Crime fiction used to argue for social justice
Mark O’Sullivan
Transworld Ireland,
MARK O’SULLIVAN’S latest novel opens with a bang. Gangland boss, Harry Larkin has been shot three times, once in the head, and lies on the brink of a coma in a Dublin hospital’s intensive care unit. Harry is raving, caught in some bullet-induced fantasy starring Liam Neeson, but tucked inside these delusions is a real name, Leo Woods, and a message: “Tell him to find... Whitney.”
Following on from last year’s critically acclaimed Crocodile Tears, which announced him as a vibrant new voice in crime fiction, Sleeping Dogs is the author’s second foray into the field and an encore outing for his offbeat leading man, Detective Inspector Leo Woods. It is the book — already “a contender for Irish crime novel of the year”, according to no less an authority than Ken Bruen — that will surely establish him as one of the genre’s major players.
But it’s not as if O’Sullivan is new to the literary scene. In fact, Sleeping Dogs is his tenth novel. From writing poems for the Cork Examiner back in the 1970s, he honed his craft over years of writing short stories and radio plays, publishing books for children and young adults, and even producing a complex historical novel, Enright, set during the War of Independence. His work has been translated into six languages, and he can count a Bisto Book Award, the Prix des Loisirs, two Reading Association of Ireland Awards and two White Raven Book Awards among his many honours.
“Writing,” O’Sullivan says, speaking from his home in Thurles, “was always in my life because I grew up in a house with a lot of books. My father was an electrician who worked with Bord na Mona, but he was a self-taught man, so the idea of books, and the presence of them, was always there.”
He credits Nordic Noir with reviving his appetite for the unlawful.
“I’ve always been interested in crime fiction, but my interest had waned until a few years ago, when we started to get these Scandinavian dramas on television, The Killing, The Bridge and so on. That really got me back into it, and sent me reading people like Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo.”
As to what it is about crime fiction that holds such appeal for the general public, he is of the opinion that, “It is a very good vehicle for speaking about all kinds of issues in society. The Scandinavian wave started with a husband and wife team, Sjöwall and Wahlöö, who were both socialists, people with a strong sense of social justice and a strong aversion to corruption in society, in the police and in government. And when you follow it through, you can say the same thing about Henning Mankell. Even though he offers really good story, atmosphere and character, he’s also very political and has a huge commitment to Africa.” (
The plot of Sleeping Dogs is intricate and convoluted. When Leo and his charges set about their investigation, the shooting quickly becomes inseparable from the disappearance of Whitney, Larkin’s daughter. A bloodstained photograph is found in the gangster’s car, of the girl at first Holy Communion age, in just her underwear. It adds a sinister new element to the case, but the problem, the first of many, is that no one will admit that Whitney has even vanished.
One by one the main suspects are questioned: her brothers, Gary, a former child actor turned thug, and Kevin, a deaf mute artist living in squalor above the family-owned pub; her uncle, Jimmy, a hard case who seems a little too fond of kids; Baz MacDonald, better known as ‘The Armenian’, an ex-Provo hit-man now Harry’s heir-apparent; and even her mother, Liz.
And it is Liz, an abuse victim herself, who poses the biggest difficulty for Leo, one that could compromise the entire investigation. Decades earlier, they’d been lovers. Leo was mid-20s, already married and already on the force, she was barely out of her teens and about to marry Harry Larkin. Back then, Harry was withdrawing from an IRA past and, largely to suit his own ends, had become one of Leo’s small-time informants. So they had history, and in stories like this the past always shapes the present.
The book’s setting, Chapelizod, is also no accident.
“That’s where Finnegan’s Wake is set, and it’s also where the 19th century Gothic writer, Sheridan le Fanu, lived and wrote. I use those associations quite a lot in the book, actually. Because, without giving too much away, the daughter, Whitney, is essentially a ghost.
At the beginning, Leo is imagining that Sheridan le Fanu is writing another ghost story in Chapelizod, which is what it is (of sorts), in the end. Also, in Sleeping Dogs, the Larkin family consists of parents, two sons and a daughter, and that’s the core family in Finnegan’s Wake. Those kind of references aren’t vastly important but to me they add to the entertainment.”
But if setting and storyline are critical ingredients in the success of a crime novel, the potential for a series lies largely with the main character. And, in Leo Woods, O’Sullivan seems to have struck gold. A gruff, ferocious detective with a reputation for violence and infidelity and now afflicted with a disfiguring form of Bell’s Palsy, he is both rich in potential and already a marvellous creation. He is in the mould of Frost and Morse, but cloaked in the most menacing darkness.
“Leo always wants to try to do the just thing rather than, necessarily, the legal thing. Which of course is not how it’s supposed to be done. But in spite of all his negatives, he’s reached a balance in his life. He encapsulates a view that I am inclined to at least try to follow, which is to accept the basic absurdity of life and make what you can of it. Generally, when people ask me what sort of books these are, I tend to say, ‘Well, it’s Wallander with a sense of humour.’ Because if there is anything missing from the Scandinavian thing, it is humour.”
Sleeping Dogs is a novel seemingly narrow in its focus but impressively large in scope, exploring fleeting romance, hints of corruption, insinuations of sexual deviancy, potential gang warfare and blown espionage, and touching on the themes of regret, guilt, delusion and chance. In the bed alongside Harry, a young man, David Goode, inches toward his own end, the victim of a hit and run. With an immaculate background, and having been knocked down miles from Harry’s shooting, it seems impossible that the two incidents could be connected. But as the story unfolds, the intrigue only deepens.
“I am interested in character,” O’Sullivan adds, “more than I am in anything else, really. But I do know, and I do follow my own rule, that it’s about the story. My goal is always to make the reader want to read the next page, as quickly as possible.”
So, to end with, a question about the possibility of Leo Woods’ return.
“Oh yes,” the author says, without hesitation. “There’s much more to be done with that character. He’s already 57 which means that he has only got three years left in the police. He’s one of these characters that, as soon as I thought of him, I could see him. He’s just real to me, and if you feel that way, I think some of it rubs off on the writing.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
