Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [1]
You won’t find many leprechauns or bodhrans here—and not one top o’ the mornin’. “The Quiet Man” has gone dark, and with a vengeance. If nothing else, this collection will kill stone-dead the Irish caricature of shite talk and blarney. In the days of Brit occupation, to be outside Dublin was to be outside the pale. This collection is so far from that parameter, you can’t even see the boundary.
Like Irish logic at its most convoluted, this volume offers up a story that moves from Budapest to Dublin written by a Texan. In another, Ray Banks, from Manchester, England, presents a vision of Dublin as fierce as any Celt’s. One of the collection’s tastiest moments comes when Peter Spiegelman’s femme fatale tells his protagonist, “Yer pretty feckin’ Irish for a New York Jew, Jimmy—you’ll fit right in in Dublin.” The one guarantee from every story in this book is a skewed perspective on this most volatile of locales.
We set John Rickards, an impossibly young writer, loose in Dublin—a British mindset carried in an American style—to see what would happen. James O. Born, a Miami homicide detective, gives us a radical (to put it mildly) take on the Irish tourist industry. Laura Lippman and Sarah Weinman masterfully bust up our sketchy designs on an all-guy lineup.
And how could we do this without the culchie take? … So we have the Galway view on Dublin, always going to be contentious. If nothing else, we knew it would make Nora Barnacle smile.
The dictum, Only connect, was brought home to me in Las Vegas. James Crumley, renowned mystery writer, asked, “Wouldn’t it be something to connect all these different countries, have them united in crime?”
Dublin, locus of so many literary legends, seemed a fine place to connect some dots. Enjoy.
Ken Bruen
Galway, Ireland
January 2006
PART I
THE INSIDE JOB
TAKING ON PJ
BY EOIN COLFER
There were three words that Christy didn’t want to hear.
“He sent PJ,” said Little Mike, pulling his head in the apartment window.
Those were the three words.
“He’s on the way up.”
Those five weren’t great either.
“Shit,” swore Christy. “One bloody can of Fanta. One can.”
Little Mike shrugged. After the high wind, his black hair looked drawn on with a crayon. “It’s the principle with Warren. Steal a little, steal a lot. He don’t care, Christy.”
Christy chewed on a nail. “I was waitin’ and I was thirsty and the fridge was right there. Hummin’. So one bloody can.”
Little Mike tried to flatten his hair. “He does that. It’s like a test. Leave you waiting in his shop, surround you with product, see if you can keep your paws off. Go against your nature. Did you ever hear the story about the fox and the scorpion?”
Christy threw whatever was handy at Little Mike. “Fuck off with your scorpion. The whole world knows that story. Every time the shit hits the fan, some fucking wise man trots out the fox and the bloody scorpion. I am up to here with those two, honest to Jaysus.”
Mike rubbed his crown, where the Fanta can had clipped him. “I was only sayin’,” he said, sulky now.
Christy folded immediately. He had enough enemies, and one of them was on his way up the eight flights.
“Sorry, brother,” he said, knuckling the spot where the can struck. “I’ve a bad case of the freaks. This fucker is an animal. Did you hear what he did to Father Hillary?”
“The Paschal candle thing?”
Christy shuddered. “Jesus Christ. You know how big those things are? Some of ’em have studs too.”
“Hillary was a nice old eejit. I mean, what did he do?”
“Wouldn’t split the Sunday take, I heard. Sixty-forty, Warren says. Hillary says go to hell, so PJ did the job with the candle.” Christy was pacing now. “A priest. A bloody priest. What will he do to me?”
Little Mike wasn’t the best with rhetorical questions. “Jesus, now you’re asking. I’d say he’ll break a few things, make