Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Winterland
by Alan Glynn
Faber and Faber, 2009

Walking in a Gloomy Winterland

Winterland is being universally praised- and fair enough. It's a fine, true and profoundly relevant thriller, big n' thick enough to wrap up into a satisfying gift under this 2009's Christmas tree.

Enough other reviews have made a nutshell of the novel's plot. Here it is, for the first time ever, in a tweet:

Lest thee, fair reader, think Irreverent Mick is taking too dismissive an approach, allow Alan Glynn to speak for himself. We take you to the unfinished 48th floor observation deck of Paddy Norton's controversial multi-billion euro development, where Gina Rafferty has come seeking inconvenient answers....

Yes, it's confirmed: Glynn writes with sharp acuity, true conflict, real feeling, and tangible style. The element keeping his Dublin from being completely realistic is any spark of joy.

Is it the Celtic Tiger excesses and greed that have left the Irish without the ability to feel pleasure? When readers first meet Gina Rafferty, emerging from a minimalist concert with colleagues, she found the music "sublime" and "graceful" but not exciting. Not fun. Mark Griffin is another unwelcome, unauthorized investigator of Winterland's terrible past. He has a new lady friend, but she is never shown and the novel contains no scene of passion. Winterland's crooked property developer, Paddy Norton, pops pills but all they do is temporarily appease an escalating addiction. Even Larry Bolger, the politician who benefited from secret, scandalous deeds, lives a celibate's austere life without drink or ease.

Is that all it takes, to go from the typical crime novel to something universally regarded? Boil it until any light essence has leeched out? A journey through Winterland almost ensures that Alan Glynn winds up on anyone's Best Book Read list. But viewed from a distance: every character in Winterland has the same dulled demeanor, there's not even affection enough for Ye Olde Crime Novele's obligatory love interest, and the ending can be viewed as disconnected, uninvolved.

Hollywood would change this one- which is a compliment to any book. But they would change Winterland to leave no room at the inn for another Winter Guest.

(Rickman, you suck! What a overdose-fest. Good thing Glynn writes better than you direct.)

Critical Mick says: Hardboiled, then boiled and boiled some more, Alan Glynn's powerful Winterland is as bleak, gloomy and true as Ireland's economic prospects here in 2009. Politicians, property developers and scumbag gangsters, oh my! Not a mammoth in site.

Declan Burke of Crime Always Pays interviewed Alan Glynn for the Evening Herald in September 2009.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 29 November, 2009.