SO FAR, there is no tradition of Irish crime writing. And, for all that he is a Dubliner, from that most literate city of a thousand books and a million stories, John Connolly is not about to start one.
Instead, his literary home is America. An America of sardonic police humour, an America where private investigators can bend the rules at the risk of losing their licence, and where the ghosts of times past lurk in the shadows.
It is an America which has staged a whole series of John Connolly’s best-selling books charting the tortured life of Charlie Parker, ex-New York cop and, for the time being at least, an ex-private investigator.
Charlie’s past makes for a grim story. His policeman father took his own life after a seemingly inexplicable double killing, and his own wife and daughter were murdered.
Darkness abounds. But not even Charlie knows how dark are the undiscovered secrets of his own life.
It’s a well turned-out and sombre mixture of classic detective story, thriller and horror, which will have John Connolly’s many admirers lining up for their copy.
But why New York and New England, given the fertile literary ground on his own doorstep?
"I think most writers write what they read, and my models were American writers. I’ve always had a preference for American fiction," he argues.
But, having established himself as a writer of American fiction, would he not want to come home, so to speak, and write of his homeland?
He is adamant that this is not the case. "It’s like when you grow up in a small town. At some point you’re going to want to run away because it feels claustrophobic.
"I’ll do anything but write about Ireland. If I did, I’d write a bad Irish novel because my heart just wouldn’t be in it.
"I don’t think I’ll ever write a book about Ireland, and the longer I go on doing what I’m doing, the less likely that becomes."
But, for all that, there is an elegance and balance to his writing that possibly gives him away as a European writer, rather than the tough and gritty style of classic American crime writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ed McBain – writers whom he admires nevertheless.
"It’s probably slightly lusher than American prose," he says of his own literary style, acknowledging a debt to the veteran American writer James Lee Burke, whose writings are based in the near-tropical atmosphere of Louisiana.
"He’s influenced by that Gothic tradition that sometimes creeps into my own work . . . but Burke’s a much better writer than I am, let’s be clear on that."
Away from crime fiction, he cites authors like Cormac McCarthy – writer of No Country for Old Men, recently filmed – and the Anglo- American humorist PG Wodehouse.
