Now this is a doozy:

There are PIs who feel fear, who take beatings, whose health is bad, who pop pills, drink, and smoke too much—and then there is Manchester, England’s Cal Innes. Innes, returned from his unsuccessful sojourn in L.A. (Sucker Punch, 2009), is doing evictions for a slumlord when a rental catches fire with two tenants still in it. Acting on instinct, Cal rescues a young Pakistani child—the boy’s grandmother dies—and is labeled a hero by the press. The good publicity rejuvenates his sideline as an investigator, so he quits the slumlord, who immediately hires him back: more arsons are threatened, and an anti-immigrant group offers the logical suspects. The third entry in this strong series may be the best yet, as Cal’s investigation takes in white supremacists, student activists, and immigrants, all rushing headlong toward a fiery conflagration during a protest march on the so-called Curry Mile. In Cal’s noir-torn world, choosing sides is problematic, so he instead chooses problems, pursuing them with dogged intensity. (In a nod to The Maltese Falcon, Innes thinks, “When someone beats the shit out of your partner, you’re supposed to do something about it.”) The real problem is, by not choosing sides, it’s easy to live—and die—alone. Powerful stuff.

Get in there. Very pleased.

A Manchester tough guy learns that no good deed goes unpunished. Ex-convict Cal Innes, a sometime private investigator, ekes out a living as the muscle for shady landlord Donald Plummer, who has a healthy disdain for the legal system. Plummer wants Cal to “accelerate” the eviction process for his many delinquent tenants. Comically complicating the job is Cal’s sidekick, nicknamed Daft Frank because of a harebrained robbery scheme gone awry. Cal expects resistance, even physical opposition, from the tenants, but a locked apartment door with smoke billowing out from beneath abruptly vaults him into heroism; he rescues a reluctant little boy too terrified to talk before his rescuer passes out. Cal awakens to find himself the subject of a laudatory piece in the local newspaper. His reward for bravery is some public recognition and an additional assignment from Plummer: Find the arsonist who set the potentially fatal fire. The landlord even provides a long list of people who have it in for him. This new gig thrusts Cal into a more dangerous, though not unfamiliar, milieu as he and Frank go up against a potentially militant tenants-rights group and a faction of The English National Socialists (skinheads). The more he learns, the deeper into the muck he sinks. Though the heavy vernacular and nonstop violence aren’t for everyone, Cal’s third rough-and-tumble first-person caper (Sucker Punch, 2009, etc.) should keep most readers rapidly turning pages till the solid plot builds to a payoff in late innings.

Again, mostly positive. I don’t know about the “non-stop violence” bit, like. As far as I’m aware there’s only one death and that takes place off-page. And is the vernacular really that heavy, American Readers?

Anyway, cheers to Kirkus.

Today marks the US publication of No More Heroes, which feels like a weird thing to celebrate after all this time. It also raises the usual apprehension of having a book out there that’s apparently new when I wrote it three years ago. Personally, I think it’s way better than Sucker Punch (and Beast of Burden is my favourite, go figure), and the early reviews have been positive, so I’m hoping for the best.

Anyway, it’s out, so do a bloke a favour and buy it. And if you haven’t already (or even if you have – I’m not proud), you might as well pick up the other two – they are remarkably cheap at the moment. I have no idea why. I can only assume it’s because I’m as popular as Dan Brown and they can afford to sell ‘em that cheap. Ahem.

In other news, those of you wondering what I’m currently up to can rest assured that I’m not just sitting here drooling at a blank screen. Here’s all the other news that’s fit to print:

The next issue of superlative crimezine Crime Factory has fiction by Your Humble Narrator.  It’s a new story called “Someday We’ll All Be Free”. Can’t say any more than that, other than I’m stoked to be a part of it. Zeltserman also has something in there, so it’s definitely worth checking out.

As leery as I am of the whole e-book thing (I like book-books, dammit) and the whole mobile phone thing (shackles of the 21st century), I do have an abiding fondness for money for old rope, and so I’m most pleased that “Real Gone”, a story previously seen in the much-lamented Bullet magazine and Maxim Jakubowski’s Best British Mystery series has been picked up for the 15-minute Thriller app for this thing they’re calling the Me-Phone or something. Apparently there’s people out there reading on them. Huh. Anyway, it’ll be available for “download” (whatever that means) soon – keep yer peepers peeled for further developments and give these filthy young upstarts a reason to get up in the morning.

And finally, if you were a fan of the Crime Express novella (novelette? novelletta? novellittydoodahday?) I did last year, then prepare for rampant giddiness and slavering as I announce that I have signed the contract for another one. As the kids say: W000t. Provisionally entitled California, this one should be out later in 2010, thus ensuring my sprawling bibliography doesn’t skip a year and throw my OCD into overdrive.

So there, that’s about it. Go buy all my stuff. You’ll get your reward in heaven.

Ladles and Jellyspoons, it has come to my attention that there will shortly be another Radgepacket foisted upon an unsuspecting public. For those of you who don’t already know – and why the fuck wouldn’t you? – Radgepacket is kind of like one of them literary journals for the blokes that hang around outside boarded-up Woolies drinking Spesh and bellowing Anglo-Saxon epithets at whoever crosses their line of sight.

In other words, people like you and me. People like Byker Books.

For a penny under a sixer (or £5.99 to those who prefer not to rely on made-up street argot), you get twenty-two (count ‘em!) stories of inner-city mayhem the likes of which only your mam has experienced (zing!).  Who’s written those stories, I hear you cry? Well, there’s Danny King for starters. And there’s me. And if that’s not worth three quid each, I don’t know what is.

What say you, Sheila?

“Another fantastic hit with a whole bunch of stories not to be missed. Within these pages you will find gem after gem.”

You heard. And she’s had a documentary made about her. Which is more than can be said for me, unless you count the bloke who likes to video me taking showers …

Anyway, buy it here. By all means tell ‘em Banks sent you, but only if you’re fond of blank stares.

Yep, you read it right, Your Humble Narrator will be bringing the sexy (otherwise known as Mrs Banks) to Harrogate this year – a first for me, and probably the last, seeing as I think the reason I’m gonna be there is because of those incriminating photos I have of festival chair Stuart MacBride (linked to the blog because his main site appears to have been taken over by a beardy fella with a migraine) and panel moderator Martyn Waites with a cocker spaniel and a cash-and-carry sized jar of mayonnaise. I intend to gather more blackmail fodder in the few hours I’m there, probably involving Ian Rankin and a lifesize cardboard cutout of Maggie Broon.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the details:

Saturday 24th July 2010

“Putting The Boot In”

It’s not about happily ever after, it’s about how much fun you can have torturing your protagonists. Writers on the bleeding edge of crime fiction invite you into their dark and twisted worlds. Featuring Ray Banks, Charlie Williams, Craig Russell while Martyn Waites hosts.

Tickets and more info here. If you can’t make mine, at least make Guthrie’s. And pelt him with manuscripts you want him to rep for you. Anything featuring an onanist hamster detective is hot right now.

Now with added stars. Thank you, LJ.

Banks, Ray. No More Heroes: A Cal Innes Novel. Houghton Harcourt. Mar. 2010. c.261p. ISBN 978-0-15-101459-0. $25. M

Manchester PI Callum Innes (Sucker Punch) takes on the job of finding the arsonist who set fire to a house where a woman died and he single-handedly rescued a child. He discovers that the English city he thinks he knows is home to neo-Nazis and urban terrorists, and he must face his own addiction to pain killers. VERDICT Banks is one of the freshest voices in hard-boiled crime fiction today. His protagonist talks to readers like an old friend, fills us in on the action, and lays everything out so well that we even feel his back pain, know his fear, and grow to appreciate his considerable charm. For fans of Lee Child and Michael Connelly who like the lone hero facing difficult situations.

And Publisher’s Weekly chimes in on No More Heroes:

No More Heroes: A Cal Innes Novel Ray Banks Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-0-15-101459-0

Cal Innes matches wits (and fists) with a nasty bunch of neo-Nazis in British author Banks’s solid third novel featuring the down-on-his-luck Manchester PI (after Sucker Punch). When one of slum lord Donald Plummer’s properties gets torched, Cal, who evicts families who can’t pay the rent for Plummer, risks his life to save a child trapped inside. This heroic act brings both Cal and Plummer unwanted media attention. When Plummer receives an anonymous threat on his remaining buildings, he suspects the English National Socialists, who are up in arms because Plummer rents to immigrants. Cal, who reluctantly agrees—for a hefty fee—to look into the group, soon discovers that the ENS may not be the only instigators. Angry student demonstrators stir up the already volatile situation by protesting Plummer’s unfair leasing practices. Prone to popping pills and knocking heads, Cal is a rough-and-tumble but strangely empathetic hero. (Mar.)

Yep, pretty positive, I’d say. That’s a relief. Thanks, PW.

FRIDAY 12th MARCH 2010

Dark fiction from Toby Litt,
Cathi Unsworth, Courttia Newland
& Ray Banks
Music from Led Bib
Visuals from Huzzah!! Noir

Toynbee Theatre | £10 / £12 door | 7pm

A night of criminal fiction, comic art and music of a darker hue. Enter a world where murder smells like honeysuckle and lunch is drunk from a bottle.  In Toynbee Theatre’s art deco, velvet auditorium, four authors present a selection of bleeding-edge crime stories, intercut with animated chapters of online, collaborative comic strip Huzzah!! Noir. Illicit jazz comes from 2009 Mercury nominated ensemble Led Bib, providing improvised and composed response, putting on to simmer a suitably hard-boiled soundtrack.

Author and journalist Toby Litt reads from his forthcoming novel King Death. Darting between dingy student pubs, the roofs of Borough Market and the corridors of Guy’s Hospital, it’s a mystery set in the world of young medical students. A human heart found on the tube leads two young investigators on a trail that leads to the hospital’s infamous dissection lecturer – known as ‘King Death’.

Cathi Unsworth, editor of London Noir, reads from her new novel. Set against the background of 1960s London, Bad Penny Blues plumbs the murky depths of the unsolved ‘Jack the Stripper’ murders in which the bodies of eight working girls were found in or along the Thames. Sixties London explodes in all its ferocious colour: jazz and pop, fascists and Teds, migrants, mystery and one constable Pete Bradley caught in the middle. A tender paean to the city, this is a novel with a twisted mystery at its heart.

West London native Courttia Newland delights in the dark and the uncanny. Drawing inspiration from everything from traditional horror movies via Roald Dahl to everyday life in West London, Newland brings together the literary and the pop cultural in a reading from his collection of grotesque short stories, Music for the Off-Key. Stylish pulp-fiction given a modern, capital twist.

is a Scottish crime scenster and chronicler of the Manchester underworld Ray Banks completes the bill.

“Litt rocks!”
– Sunday Times on Toby Litt

“Dark, twisted and grim in all the best ways possible”
–Niall Griffiths on Courttia Newland

“smart noir entertainment with the bitter aftertaste of truth”
– The Financial Times on Bad Penny Blues

“The future of jazz”
– The Times on Led Bib

Produced by London Word Festival from an original concept by James Wilkes

Looks like Gun, the novella thing I did for Crime Express last year has just been released as an audiobook. This is the second official audio of something I’ve written (“The Last Kayfabe”, read by Sean Robertson for CrimeWAV, was the first), and the first that I’ve actually sold for cash-type money, so it’s a bit exciting, truth be told.

What makes this particular release more exciting, of course, is that it’s being read by Martyn Waites, author/actor/raconteur/finalist for the 2007 season of America’s Next Top Model. And if that guy ain’t bringin’ sexy back, I don’t know who is.* That he wrote one of my favourite books of last year is entirely besides the point. That he also wrote some of the finest Newcastle crime novels I’ve ever read and is something of an inspiration … ditto. The reason I’m excited about him reading the book is because he was in Spender. And there’s nothing grittier than Spender.

So do yourselves a favour on that next ninety-minute car journey and get a Gun to keep you warm. Buy it here. Or if you’d like the “script”, you can get that here.

*It’s probably me.

Over at The Rap Sheet, I wax appreciative about Derek Raymond’s Dead Man Upright:

There’s definitely a touch of the orphan about Dead Man Upright (1993). Not only is it the final novel of Derek Raymond’s Factory quintet, but it’s also the last book that would see print before the author’s death in 1994. In addition to this, thanks to a late-career publisher switch precipitated by the appearance of I Was Dora Suarez and its subsequent reception,Dead Man Upright was released by Time Warner and was, along with Raymond’s autobiography, Hidden Files (1992), and his posthumous novel, Not Till the Red Fog Rises (1994), missing from the recent Serpent’s Tail backlist reissue. Furthermore, Dead Man Upright has a tendency to be forgotten simply because it appears as an anticlimax to the Factory series after what is generally seen as a concentration of Raymond’s themes in its immediate predecessor, Dora Suarez.