Blogs

What washes up in Roscarrig… doesn’t stay buried / The Payout Game

Posted by Robert Craven on Sat, 22 Nov 2025

Release date 01.24.26 The Payout Game is an Irish crime thriller featuring Garda Inspector P.J. Crowe — a flawed but dediicated detective living in the small coastal town of Roscarrig that keeps giving him big-city problems. Crowe is hoping for a quiet Christmas in Roscarrig, but during a charity regatta, a body washes up on the rocks beneath a lighthouse — a man known across Ireland: a celebrity bookmaker with deep connections to high-stakes...

Kathy Burke (2025) A Mind of My Own

Posted by celticman on Fri, 21 Nov 2025

Most of us know who Kathy Burke is. She’s kinda famous. Famous enough to have a major publisher publish her autobiography, A Mind of My Own . I like her because she always comes across as that rarest of breeds, a working-class actress made good. Working-class actor if we’re being politically correct. I loved her retort to Helena Bonham Carter when she opined that there weren’t enough roles for her because she was too pretty. Let me remind you...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 21 Nov 2025

Thank you all so much for your wonderful contributions to our site this week. My choices are as follows: Poem of the Week is Jane Hyphen's brilliant 'The World is Closed' which is particularly apt for this time of the year: https://www.abctales.com/story/jane-hyphen/world-closed Story of the Week goes to Sean McNulty for today's part from his work in progress 'The Discharge'. It reads perfectly well as a stand alone and has one of the best and...

Are Near-Death Experiences Real? BBC Sounds, BBC World Service, Editor: Ben Motley, Presenter: Caroline Steel.

Posted by celticman on Sun, 16 Nov 2025

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct6stl People I know have started voting with their body. I attended a Catholic funeral on Friday. A girl I used to know. Bernie Porter that’s no longer a girl. No longer anything. Her mum was my godmother. Both are dead. Both received Roman Catholic funeral rites. Mass and the bit at the end, where her coffin is carried out of the church, by her ex-husband and son. Her coffin is put in the ground. Ashes to...

FRQNTZ

Posted by Lille Dante on Fri, 14 Nov 2025

“A magazine that refuses to be one.”

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 14 Nov 2025

Posted by onemorething: This week's Poem of the Week is the timely, astute and excellent poem from Ewan, Land of Hope and Fury. https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/land-hope-and-fury This week's Story of the Week is Caldwell's unsettling and brilliantly written tale, The Second Shadow. https://www.abctales.com/story/caldwell/second-shadow There was an abundance of great prose on the site this week too. From Turlough - will happily read anything...

Xion Island Zero by Katherine Black - Out Now!

Posted by insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Wed, 12 Nov 2025

I'm very pleased to announce that Katherine Black (our very own Sooz Simpson) has just published Xion Island Zero, the sixth in her Inspector Nash series. Here's a review by celticman and a link to buy: Xion Island Zero is the sixth in the Inspector Nash series. You don’t need to know much about Nash as each book is a standalone. Five serial killers down. One to go. What remains consistent is place—Barrow (where the author lives). Nash also has...

Ewan Lawrie (2025) The Paper Over The Cracks

Posted by celticman on Mon, 10 Nov 2025

You come away after reading Ewan Lawrie’s third poetry collection as if you actually know him. Multilingual. He can even write about himself in the third person. Smartass. He wrote a trilogy of books with a lead character—Moffat—and four other novels and two short-story collections. Fuck sake. Gie it a break. Worse of all, he’s got really great hair. Hunners of it. Mair than a brown bear. I’m no jealous. Honest. The thinks I know about poetry...

Tariq Ashkanani (2025) The Midnight King.

Posted by celticman on Mon, 10 Nov 2025

Tariq Ashkanani threw me. I learned his novel The Midnight King had won Bloody Scotland’s main prize. It used to be called the McIlvanney prize. Named after the author of Laidlaw . A Glasgow detective that set out not just to solve crime, but solve the world. Most of us remember Taggert . Most of us have been in drafted in as extras in the dour, detective drama. Which is a long-winded way of saying, The Midnight King isnae even in fucking...

*PRESS RELEASE _ The Payout Game / Publication Date: January 24, 2026

Posted by Robert Craven on Sun, 09 Nov 2025

The Payout Game Irish crime author Robert Craven returns with the third novel in the acclaimed P.J. Crowe thriller series Dublin, Ireland — Award-nominated Irish crime writer Robert Craven announces the release of The Payout Game , the third novel in his gripping contemporary crime series featuring Garda Inspector P.J. Crowe. The book launches January 24, 2026 in paperback and eBook formats. Set against the stark beauty of North County Dublin’s...

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