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

Are you this author or their agent?  Contact us if you would like to add or update biography details.

Courses with Declan Burke and Louise Phillips

Two leading names on the Irish crime fiction scene, Declan Burke and Louise Phillips, will be presenting writing courses at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin this spring.

Crime fiction course in NI with Declan Burke

Award-winning Irish crime writer and journalist Declan Burke will present a one-day course on 3rd December at Ranfurly House in Dungannon, County Tyrone, about writing crime novels. Declan has published six novels and is editor of the recently published anthology of short stories Trouble is Our Business.

Book a place via event organisers the Irish Writers' Centre.

Declan Burke on Goldsboro Last Laugh shortlist

Declan Burke's 2014 novel Crime Always Pays (Severn House Publishers) has been shortlisted for the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award.

Crime fiction writers at Tallaght book festival

The Red Line Book Festival and New Island Books are hosting an evening of crime writing on October 12th in Tallaght, featuring four leading Irish crime authors.

Declan Burke will chair the event at the Civic Theatre at 8 pm with Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes and Alex Barclay. They will discuss the crime-writing process, gripping plots and characters, and Irish crime fiction past and present.

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.

Lehane and Banville on crime fiction

Declan Burke interviews Irish-American writer Dennis Lehane in the Irish Examiner this week about adapting Love/Hate for a US audience, and reviews his latest novel World Gone By in this morning's Irish Times.

For another taster before Lehane's public appearances in Ireland later this month, here's an extended interview we've come across. It was filmed on the roof of Lehane's Boston home.

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

Are you this author or their agent?  Contact us if you would like to add or update biography details.

Crime fiction panel at Boyle Arts Festival

Declan Burke, Louise Phillips, Arlene Hunt and Andrea Carter will take part in a crime writing panel at the Boyle Arts Festival on 22 July, in the Family Resource Centre at 5 pm.

Crime times at Belfast Book Festival

There are numerous crime fiction related events at the Crescent Arts Centre in this year's Belfast Book Festival.

Crime fiction authors at Airfield Readers' Day

Crime authors Alex Marwood, Jane Casey and Sam Blake (Vanessa O'Loughlin) will talk about their latest novels with Declan Burke as part of Airfield Readers' Day in Dundrum on Saturday 18 March 2017.

Other writers taking part in the day include Carmel Harrington, Hazel Gaynor, Fionnuala Kearney, Claudia Carroll and Kate Beaufoy. It is a forerunner of the Mountains To Sea festival, which runs from 22 to 26 March.

Our crime fiction books and shows of 2016

2016 was another bumper year for Irish crime fiction, from a wide range of newcomers to the latest offerings by the likes of Tana French and Adrian McKinty. It also saw the publication of Trouble Is Our Business, a terrific anthology of short stories edited by Declan Burke. Here are our picks of the year.

Major new study on crime fiction and the state

Belfast-based academic Andrew Pepper has penned five detective novels set in 19th-century Britain and Ireland. He is also Senior Lecturer in English and American literature at Queen's University, specialising "mainly in the areas of transnational crime fiction, spy/espionage fiction and contemporary fiction that examines security and policing issues".

His new study Unwilling Executioner: Crime Fiction and the State (Oxford University Press) describes itself as "the first book to explore the significance of crime fiction's relationship to the state".

Blasts from the past... Seamus Smyth

Quinn (1999) is the debut crime novel by Seamus Smyth, not to be confused - as we did earlier - with Sheamus Smith, Ireland's former Film Censor.

Frank Golden reads 'The Night Game'

Dublin-born writer Frank Golden reads the first chapter from his new psychological thriller The Night Game (2015), in this short film by Fergus Tighe.

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: Anna Sweeney

"A mystery with plenty of twists and turns, and one that is entirely faithful to its time and place." - Declan Burke reviewing Deadly Intent in the Irish Examiner.

Anna Heussaff is a novelist writing in Irish under her own name and in English under the pen name Anna Sweeney. Her two crime novels in Irish, Bás Tobann (2004) and Buille Marfach (2010), are both set on the Beara Peninsula in southwest Ireland.

Authors, readers slam 'Clean Reader' app

by Lucy Dalton, News Editor

A new app that replaces "profane" words with "clean" ones in eBooks has been heavily criticised across social media all this week.

Here's a small sample of the backlash on Twitter. We don't claim it to be statistically "representative" of anything. But we think it's spot on because we too are unanimously against this form of censorship - of crime fiction or any other  writing.

Author profile: Steve Cavanagh

Steve Cavanagh's debut novel The Defence (2015) is the first of his series of legal thrillers are set in New York City featuring Eddie Flynn, former con-artist turned trial lawyer.

"It's been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn't have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie's back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter, Amy.

"Eddie only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial - and win - if he wants to save his daughter."

The second book in the series has the working title of The Plea.

Cavanagh was born and raised in Belfast and is a practising solicitor in the city. He studied law in Dublin and Cardiff.

Official author website: Stevecavanagh.com

Author on Twitter: @SSCav

See also: Declan Burke's review of The Defence

Are you this author or their agent?  Contact us if you would like to add or update biography details.