Irish diaspora of crime writers

Richard Fitzpatrick quotes Raymond Chandler: “When in doubt have a man come in the door with a gun in his hand.”

The funny thing is that that is precisely what Fitzpatrick does not do himself.

In discussing modern Irish writers of crime novels, he mentions someone born more than a century ago, “part of the Irish diaspora ... Dennis Lehane”, presumably as a model for them to emulate.

However, in doing so he omits another part of the Irish diaspora: none other than the writer he originally quoted, from the mean streets of Waterford, Raymond Chandler.

As the eejit is always last to work out the whodunit in any given case, I wonder why Fitzgerald neglected Chandler. And will Ireland embrace Chandler, just as it recently ‘repatriated’ Bram Stoker on the centenary of his death?

Frank Desmond

Evergreen Road

Cork City