The digression about the omnipresent Blarney Stone bars in lower manhattan is based on fact, although he seems to have placed the one that his characters drink at several blocks north of the actual 1st Precinct Blarney Stone, which is hidden near the Battery Tunnel entrance on Trinity St, and given it a rear patio that the real one sadly lacked.

Thankfully, there's miles and miles of hard road between an option contract being signed and a TV show being picked up, so I doubt we have to worry much about a hypothetical "John Tallow, NYPD" show any time soon.

This is a great book, but he needed an editor to remove his Britishisms: he referred to people crossing "the road" rather than the "street," for instance, which is not how anyone in New York not telling a Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road joke in a Blarney Stone bar would say. And I have been in at least two of the four Blarney Stones. But compelling, funny, violent and characters (including the bad guy) you actually see as real people and give a shit about.

Not surprised that "Gun Machine" would be optioned; it's got "dark, quirky cop show" literally written all over it. I just hope it's being optioned by a net, say AMC or HBO, that will actually know what to do with it, and will let it be as dark, rough, and bloody as it needs to be to retain Ellis' vision.

@2: if you were ever in the Trinity St one circa 1999-2000, we've probably been drunk at each other.

@4 Nope, not there then. But it is true that in many an Irish New York bar, people get drunk at each other rather than with each other. White Horse Tavern still my favorite. The creepy portrait of Dylan Thomas, who drank himself to death there, makes the place. Also, good fries.