Belfast

The Irish Crime Week Giveaway!

March 11, 2015Book covers, EventsBelfast, Irish NoirInternational Crime Fiction Research GroupGallery Leave a comment

Following the Roddy Doyle giveaway last week (which was won by Col at The Only Way is Reading), this week I have a crime related prize up for grabs!

Photo: DRB Images

As I’m going to be spending the week reading and reviewing Irish Crime Fiction, I’m offering one lucky winner signed copies of Eoin McNamee’s Blue is the Colour and Stuart Neville’s The Final Silence, along with a rather nifty tote bag from Northern Ireland’s greatest bookshop – No Alibis (where both these books were bought!)

Blue is the Night(taken from Eoin McNamee’s website)

1949. Lance Curran is set to prosecute a young man for a brutal murder, in the ‘Robert the Painter’ case, one which threatens to tear society apart. In the searing July heat, corruption and justice vie as Harry Ferguson, Judge Curran’s fixer, contemplates the souls of men adrift, and his own fall from…

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Undercover : an Interview with Gerard Brennan

March 10, 2015ICRH, Interview, Irish Crime Fiction, Irish NoirBelfast, Brennandjeannerod Leave a comment

[Dominique Jeannerod] What is Fireproof about?

[Gerard Brennan] Fireproof, on the surface, is about a man who ended up in Hell due to a bureaucratic bungle and is sent back to Earth with a mission to establish a satanic church in Northern Ireland. It’s not based on a true story.

Is it crime fiction?

The book straddles a few genres. There are certainly crime fiction elements (or tropes if you want to be unkind), such as a femme fatale, murder, mystery, revenge… But it also features supernatural creatures such as Lucifer, an imp, and Cerberus, a three-headed dog who guards the gates of Hell/Hades in Greek mythology. Oh, and I like to think it’s a wee bit funny as well. Continue reading →

Which San-Antonio books should you read (sorted by country) ?

January 26, 2015AHRC, Blog, Database, ICRH, San-Antonio, Series, TranslationBelfast, Circulation, Conferencedjeannerod One comment

San-Antonio, Bérurier au Sérail, Paris, Fleuve Noir, 1964

In a Series totalling 175 novels, it is understandably difficult to locate, or even to remember, in which country each adventure is set. Even if one discounts some 70 novels where the action is set in France, in many others the characters travel to several foreign countries, rather than just one. This adds to the variety of settings in San-Antonio’s adventures, but it renders any orientation even more difficult. To provide such an orientation, the following list serves as a simplified database. It links the countries most visited by San-Antonio with the title of the books in which each country is visited. This might come handy especially if you are considering putting a proposal to the San-Antonio International Conference in Belfast in May… Continue reading →

Northern Irish Crime Fiction and British TV Series

January 19, 2015Events, ICRHBelfast, Irish Noir, TV Seriesdjeannerod Leave a comment

How Noir is Belfast ?

December 30, 2014Book covers, CRIME VIZ, Irish Crime Fiction, Irish NoirAdrian McKinty, Belfast, Belfastxploitation, Bestien von Belfast, Colin Bateman, Eoin McNamee, Gérard de Villiers, Irish Noir, Jerry Cotton, Michael Muller, Mike Shelley, Norn Iron Noir, Patrick Raynal, Richard Deutsch, Sam Millar, Stuart Neville, Tomasz KonatkowskiInternational Crime Fiction Research Group View all 2 comments

Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville, in the introduction to the recently launched collection of short stories, Belfast Noir (N.Y., Akashic, 2014) describe Belfast, with some claims, as ” the noirest city on earth”. The feeling seems to be shared by the international publishing industry. In so far at least as original titles of noir novels set in Northern Ireland have been changed, in translation or for the U.S. Market, in order to feature the name of the city. Or have been produced originally, abroad, or domestically with a title using explicitly Belfast as a byword for violence. Here are a few examples of such “Belfastxploitation”, with some images for a view on Belfast, as reconstructed from the outside…

Sam Millar , Die Bestien von Belfast: Ein Fall für Karl Kane, Translator : Joachim Körb

Atrium Verlag, Hamburg, 2013 (original, Bloodstorm, 2008).… Continue reading →

Eoin McNamee’s and Brian McGilloway’s reading and interview with Andrew Pepper (June 13, 2014)

September 15, 2014ICRH, ResourcesBelfast, Brian McGilloway, Conference, Eoin McNamee, Irish NoirInternational Crime Fiction Research Group View all 2 comments

The video recording of the event with the two acclaimed Northern Irish crime fiction authors. introduced by Dr. Andrew Pepper (Queen’s University Belfast):

Part 1