Hats off to hats...

Call me predictable, old-fashioned and irascible (which I occasionally am) if you will, but I've always loved hats. Nothing to do with my beloved shiny pate - more, methinks, to do with their connection to times gone by and a memory of my grandfather, who nearly always wore a hat, like most men of his generation.

I've been wearing 'real' hats for many years. I think I started as a tax collector in London in the 80s. The publicity shots for my first novel, Ganglands, saw me in a black trilby looking fresh-faced and eager.

Maybe, I thought, it's time for a new hat. My old one seems to have shrunk and my son is now using it as a cowboy hat... just like I did, I'm reliably told, as a lad.

I'm tired of baseball caps and army styled caps, though I still have a penchant for flat caps...

Village Hats in the UK, have just delivered my order... and I'm back in hat business.

Canadian Crime Fiction

I spent a lovely week in Toronto once. I had great fun there and had a constant smile on my face when listening to the local accent. I know that Canadians and Americans do the same when they come to Ireland so I should really be forgiven - but I had this constant feeling that I was in an episode of 'Northern Exposure' that quirky Cohen-brothers-style series that was around maybe a decade ago...

Anyhow....

I spent an afternoon in a bookshop on Front Street there - Nicholas Hoare's to be precise - and found a wonderful smattering of Irish and British thrillers and mysteries. It was just delightful to find books by both well-known and lesser-known Irish and British authors. I didn't see any of my old out of print stuff there, sadly, but my ego survived the event in any case...

So, Canadian bookstore memories apart, and acknowleding the wonderful works of Peter Robinson, that displaced (or rather well placed) Geordie now a resident Canuck, I was wondering what Canadian Crime has to offer these days...

To the right here you'll see C.B. Forrest's Slow Recoil, which follows Detective Charlie McKelvey from Toronto's version of 'The Sweeney' or Flying Squad.

In this tome, his follow-up to The Weight of Stones, Forrest takes us on a melting pot tour of Toronto with a wee sojourn in the Balkans as he investigates the death of an immigrant.

Well worth a gamble in my humble and dark opinion...

The New York Trilogy

I keep coming back to Paul Auster's work. Perhaps it's a desire to elevate my writing to a more literary level, or perhaps it's just that he's such a good storyteller. I think it's both, and his seeming obsession with chance that appeals to my sense of chaos in our confused little world.

Auster has written everything from postmodern noir in the New York Trilogy, to introspective personal memoirs, but in all he manages to construct a pace and rhythm that keeps the pages turning.

Now, as this is 'Crime Time' I'll not side track you with a discussion on modern mainstream literary mores... but rather point you in the direction of something relevant to your self-admitted taste...

Read the New York Trilogy. You'll like it a lot.

Some more wonderful old Noir movie posters...

Check out loads more over on 

Film Noir Photos.