Dublin Noir : The Celtic Tiger vs. the Ugly American [Paperback]

Ken Bruen (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0863223532
• ISBN-13: 978-0863223532
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,029,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ABOUT PAT MULLAN

Pat Mullan was born in Ireland and has lived in England, Canada and the USA. He is a graduate of St. Columb's College, Northwestern University and the State University of New York. Formerly a banker, he now lives in Connemara, in the west of Ireland.

He has published articles, poetry and short stories in magazines such as Buffalo Spree, Tales of the Talisman, Writers Post Journal. His poetry appears frequently in the Acorn E-zine of the Dublin Writers Workshop. His short story, Galway Girl, was short-listed for the WOW Awards and was published in the new WOW Magazine in Galway in April 2010. It is also one of his short stories that form part of his GALWAY NOIR anthology, available on-line from iPulp Fiction.

He has two collections of poetry available on-line, Childhood Hills and Awakening. James Dickey's Poetry: The Religious Dimension is his elegy to Dickey and is available on-line on Amazon Kindle.

Recent work has appeared in the anthology, DUBLIN NOIR, published in the USA by Akashic Books and in Ireland and the UK by Brandon Books and again in 'City-Pick DUBLIN', published by Oxygen Books in 2010 to mark Dublin being chosen as UNESCO'S City of Culture for 2010.

His first novel, The Circle of Sodom, received two nominations, one for Best First Novel and one for Best Suspense Thriller, at the 2005 Love Is Murder conference in Chicago. His second novel, Blood Red Square, was published in the US in 2005 and a new edition, published in 2011, is now available on-line as a paperback and as an ebook. His latest novels, Last Days of the Tiger and Creatures of Habit are now available on-line as ebooks on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Kobo, and elsewhere; they are also available in paperback.

He is Ireland Chair of International Thriller Writers, Inc. and he is a member of Mystery Writers of America.


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WRITING AND IRELAND

There's no way that one can grow up in Ireland without being surrounded by writers. Everybody writes! And, if they don't, they tell stories. The Celtic oral tradition is alive and well. When I was a little boy in our country farmhouse home, people (neighbors, friends, strangers) would come in of an evening, sit around the fire, and tell stories till the 'wee hours' of the morning. Later Irish writers: James Joyce, John McGahern, Brian Moore, Brendan Behan, Oscar Wilde, Sean O'Casey - and today there's so many, starting with my old schoolmate, Seamus Heaney, and others such as Roddy Doyle. Of course my favorite read is the thriller and I love Irish thriller writers such as Jack Higgins and Victor O'Reilly.But I must not leave out my favorite American writers and there are so many of them: Hemingway, Steinbeck, O'Connor, Clancy, James T. Farrell, and many more. I've been scared by Dean Koontz and by Stephen King and Evan Kingsbury ( whom you may know better as Robert W. Walker, author of the INSTINCT and the EDGE series ) and I've laughed out loud in bed reading Carl Hiaasen. Lately I've been reading my favorite Irish author, Ken Bruen. At College I read the great Russian writers, such as Turgenev and Tolstoy and began a whole new love affair. I suppose every writer that I read has influenced me. I believe that if one wants to (has to) write, one must read, read, read ...

MY WRITING DAY

I'm a morning person so I do try to write every morning - even if it's just scribbled thoughts for my next poem. I do find that I'm more driven when I'm half way into a novel. The story and the characters take over and, if other matters permit, I just lose the sense of time. When that happens, I can write just as readily in the middle of the day or in the evening as I can in the morning. If I go somewhere in the car and I know I will have to kill some time waiting for something or someone, I'll take my briefcase along and use it to jot notes, plot, write, etc. I have three distinct briefcases, one for my poetry, one for my short stories, and one that contains the flotsam and jetsam of my current novel in progress. As you can imagine, they are all overflowing, some more organized than others. But, in a sense, I'm always writing in my head even when I'm gardening or mowing the lawn... and some of my best novel setpieces come right out of my dreams. I always keep a notebook on my bedside table for those special dream segments that I happen to remember upon waking. In many ways one must be disciplined and set a writing schedule but one shouldn't be deluded into thinking that that will produce the best or most creative output. Less structure and more development of the writerly mind creates a consciousness that is pervasive. Then writing in all its manifestation covers the entire day.


Please visit me at my website WWW.PATMULLAN.COM

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quick, Cancel Your Trip to Ireland!, June 11, 2006

By 

www.mikemaclean.net "Mike" (Tempe, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American (Akashic Noir Series) (Paperback)

The characters inhabiting this anthology would pistol-whip a leprechaun and roll the little fairy into a dark alley.

In only 228 pages, Dublin Noir offers up nineteen bullet-fast tales full of blood, deceit, booze and "black Irish humor." Dealers, thieves, killers, and bottom-feeders all wrestle off the page, thanks to a talented mix of new and established writers. By the time you finish their stories, you'll want to sit down in a pub and share a pint with them.

Edited by the Irish king of noir himself, Ken Bruen, Dublin Noir won't disappoint.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glorious Darkness, June 18, 2008

By 

Jill "Traveler" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American (Akashic Noir Series) (Paperback)

I am a real fan of the Noir series, and this one lives up to my expectations. Authors both new to me and familiar each creates a story in which Dublin is the location. Not all writers are Irish, so there are many points of view, and lots of intriguing episodes. Since I am visiting Dublin in the fall, this is great background for me. It really puts me in the mood.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads Like Hurley: "A Cross Between Hockey and Murder", April 23, 2011

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American (Akashic Noir Series) (Paperback)

And beat me with a hurley if this is not the darkest, bloodiest and most intense collection of noir crime fiction on the market. I figured that for raw tales of treachery, deceit, and pure evil, who better than Ken Bruen to select those best told in unadorned, unembellished, stripped down prose; a staccato of nineteen bleak episodes packed between the covers, penned by an eclectic and talented group of writers from both sides of the Atlantic?

There are too many gems here to pick the favorites, but Bruen's anthology is fast out of the gate with Eoin Colfer's "Taking on PJ," a darkly humorous encounter between of a couple of low-grade criminals and a notorious mob leg-breaker, finishing strong with Craig McDonald's double-twisted "Rope-A-Dope," a fiendish tale of sex and murder. In between, don't even bother to try and count the bodies as they pile up - gristle and gore are as common in this collection as Jamison's and Guinness. Even the women get into the violence with a pair of crazed blockbusters from Laura Lipman's "The Honor Bar," and Sarah Weinman's "Hen Night." An interesting sidebar: one of the most furious paced and engaging novels I've read was Duane Swierczynski's "The Blonde," opening with the unforgettable "I've poisoned your drink." Here, Swierczynski (who's decidedly not Irish but can still write with the best of them) serves up "Lonely and Gone" here - a neat little nugget that was clearly the inspiration for the white-knuckled "Blonde." Pat Mullen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Ray Banks, Olin Steinhauser - they're all here - plus an early story from Charlie Stella, a terrific but unfairly under-read author of great crime fiction like "Shakedown," "Cheapskates," "Johnny Porno," and more.

In short, "Dublin Noir" is a gritty and gripping selection of Ireland's darker prose, a mighty example of an eclectic collection of short story masters practicing the seedier side of their trade.