tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54599948198204781142024-03-13T18:47:42.500+00:00Crime TimeAn Irish Crime Author's musings on writing crime fiction with some book reviews, interesting links and suchlike...T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-33834157355543463302015-01-05T15:34:00.000+00:002015-01-05T15:34:15.572+00:00It has been a long, long time...
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that I had succumbed to the icy north winds here in sunny Sweden. The fact, as usual, is less fascinating than the fiction.
I've moved into the PR game and actually started to write again. It has been a while, but I feel the stirrings of yore and the priapic predisposition to pontificate, exaggerate and generally make stuff up.
So you can expect another T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-53065979333226758222013-08-17T08:33:00.003+01:002013-08-17T08:33:53.575+01:00I've been a bad boy....
I'm getting pangs of guilt. I haven't written anything or posted anything in months. I guess the summer just sucked the life out of me. I am however, starting to feel a distinct stirring in my sub-conscious that will, no doubt, spew forth another piece of Modern Noir in the coming months.
I've been concentrating pretty much on my other interest - making and selling straight razors.... so you T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-83173793950872919032013-03-24T17:04:00.002+00:002013-03-25T09:04:03.526+00:00A couple of nice reviews...
My mainstream literary novel Killing a Friend just received its second review. It's short and it's very nice :)
Superb *****
"Killing a Friend will draw you in to the emotions of the characters in this book. You will feel their happiness, their confusion, and, ultimately, their pain. I finished the book yesterday, yet, today am still contemplating the joy and sorrow of Jack, Angel and Wolf. T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-69723035805750971302012-10-11T16:39:00.001+01:002012-10-11T16:39:14.530+01:00"The Ginger Man for Modern Times"
I've been flattered beyond belief. J.P. Donleavy is one of my all time favourite authors. His first novel, The Ginger Man is one I have read at least six times. And it gets better with every reading. I've read practically everything since then that Mr. Donleavy has produced.
So it was with humble gratitude that I read the first review of my novel The Libertine....
A five star review that one T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-29850004931727104162012-07-28T09:24:00.000+01:002012-07-28T09:24:20.087+01:00A New Shot of Modern Noir: The Club
My latest noir novelette, The Club, has just been published in eBook format.
The Club is a story built around a rich married couple whose teenage daughter goes missing following a seedy sex party at an exclusive private members' club.
With nowhere else to turn and having been let down by the first private eye they hired, the aging couple turn to P.I. Jimmy O'Hanlon, who sets off to T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0Los Angeles, CA, USA34.0522342 -118.243684933.6312602 -118.87539890000001 34.4732082 -117.6119709tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-70475501455945225972012-07-20T06:30:00.000+01:002012-07-20T08:08:18.704+01:00Death Call in print once again...
After almost thirteen years out of print, Death Call will be once again made available in dead tree format under the Breffni Books imprint, published via our friend Jeff Bezos at Amazon.
Kindle sales were doing so well that I thought it would be a good idea to re-release this one in print. Other old titles may follow...
Death Call is available through normal sales channels at a T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0Dublin, Co. Dublin, Ireland53.344104 -6.267493753.268267 -6.4254222 53.419941 -6.1095652000000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-20572468119819221022012-07-14T14:56:00.000+01:002012-07-14T14:56:30.599+01:00Dark Days of Summer - Sale
I'm on vacation. And I'm guessing that most of you will be on vacation soon enough (or perhaps not quite soon enough - I know that feeling too).
In order to celebrate the coming (but so far elusive) sunshine I've slashed the prices on all of my books and short stories...
So if you are in the mood for some Modern Noir this summer look no further
You can find the books on Amazon.com here:&T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-35480893803511686462012-06-17T12:40:00.001+01:002012-06-17T12:40:23.828+01:00An intelligent and insightful book....
I'm not easily flattered. I guess I'm too cynical for that. I always look for a motive. Perhaps that's why I enjoy writing crime/noir stuff so much.
So it was with something of a shock that I discovered the 'perfect review' if such a thing exists, for my historical fiction/faction novel The Republican: An Irish Civil War Story.
To prove that I'm not imagining things or making stuff up I'veT.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-37838616586530129942012-04-13T14:33:00.000+01:002012-04-13T14:33:31.823+01:00Another Shot of Modern Noir in the works...I've been beavering away on a new noir novelette (a little alliteration is good for the soul) and I'm quite pleased with it. Should be finished in the next month or two... time permitting.
Here's the general gist of the story....
Working title 'The Club'
A wealthy couple join an exclusive club and are invited to participate in rather unusual activities at a party. Both man and wife T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-24565578751761503172012-03-10T06:57:00.001+00:002012-03-10T06:59:31.658+00:00Killing me softly....Every now and then I run a book promotion to get a little notice out in the big bad world.
My mainstream literary novel, Killing a Friend, will be available for free on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in ebook format for the next several days, starting later today/early tomorrow. Here's the cover blurb. It's a mix of love and rage, set in exotic West Sweden...
Killing a Friend is a novel about T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-9886997030035500782012-03-02T19:53:00.000+00:002012-03-02T19:53:58.707+00:00A Cracker of a Book.... a four star review of Death Call
4.0 out of 5 stars A Cracker of a book, 29 Feb 2012By Mr. Stephen D. Wassell "sdwassell" (Norfolk, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Death Call: The London Serial Killer Case (Carroll & Grant Mysteries) (Kindle Edition)I hate it when I read " I couldn't put this book down" because I always find myself let down. T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-62963744020375126052012-02-26T17:37:00.004+00:002012-02-26T17:40:34.280+00:00Death Call hits a high point!I'm humbled and delighted.
Death Call, written in the heady days of 1996 and published for the first time in paperback in 1997, has just climbed mysteriously high in the UK in eBook format.
At the last count it was number 11 in Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > British Detectives
To quote our friend and crime novelist extraordinaire T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-32511656403248640302012-01-15T09:51:00.003+00:002012-01-15T10:00:13.107+00:00Review: "A Noir Streak as Deep as a Femme Fatale's Cleavage"I just recently received a very gratifying review over on amazon.com for my novelette Candy Says Kill, which I've copied and pasted below, with another earlier review below it...
4.0 out of 5 stars Mick Says Cool: A Shot of Unruly Review, January 12, 2012By M. Halpin (Dublin Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) Amazon Verified Purchase(What's T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-57988945585734850772012-01-06T15:28:00.000+00:002012-01-06T15:28:57.679+00:00Candy Says Kill Free for just today!Click here to avail of this promotional offer!
T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-15442146680139043362012-01-03T18:15:00.000+00:002012-01-03T18:15:47.548+00:00Ganglands updateI'm slowly but surely going through all the covers of my existing books and short stories trying apply a sense of order.
I'm not a great one for order or processes, so it will most likely take some time to get them all done....
Howsoever, to wit, herewith and without further ado, I present the updated Ganglands cover.
Hope y'all like it!
T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-45866848036975205212011-12-11T18:18:00.001+00:002011-12-15T17:12:18.878+00:00Sunset Strip: A Shot of Modern NoirI've finally gotten around to finishing my latest novelette/novella Sunset Strip, set in L.A.
The story follows a man visiting L.A. on business as he picks up a beautiful Latina in a bar close to his hotel. The two hit it off after some initial foreplay and end up going to his room to get a little more 'comfortable'. What happens next is well.... unusual, to say the least.
Taking cues fromT.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-87872878082195766982011-11-30T20:15:00.000+00:002011-11-30T20:15:36.936+00:00Noir Shot Update... and Killing in print
http://www.lafterhall.com/filmnoir_001.html
I've finally gotten around to making Killing a Friend available in print via our good friends at Amazon's Createspace. So if eBooks ain't your thang you can now buy a paperback version. And very nice it is too.
You can find it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Friend-T-S-ORourke/dp/1456515829
As far as my Hollywood Noir short shot of Noir is T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-71317838348951499812011-11-16T08:44:00.002+00:002011-11-18T15:04:28.636+00:00Killing a Friend - special winter warmer price for all my friends...I've knocked down the price on my mainstream literary novel Killing a Friend just to give it a wee nudge forward.
I don't know why (maybe because I haven't used 'sex' or 'serial killer' in the any of the marketing blurb) but it hasn't really moved very well - despite getting a humdinger of a first review a few months back, where I was described as a 'Beautiful Literary Voice' (doesn't get T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-78831640319537577212011-10-23T16:40:00.001+01:002011-10-23T16:41:20.883+01:00Angel CityI've gotten off my proverbial fat ass and started to write a new shot of Noir, while my ongoing battle with my novel Flesh carries on...
I'll be basing this one in the U.S. - Los Angeles to be precise - the home of Noir in my most humble of opinions...
Given the locale and the history of Noir that the fine city of angles has given birth to, I'll be treading carefully on the hallowed grounds T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-33484324049639310102011-10-22T14:36:00.001+01:002011-10-22T14:37:25.391+01:00We can see the stars - especially from the gutter...
I've mentioned Out of the Gutter previously - and I couldn't help but mention them again.
In their latest edition we find the US and the UK slugging it out for the world championship in pulp fiction. We see top-grade lowlife writers such as Tony Black slugging it out with the likes of E.E. Howard and Julie Morgan.
If you like your fiction hard, heavy and a little on the moist side, Out of theT.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-47253564470887298582011-10-08T17:22:00.003+01:002011-10-09T08:51:04.051+01:00Whatever happened to humanity?I'm sitting here scratching my head in-between typing these words. I have no idea where time has flown, but it has been travelling at the speed of sound, or maybe, perhaps, silence.
My promises to keep up the pace on my work-in-progress have been broken by an overload of work and what people call real life. I know.
I have been doing some more research though, and feel a lot closer to that whichT.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-20030309208123456082011-08-15T18:10:00.005+01:002011-08-16T18:25:36.534+01:00BLITZED AGAIN!!!!!No - I'm not talking about my curious fascination for home brew, alchemy or all things related to the mixing of chemical compounds to get desired effects... No. I'm talking about Ken Bruen's book, recently released in film format.
Right - first things first. I LOVED the book. My kinda stuff exactly. Hurleys, psychos, alcos, narkos - well, you get the picture.
The film then I hearT.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-21207924264405043342011-08-01T19:48:00.001+01:002011-08-01T21:53:35.132+01:00Bestsellers list again... The RepublicanThe Republican: An Irish Civil War Story has gone to number 5 in the bestsellers list under Irish History on Amazon.com.
I've had some great reviews for this book and I'm very happy to see it climbing the charts.
A lot of American buyers love this educational yet entertaining and easy read around a rather difficult subject matter. The story was originally prompted by a letter that my father T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-32687539020611991162011-07-16T13:56:00.001+01:002011-08-02T18:40:14.476+01:00Absolute Zero CoolOur buddy in all things criminal, literary and comical, Declan 'Crime Always Pays' Burke is in the throes of setting his latest work free.
Declan is one of the crime genre's leading lights in the blogosphere (click on the link above for further proof) and his writing is terse, twisty, technically precise and turbulently talented. But enough alliteration for now... below please find T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459994819820478114.post-39885565846973190632011-06-29T19:46:00.001+01:002011-06-30T17:53:01.485+01:00Some great news - Why I Kill enters the top 100 bestsellers, short storiesSomething odd has happened. Anyone that has read this blog more than once might have noted my marked appreciation of the venerable Paul Auster. I think he rocks as a writer. So imagine my sheer astonishment and pure joy upon seeing my works of short fiction, Why I kill (The Confession of a Serial Killer) at number 94 in the top 100 best selling short stories, with Mr. Auster at 91 with his New T.S. O'Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11824278499666614813noreply@blogger.com0