Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [0]
D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos
Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics,edited by Tim McLoughlin
Chicago Noir,edited by Neal Pollack
San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis
FORTHCOMING:
Manhattan Noir, edited by Lawrence Block
Baltimore Noir,edited by Laura Lippman
Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz
Los Angeles Noir,edited by Denise Hamilton
London Noir,edited by Cathi Unsworth
Havana Noir, edited by Achy Obejas
Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman
Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford
Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan
Lone Star Noir, edited by Edward Nawotka
This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Published by Akashic Books
© 2006 Akashic Books
Dublin map by Sohrab Habibion
Editorial assistance: Emmet Henry and Chris Gough
ISBN-13: 978-1-888451-92-4
ISBN-10: 1-888451-92-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005925466
All rights reserved
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
Akashic7@aol.com
www.akashicbooks.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
PART I: THE INSIDE JOB
EOIN COLFER
Taking on PJ
KEN BRUEN
Black Stuff
PAT MULLAN
Tribunal
PART II: THE MANHATTAN CONNECTION
REED FARREL COLEMAN
Portrait of the Killer As a Young Man
PETER SPIEGELMAN
The Best Part
JIM FUSILLI
The Ghost of Rory Gallagher
JASON STARR
Lost in Dublin
CHARLIE STELLA
Tainted Goods
PART III: HEART OF THE OLD COUNTRY
RAY BANKS
Wrong ’Em, Boyo
OLEN STEINHAUER
The Piss-Stained Czech
JOHN RICKARDS
Wish
KEVIN WIGNALL
The Death of Jeffers
PART IV: NEW WORLD NOIR
LAURA LIPPMAN
The Honor Bar
JAMES O. BORN
Tourist Trade
SARAH WEINMAN
Hen Night
GARY PHILLIPS
The Man for the Job
PATRICK J. LAMBE
The New Prosperity
DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
Lonely and Gone
CRAIG MCDONALD
Rope-A-Dope
About the Contributors
INTRODUCTION
ONLY CONNECT
Brooklyn Noir was a huge success, set a bunch of authors to write about one place, simple and highly effective.
Now in Akashic Books’ “noir” pipeline are Manhattan, Baltimore, Miami, Los Angeles, Havana, London … and that’s just the beginning. Here is Dublin Noir.
At first, it was straightforward—Dublin authors to write on their city … Then we turned the concept on its head, as you do in noir. The Irish are fascinated by how we appear to the world, so let’s have a look, we thought, at how this city appears from the outside. In addition to a couple of us locals, let’s take a cross section of the very best of today’s crime writers from America, as well as Britain, Europe, and Canada—the successful ones, the new blood, and those between. We knew we’d get a lot of Yeats and Ulysses, but what else … ?
The challenge we posed to the authors we invited to join this collection was simple: Show us your Dublin, and show it noir.
Tourists booking holidays in Ireland inevitably do Dublin first and seem to always end up in Temple Bar, our very own Times Square—replete with the squalor, the drugs, the homeless, and the wandering psychos. Two years ago, Pat Boran, the legendary director of the Dublin Arts Festival, invited me to do a reading in Temple Bar. During my gig, a woman up and died. It added to my already noir rep and has certainly given me pause about returning there. Temple Bar, naturally, features in many of the stories, and the authors certainly capture the noir element. The Tourist Board, not fond of me in the best of times, has responded with a bounty on my head. I take that, I think, as flattery.
Ireland’s alleged surging economy—the “Celtic Tiger”— has thrust Dublin onto the world stage, though here the city’s not exactly seen through rose-tinted glasses. Black Irish humor shines in all the stories, as if instinctively the writers knew: