his blog in May. “Well, because I can. And because I’m interested to see what kind of reaction this kind of post might generate, as well as the more specific kind of feedback that may or may not come via the comment box or e-mail. Any and all bouquets, brickbats, thoughts, and impressions welcome.” Mostly he received plaudits for the story’s text--and cautions around the idea of publishing anything free of charge on the Internet.

According to a brief biographical sketch at Books ’n’ Bytes, Burke was “born in Sligo [Ireland] in 1969. During the 1980s he worked as a labourer, barman, and factory hand.” Since graduating in English Literature and Media from the University of Ulster at Coleraine in 1994 he has worked as a freelance writer, reviewer, and editor, and is currently contributing to the Sunday [Irish] Times, the Evening Herald, the Sunday Business Post, and The Last Word on Today FM. Nowadays, Burke resides in Wicklow with his wife, Aileen, and their new, much-written-about little girl, Lily.

If fatherhood and promotional touring don’t keep him busy enough (he’s even scheduled to appear next month at Bouchercon in Baltimore), Burke has also been developing a non-fiction book of late that he described in a recent e-mail note as “a narrative of Irish crime writing.”

Basically, the notion is this--given the recent explosion in Irish crime fiction, I wondered if there might be any interest in putting together a book offering perspectives on the whys and wherefores of contemporary Irish crime writing. It would consist of a series of essays written by the Irish crime writers themselves, with each author taking a chapter according to his or her specialty and/or interest. Aimed at a general reading audience, it would decidedly not be an academic tome, but an entertaining and informative read.

The writers who have to date confirmed they will be taking part are: John Connolly, Colin Bateman, Declan Hughes, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Gene Kerrigan, Gerard Donovan, Brian McGilloway, Neville Thompson, Adrian McKinty, Gerard Brennan, and yours truly, with the latter trio taking on the job of compiling/editing.

Last week the project went forward to be assessed for funding by the Irish Arts Council, and an Irish publisher has already expressed a strong interest in publishing it.

Since he’s been thinking a lot in recent days about the evolution of Irish crime fiction, Declan Burke has decided to spend his weeklong guest spot here at The Rap Sheet commenting on the post-1990 burgeoning of crime and mystery stories in his native land, the uses of humor in Irish crime fiction, the ambiguous separation between literary and genre fiction, and other related subjects. We hope that you will enjoy his contributions, and will share with him your comments on his posts and his novels.

READ MORE: ““Ya Wanna Do It Here or Down the Station, Punk?” #2,012: Declan Burke” (The Rap Sheet); “An Interview--Declan Burke,” by Gerard Brennan (Crime Scene NI).