John Connolly begins Irish/UK book tour

Best-selling Irish writer John Connolly kicks off a world tour with his latest Charlie Parker novel this week.

Author profile: John Connolly

Dublin-born author John Connolly is best known for his hugely successful series of crime novels set in Maine, starring private detective and anti-hero Charlie Parker.

His first novel, Every Dead Thing (1999) introduced Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter.

With his debut novel Connolly became the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award.

He says he was drawn to the American crime fiction tradition  because it seemed the best medium through which to explore issues of compassion, morality, reparation and salvation. Among his influences he cites Ross Macdonald, James Lee Burke and Ed McBain.

Besides the Charlie Parker series he has published several standalone books, beginning with Bad Men (2003) and Nocturnes (2004), a collection of novellas and short stories. The Gates (2009) was his first novel for young adults, the first in the Samuel Johnson trilogy.

Books to Die For, a non-fiction anthology co-edited with Declan Burke, won the 2013 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards for Best Critical/Biographical Book of the year.

Connolly studied English in Trinity College Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University. He worked as a freelance journalist, barman, local government official, waiter and dogsbody at Harrods in London before becoming a best-selling writer.

He is based in Dublin but divides his time between his native city and the United States.

Official author website: Johnconnollybooks.com

Author on Twitter: @jconnollybooks

See also: Crime Fiction Lover's guide to the Charlie Parker series

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John Connolly on 'The Wolf in Winter'

This extended interview with Irish author John Connolly marked the publication of his 12th Charlie Parker novel (and 13th story in the series) The Wolf in Winter.

The interview with broadcaster and author John kelly was originally broadcast on RTÉ's The Works in 2014.

Download the first chapter of The Wolf in Winter (PDF)

John Connolly on crime fiction

Best-selling author John Connolly will also be discussing crime fiction at the Hodges Figgis Book Festival this evening with authors Alex Barclay, Jane Casey, Sinéad Crowley, Liz Nugent, and writing duo Karen Gillece and Paul Perry.

Admission is free, but if you can't make it here's a recent clip of Connolly on Seán O'Rourke's radio show chatting about crime fiction, his Charlie Parker series and the strange case of the Dublin hydrangeas.

John Connolly on his latest Charlie Parker

Bestselling author John Connolly drops by Easons HQ to chat to Dave O'Callaghan about his fifteenth Charlie Parker crime novel, A Game of Ghosts.

Next John Connolly: A Song of Shadows

Charlie Parker is back. John Connolly's new novel A Song of Shadows will be available from 9 April 2015 in the UK and 11 August in the US.

Still recovering from his life-threatening wounds, private detective Charlie Parker investigates a case that has its origins in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War.

Parker has retreated to the small Maine town of Boreas to regain his strength. There he befriends a widow named Ruth Winter and her young daughter, Amanda. But Ruth has her secrets. She is hiding from the past, and the forces that threaten her have their origins in the Second World War, in a town called Lubsko and a concentration camp unlike any other.

Old atrocities are about to be unearthed, and old sinners will kill to hide their sins. Now Parker is about to risk his life to defend a woman he barely knows, one who fears him almost as much as she fears those who are coming for her.

His enemies believe him to be vulnerable. Fearful. Solitary. But they are wrong. Parker is far from afraid, and far from alone. For something is emerging from the shadows.

Read the opening chapter

Publication date on Amazon UK: 9 April 2015

Upcoming crime fiction events for 2017

Here are some of the crime fiction related events taking place in Ireland and abroad in 2017. More details throughout the year...

Author profile: Arlene Hunt

“Arlene Hunt may just be the best female crime writer to have emerged from these islands in recent years”- John Connolly

Irish writer Arlene Hunt's debut novel was Vicious Circle (2004). Her second novel, False Intentions (2005), introduced two regular characters, John and Sarah of QuicK Investigations.

This was followed by four more books in the "John and Sarah" series, Black Sheep (2006), Missing Presumed Dead (2007), Undertow (2008) and Blood Money (2010).

Originally from Wicklow, Hunt lives in Dublin with her family "and a melee of useless, overweight animals". She has contributed to various anthologies, including Down These Green Streets and Requiems for the Departed.

Besides being an established bestselling author, she chose to turn down a publishing contract with Hachette Ireland to set up her own publishing house, Portnoy Publishing, in 2012.

Official author website: Arlenehunt.com

Author on Twitter: @arlenehunt

See also: Portnoypublishing.com

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Irish detective novels come to the Big Apple

Authors John Connolly, Declan Hughes and Stuart Neville will be taking part in the New York launch of the academic collection of essays The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel and Neville's latest novel So Say the Fallen.

Irish authors make CWA Daggers longlists

There is very strong Irish interest in the longlists for this year's Crime Writers’ Association Daggers, Jake Harrington reports.

New academic study of Irish detective novels

The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel is a forthcoming academic collection of essays published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Author profile: Declan Burke

Declan Burke is a leading writer and critic on Ireland's crime fiction scene.

Eightball Boogie (2003) introduced his down-at-heel private eye Harry Rigby and has been described as "1940s West Coast LA Chandler meets 21st Century West Coast Sligo". Later books in the series include The Big O (2007) and Slaughter’s Hound (2012).

Absolute Zero Cool (2011) is a meta-thriller that revolves around a fictional version of writer Burke who is confronted by a character from an unfinished novel. John Banville described it as "a genuinely original take on noir... a cross between Flann O'Brien and Raymond Chandler".

Burke's sixth novel was The Lost And The Blind (2014), a standalone thriller and crime mystery set in Donegal, with an historical flavour.

He edited Down These Green Streets (2011), a collection of essays, memoirs and short stories written by Irish crime writers about the current wave of Irish crime writing.

With John Connolly he co-edited Books To Die For (2012), the award-winning collection of essays on crime and mystery novels.

As a journalist and critic, Burke also writes and broadcast on books and film for a wide range of media outlets, including the Irish Times, Irish Independent and Irish Examiner, and he runs the Crime Always Pays blog.

Born in Sligo, he now lives in County Wicklow.

Official author website: Crime Always Pays

Author on Twitter: @declanburke

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15th Charlie Parker novel is due next April

A Game of Ghosts, John Connolly's 15th novel featuring Charlie Parker, his haunted PI from Maine, will be published in the UK and Ireland on 6 April 2017, and in the US about four months later.

New crime anthology 'Trouble Is Our Business'

Trouble Is Our Business, a new anthology of short stories by leading Irish crime writers, will be published by New Island Books this September.

Irish crime writers in Liverpool

A half-day event about crime fiction at the Bluecoat arts centre in Liverpool this April has a decidedly Irish flavour.

Best Irish crime fiction of 2015

2015 was a bumper year for Irish crime fiction. Among major releases were novels by - to name just ten - Alex Barclay, Louise Phillips, John Connolly, Ava McCarthy, Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Sinéad Crowley, Mark O'Sullivan, Karen Perry and Anthony J Quinn.

There were also some dazzling debuts in the crime fiction department, such as novels by Steve Cavanagh, Jax Miller, Alan Walsh, Michael O'Higgins, Frankie Gaffney, Jo Spain and Kelly Creighton.

And it was a good year too for crime fiction on the small and big screen.

Here are some of our personal choices from the past year's Irish crime fiction novels, movies, TV shows and audio books...

Top Irish crime writers for Dawson Street

The Hodges Figgis Book Festival in Dublin includes a crime fiction discussion chaired by John Connolly in the Dawson Street bookshop this Thursday, 17 September at 6.30pm.

The stellar panel includes Alex Barclay, Jane Casey, Sinéad Crowley, Liz Nugent and "Karen Perry" writing duo Karen Gillece and Paul Perry. And the event is free - no booking required.

Twitter: @Hodges_Figgis, #HFBookFest

Author profile: Erin Hart

"I first heard the story in the summer of 1986: two brothers cutting turf in the west of Ireland stumbled upon the perfectly-preserved, severed head of a beautiful red-haired girl." - Erin Hart on the real-life story that inspired her first novel, Haunted Ground

Erin Hart's crime novels feature American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire, who are engaged in the recovery of artefacts and human remains from boglands.

Author profile: Alan Glynn

Alan Glynn's first novel, The Dark Fields (2001), was filmed as Limitless starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert De Niro.

This was followed by his loose "Land" trilogy of fast-paced crime thrillers, Winterland (2009),  Bloodland (2011) and Graveland (2013).

Set at the end of the Celtic Tiger boom, Winterland received rave reviews from writers such as John Connolly, Val McDermid, RJ Ellroy, Ken Bruen and George Pelecanos.

Two men from the same family, die on the same night. One is Noel Rafferty a small-time drug dealer, and it seems to be a gangland murder. The other is his uncle, also called Noel Rafferty, in what seems to be a road accident. 

The official version of events is that it was a coincidence, but then a family member, the feisty Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions. Into the mix are shady developers and corrupt politicians in a Dublin just before the economic crash.

Glynn was born in Drumcondra and studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin. He worked in magazine publishing in New York and as an English teacher in Italy, but now lives back in Dublin, in Terenure.

Official author website: Alanglynnbooks.com

Author on Twitter: @alanglynnbooks

See also: review of Winterland at Mystery Scene

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