Latest news AND REVIEWS – updated 14th June

NOVELLA
Due out at the end of June from Five Leaves Publications, Killing Mum is part of the CWA-nominated Crime Express series.

Receiving the package hadn't been that much of a surprise. The fact that someone knew that Valerie Anderson was Carlos Morales's mother worried him. He was careful to hide that, never spoke to anyone about his private life. But what was deeply troubling was the fact that the letter had arrived addressed to Charlie. There were only two people who called him Charlie: Maggie and his mother. He'd discussed the situation with Maggie and she'd agreed he had no choice. He had to ask his mum straight out: "Mama," he said. "Why would someone want you dead?"

 

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FORTHCOMING EVENT
Tony Black, Helen Fitzgerald and Allan Guthrie
Waterstone's, Edinburgh West End Branch
128 Princes Street
Thu 25th June, 6pm

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SHORT STORY
Thuglit Presents... Sex, Thugs, and Rock 'n' Roll (Kensington) is now available, featuring an original short story by Allan Guthrie about 'a pair of bisexual, ass-kicking Vikings on a slaughter trip'. 'Haermund Hardaxe Was Here' was inspired by some very old graffiti on the walls of Maeshowe, a Neolithic chambered tomb in Orkney. Kent Gowran singles it out for special praise at Blood, Sweat and Murder.

 

 

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EVENING NEWS INTERVIEW
My Edinburgh, the Allan Guthrie version.

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TRIPLE PEARCE REVIEW
"This leads me on to another unexpected element of Guthrie’s work. Mired as it is in violence, it’s quite surprising that at times it is also shockingly funny."
Gerard Brennan on Two-Way Split, Hard Man and Kill Clock at Crime Scene NI.

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EUROPEAN INTERVIEWS
Matteo Strukul interviews Allan Guthrie for Sugarpulp (in Italian), and Juri Nummelin asks the questions at Pulpetti for the Finnish edition of Kiss Her Goodbye.

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SLAMMER REVIEWS
Independent Crime concludes that Slammer is "... a nerve-wracking page turner that stands apart from Guthrie's earlier work" and Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine decides that, "This is potent stuff that stretches the boundaries of crime fiction."

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CRIME ALWAYS PAYS INTERVIEW
Declan Burke's the question master for Crime Always Pays

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BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND INTERVIEW
Tony Black grills Allan Guthrie for BooksFromScotland.com

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SPINETINGLER AWARDS
The second annual Spinetingler Magazine Awards are out, and Savage Night has been nominated in the 'Rising Star' category! The full list of nominees is available here and it's great to see so many friends of Noir Originals included.

The winners in the various categories are decided by public vote. Don't waste it! To cast your vote, click here.

 

 

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PODCAST
Audio short story, 'The Turnip Farm', read by Allan Guthrie over at CrimeWAV (click on 'Direct Link to Episode 31'). This story about a family with issues will feature in the forthcoming print anthology, Uncage Me, edited by Jen Jordan and published by Bleak House Books on July 24th.

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SCOTSMAN REVIEW
"Slammer is the most relentlessly page-turning novel this reviewer has come across in a long, long time, but Guthrie does so much more than just throw visceral action and sharp banter at the reader, teasing and cajoling us with red herrings and subtle foreshadowing, delving deep inside a mind that is quickly unravelling into psychotic madness.

At Slammer's core is a surprisingly subtle examination of what it means to be good or evil, and how easily that distinction can become blurred. Guthrie creates empathy for all his characters – there are no faceless monsters here – and in portraying the prisoners and their guards as two sides of the same human coin, he nails a universal truth about the nature of life and about the way we differentiate good and bad, sanity and madness."
Doug Johnstone's full Scotsman review

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SLAMMER RELEASED
Slammer is now out in the UK. Read an extract from it here.

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TWITTERING
Click here to follow Allan Guthrie on Twitter

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ED GORMAN ON SLAMMER
"This is Guthrie's masterpiece to date, grim and brutal in tone, cunning in design and flawless in the telling. Guthrie keeps the numerous plot turns both exciting and believable. There is a surprise twist in the middle of the novel that stuns the reader and makes the pace even faster. Slammer could pretty much be filmed as is. Years from now we'll look back on Slammer as a major leap forward in Guthrie's career. Slammer is not only artful, it's real art."
Read the rest here

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SLAMMER IN THE NEWS
Today's Press And Journal features The Inside Story by Tony Black (the uncredited photo is by Dan Phillips)

And Laura Wilson reviews Slammer for the Guardian: "Pacey from the off, the plot reaches warp speed about halfway through, when Glass becomes a hostage during a break-out. A minor cavil is that the flash-forwards are not entirely successful, but the rest is terrific."

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SLAMMED AGAIN
Gerard Brennan has some questions on Slammer and other matters over at
Crime Scene NI

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MORDLUST
Myron Bünnagel at Mordlust poses some questions to Allan Guthrie about his life as a film noir.

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SLAMMER INTERVIEW
Tom Piccirilli interrogates Allan Guthrie for The Big Adios.

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NEW SCANDINAVIAN TITLES

SAVAGE NIGHT (My Flesh, Your Blood)
(Denmark)
Out now from Bagland

 

 

And KISS HER GOODBYE
(The Last Kiss) (Finland)
Out soon from Arktinen Banaani

 

 

 

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HI-ARTS WORKSHOP/SEMINARS and the ENNIS BOOKCLUB FESTIVAL

Confirmation of dates and times for two worshop/seminars with Allan Guthrie and Stuart MacBride:

Saturday 21st February '09 - 2pm-6pm: Islesburgh Community Centre, Lerwick, Shetland.
Saturday 28th February '09 - 1pm-6pm: The Ironworks, Inverness.

Both events are free, but places are limited. For further information please e-mail Peter Urpeth at: peter@hi-arts.co.uk

Also, the Ennis Bookclub Festival programme is up. Allan will be reading with Aifric Campbell at 10am on Saturday, 7th March.

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DANNY BOWMAN INTERVIEW
A Noir Originals interview with Danny Bowman of Pulp Press, the new kids on the publishing block.

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NEW NOVEL
Young prison officer Nicholas Glass is finding the stresses of the job increasingly hard to handle. Bullied and abused by inmates and colleagues alike, every day is getting longer than the one before. When a group of cons use outside help to threaten his wife and daughter, Glass agrees to help them out with a ‘favour’. But, as their threats escalate, and one favour leads to another, Glass grows ever closer to breaking point.

And when Glass breaks, he shatters ...

Available March 2009 from Polygon, UK

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MIKE KNOWLES
Mike Knowles is the latest author to feature in the Noir Originals 'New Writers' spotlight, supplying the opening chapter of his debut novel, Darwin's Nightmare and an interview with John McFetridge.

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RUSSEL D MCLEAN
An interview with the author of The Good Son. David Lewis poses the questions.

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READS OF THE YEAR
Over at BookSpot Central, there's a round-up of some must-read books. Allan Guthrie weighs in with recommendations for 2009.

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CHESTER HIMES ARTICLE
Michael A. Gonzales on one of the all-time greats in Exile & 125th Street

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GERARD BRENNAN
The latest new writer to feature on Noir Originals is Gerard Brennan, custodian of Crime Scene Northern Ireland. Check out the opening of his Belfast-set novel Piranhas. He's also supplied Noir Originals with our first Adrian McKinty interview.

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NEW EVENTS
Focus on Crime Fiction – Allan Guthrie will be presenting a series of seminars on crime fiction and the publishing market, running in various localities in the Highlands and Islands throughout February '09. First confirmed date is Inverness on Saturday 28th.

Also confirmed is Allan's appearance at the Ennis Book Club Festival in County Clare, Ireland, which runs from 6th-8th March. The full programme will be available in the next month or two.

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MINI-INTERVIEW
With Hard Case Crime publishing its fiftieth book, Crime Scene NI has a series of mini-interviews with some Hard Case Crime authors: Allan Guthrie, Peter Pavia, Seymour Shubin, Ken Bruen and Max Allan Collins

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RAYMOND EMBRACK
Raymond Embrack's back on Noir Originals with an extract from a new novel, Copa, in the New Writers pages, plus a review of The Last Shaft by Ernest Tidyman (a great addendum to Embrack's superb piece on the Shaft series back in 2003)

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GERMAN CRIME "BESTENLISTE", NOVEMBER '08

#1 Heinrich Steinfest - Mariaschwarz
#2 Jean-François Vilar - Die Verschwundenen
#3 Jerome Charyn - Citizen Sidel
#4 Norbert Horst - Sterbezeit
#5 Deon Meyer - Weißer Schatten
#6 Leonardo Padura - Der Nebel von gestern
#7 ALLAN GUTHRIE - POST MORTEM*
#8 Bernhard Jaumann - Die Augen der Medusa
#9 Richard Stark - Fragen Sie den Papagei
#10 Fred Vargas/Baudoin - Das Zeichen des Widders

* Two-Way Split

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SAVAGE NIGHT REVIEW
"...the best thing that Guthrie has written to date"
Edward Pettit at The Bibliothecary

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INTERVIEW
Edgar-winner Megan Abbott interviews Stona Fitch for Noir Originals.

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NEW EVENT SCHEDULED
November 11th, 7pm, Edinburgh's Festival Of Libraries at Leith Library, 28-30 Ferry Road
Allan Guthrie and Tony Black

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WEBSITE REDESIGN
If you've visited Noir Originals before, you may notice that it's undergone a complete redesign. This is entirely the work of the good people at Richard Young Design Associates, who were brave enough to take on the old sprawling cobbled-together monster of a website and give it the full RYDA treatment. And we're delighted with the result! We'd like to add that if anyone's looking to work with a company that demonstrates remarkable levels of talent, diligence, patience and stamina, combined with an impressive speed of delivery and excellent communication, RYDA is most heartily recommended.

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BRIAN MURPHY
The latest author to be showcased in our New Writers pages is Brian Murphy. Be sure to take a look at the opening of his novel Does The Hero Get The Check?
And don't miss his interview with Marc Lecard.

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SAVAGE NIGHT REVIEW
"Savage Night is a blacker-than-noir, splintered story that calls forth comparisons not only with James M. Cain or Jim Thompson ... but also varied branches of literature from Magnus Mills's fables or Charlie Williams's backwater noir to the revenge tragedies of John Webster and Cyril Tourneur ... an impressive novel and at the same time a lot of fun."
Glenn Harper at International Noir Fiction

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