Just back from a few days in Ireland. Lovely visit with my daughter Emily Westbrooks (check out her blog) and her husband Michael in Dublin. They’re northsiders (and don’t you forget it) great hosts and tour guides. We spent time on the Aran Islands (Inishmore, specifically), Galway, the Wicklow Mountains, the Boyne Valley (Newgrange passage tomb, not to be missed) and a variety of pubs and locals. Musical highlight? A silk-shirted Neil Diamond tribute artist, singing his heart and lungs out in a pub in Bayside called The Racecourse. Oldtimers and teenagers singing along. Yes, you had to be there.
But holidays with a crime novelist are a little different. And Emily and Michael know that when I’m along for the trip, you have to be prepared for some detours. Galway? Lovely city, lots of music and good food, overflowing with college students. But Galway also is the setting of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor novels. So I got up early one morning, left the hotel for a walk. Down toward the city center, picturing Taylor and friends (and many more enemies) walking these streets. In the old part of the city, where we ate at a great pub called McSweggan’s, I found myself wondering what Jack Taylor would think. (pretty posh, far from his hard cases).
On Quay Street, the pedestrian street not far from the Spanish Arch, a busker kid was singing Irish songs with two young women accompanying him on guitars. Travelers plying their trade for the tourists. On the docks, where the River Corrib spills into the bay, I’m picturing a body found in the mud along the quay. Or maybe in one of the decaying fishing boats tied up here. A tourist notices an odd smell. Calls the garda. A crowd gathers. The body is in the cabin. He’s wearing boots and tight jeans, Yankees T-shirt. No fisherman.
In Dublin we toured Ballymun, one of the poorest sections of the city, graffiti sprayed everywhere, council housing (like American housing projects) half empty, some windows boarded over, some showing drying laundry. Concrete and security fences, and Traveler’s horses grazing on grassy vacant lots. On the way to see Dublin play Mayo in Gaelic Football at Croke Park I walk past a beat-up coach bus idling outside a row of crummy flats. People with tattered luggage are boarding. Romanian Gypsies, I’m told. They’re bused into an area, do their thing (mostly panhandling) and then move on.
The economy is in the news, of course, but my morning news report is from the Dublin crime beat. An 18-year-old kid in Inchicore, west side, is chased down by a group of thugs and stabbed to death in a car park. The next morning, four people are arrested. Garda are looking for more. “How far to Inchicore?” I say. I no longer get the look that says, “Wouldn’t you rather tour the Guinness brewery?”
Because they’re used to it. When a rough patch of the city comes up in conversation, it’s often prefaced by, “You would like this.”
It goes with the turf, this fascination with the darker side of life. The urge to go to the places that come with a warning, “Don’t go there alone. Or after dark.” Places full of dark alleys, lurking strangers, but brimming with stories. The stuff of books.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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Your Croke park comment reminded me of a song lyric (really, what doesnt?) from a favorite band of mine, The Saw Doctors
I dreamt it’d wear the jersey
On all ireland final day
It’d stand out there in croke park
With a mighty part to play
We’d come out of the tunnel
To a great big galway roar
We’d have our picture taken
Head down to the goal
We’d line up with the captain
And march behind the band
And when they played the anthem
We’d face the flag, above the stand
Cos me heart is in maroon and white
It’ll stick with what i know
Maroon and white forever
No matter where i go
And when the ball comes towards me
I turn and head for goal
And i stick it in the corner
Like a bullet hard and low
And i dreamt it’d hold the medal
So precious in my hand
With the people all around me
And the ghosts up in the stand
Then on monday evening
We’d bring the cup back home
Bonfires would be blazing
All along the road
Cos me heart is in maroon and white
It’ll stick with what i know
Maroon and white forever
In hailstones, rain or snow
Yes maroon and white forever
That’s what i always say
Maroon and white of galway
Forever and a day.
and if you want to see what I’m talking about, here is a link to the video on Youtube. Maroon and White is a “Live Bonus” to Galway and Mayo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ2__xGKaEo
Man, Jamie, that is great. It was blue and white on the Dublin side, a pre-game pint in a pub by the stadium where everyone was wearing the colors and you could get a ticket or leave one at the bar. Up the Dubs. Maroon and white. Fly the colors. Forever and a day. Thanks for that!
Gerry, I enjoyed your presentation at USM today. I don’t know how I missed your work. I read a lot of mysteries and crime dramas, so I will be picking one of your books up soon. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get one signed by you today. Anyway, I took particular note of the fact that your next book will be released in September. My first novel, also a crime drama, will also be released in September. I have spent my life teaching (now in my 41st year), oil painting and designing and building furniture. About nine months ago I decided it was time to write the novel that was always part of my plan. I’d sure love to have a conversation sometime. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as the rest of us did. Russ
Hi Russell: Congrats on your new book and 40-plus years of teaching. I wish you the best with the novel. I hope a second book is also part of your plan.
I did enjoy the USM panel. Good audience; good fellow panelists. I hope you enjoy my books and that our paths cross again.
Gerry