Review of The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan (2019, Sphere)

DS Cormac Reilly’s girlfriend Emma works in a privately funded biochemical lab at Galway University. Late one evening she discovers a young woman dead in the car park outside the lab. The first person on the scene is Reilly, who quickly takes charge. There’s no indication that Emma was involved in the death, but he’s well aware of a previous accusation of murder and a traumatic past. After a year of working cold cases he’s just been shuffled back into rotation. He knows he should absence himself from the case, but his instinct is to try to quickly clear Emma from the inquiry and move the investigation forward. However, it’s soon clear that it might be a high profile case when the ID of Carline Darcy, granddaughter of the founder of Darcy Therapeutics, a hugely successful pharmaceutical company and the sponsor of the lab, is found on the victim. The company is highly secretive and only willing to give the bare minimum of help to the police and office politics are not aiding the investigation either. 

The Scholar, the second book in the DS Cormac Reilly series set in Galway, charts Reilly’s quest to clear his girlfriend’s name and catch the killer. It’s a relatively straightforward police procedural, with one major thread focusing on the young woman murdered outside of the lab, and a secondary thread concerned with tying up the loose ends of a father’s attempt to kill his family. The two intrigue points on the major thread are the involvement of Reilly’s girlfriend as the discoverer of the victim and initial suspect, and the link to Carline Darcy, whose grandfather owns Darcy Therapeutics, which sponsors the lab. Reilly should absent himself from the case but doesn’t, and Darcy Therapeutics is obstructionist and has the police and university management tip-toing around the case. It makes for some intrigue and tension, though the story is quite linear and in the end quite quickly and easily wrapped up with little sense of mystery. Instead, the tale seemed designed to provide a window onto Reilly, his relationship to Emma and her past, and fill out some of their backstory. That works fine to a point, especially since it is told in an engaging voice, but also makes the story a somewhat staged. Overall, a fairly decent second instalment to the series.

Review of Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson (1996, Vintage)

Belfast in the early 1990s. The Troubles are still on-going. Friends Jake Jackson and Chuckie Lurgan don’t care too much for the sectarian divisions and violence. Jake is a lapsed Catholic with a disdain for republicanism and its violence who works as a repo-man. Chuckie is an over-weight, poor Protestant living with his mother. As they reach thirty, change is in the air. Jake’s English girlfriend leaves him and he’s had enough of repossessing property. Chuckie has decided he’s going to make money and he’s discovered a cunning way to get his initial investment. And a cease-fire seems possible. As Chuckie’s empire rapidly grows and he finds love with good-looking American, Jake struggles to move-on, finding himself working as a builder.

I first read Eureka Street when living in Belfast in the late 1990s and much of the story takes place within a mile of where I was working in the area just to the south of the city centre. And in many ways the novel is a kind of love story for the city and its people. It has a wonderful sense of place and is full of pathos and humour as Chuckie and Jake try to navigate being poor, working-class friends from different religions in a city still riven with sectarian tension and violence. Wilson does a fantastic job of developing the two characters as their lives transform over the course of a year and deal with various situations. It’s beautifully written and has a strong emotional resonance, with the story switching from laugh-out loud moments to deep melancholy and tears. It has as much relevance for understanding Northern Ireland now, as it did then. Definitely one of my favourite novels. 

Review of Holy Orders by Benjamin Black (2013, Picador)

Jimmy Minor, a newspaper reporter, is retrieved from a canal where he’d been dumped after a savage beating. The corpse ends up on Quirke’s slab in the pathology lab. Quirke is familiar with the reporter, who is a friend of his daughter, Phoebe. Along with Inspector Hackett, he starts to investigate the death following two clues: a letter to a priest and a note concerning tinkers. This is a reasonably long book about a quite simple case. There was plenty of opportunity to turn it into a more complex or interesting investigation by exploring the Church, newspaper or tinker angles and leveraging in intrigue and conflict through them. Instead, there is the start of a thread related to Jimmy’s newspaper that goes nowhere, and the Church thread kind of goes the same way. Instead, what we get are long passages concerning Quirke’s state of mind and his relationships to those around him, and dozens of pages about his daughter and her life that’s stuck in a rut. Interesting in their own way but introspective and they barely move the story forward. The result is a book much more about the characters than the plot, yet the characters were not that fascinating.

Review of The City in Flames by Michael Russell (2019, Constable)

1940. Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie has been suspended from the Irish special branch in order to be sent to undercover in London. Prior to leaving he spends time on his parents farm in Wicklow, where his son lives. While there a neighbouring farmer is found dead. Gillespie is suspicious, but he’s technically no longer a policeman and it seems more convenient for everyone that the death is recorded as suicide. Before he can stir things up he’s on the boat to Wales, arriving in London to take up residence as the new barman in the Bedford Arms in Camden, an IRA haunt. There he meets Vera Kennedy, seemingly an Irish woman working as a cleaner, with whom he forms a romantic relationship. However, Vera is not who she seems, having recently landed in Britain from Germany. Ultimately, her mission lies in Ireland, where she hopes to shake the country from its neutrality.

The City of Flames is the fifth book in the Inspector Gillespie series following the exploits of a single father cop in the lead up to and during the Second World War whose mother is German. As usual, Gillespie is pulled into a plot of special branch and G2, the Irish Military intelligence, aimed at maintaining Ireland’s neutrality and the status quo internally. In this episode he’s sent to London to monitor IRA activity there, but unwittingly manages to start a relationship with a German spy who has Irish roots. Together they experience the London blitz while carrying out their respective missions. At the same time, there’s been a suspicious death close to his parent’s farm. While he’s absent is father, a former cop, sets up his own investigation. The historical aspect is well realised, and the characterisation is nicely done, with a number of regular series characters making appearances. Russell spins out both plots at a fairly pedestrian pace, which are rooted in the context of Ireland’s neutrality, and involve some real characters and events. The Wicklow plot is not really necessary, but isn't too much of a distraction, and there are a couple of decent twists as the tale closes. However, both plots are held together by coincidences that are too convenient to little more than plot devices. Overall, an engaging addition to the series.

Review of The Missing Ones by Patricia Gibney (2017, Sphere)

Susan Sullivan tries and fails to contact the police before heading to Ragmullin cathedral to confront her past. She’s found a few hours later at the foot of a pew strangled to death. Detective Inspector Lottie Parker is assigned as the lead investigator. Shortly after interviewing Susan’s boss, local planner James Brown, he is also found strangled at his home. Besides working together, the two victims both have identical tattoos on their inner thigh. Lottie’s investigation leads her to St Angela’s, a former children’s home that is slated to be re-developed as a hotel and golf course. A cabal of powerful interests are behind the project, and with the planning application pending they’re determined to protect their investment. But Lottie’s digging suggests that the murders are rooted as much in the past and the victim’s childhood as the present.

The Missing Ones is the first in the DI Lottie Parker series set in Ragmullin, a small Irish town. In this outing Parker tangles with two issues that have dominated Ireland’s recent history – Church scandals concerning children’s homes, child abuse and adoption, and cronyism, clientelism, and planning and development scandals. Set over a freezing winter, Parker and her team investigate the deaths of two planning officers and their links to former children’s home, St Angela’s. In so doing, she tangles with several influential people with interests in the site including a bishop, a developer, a local government manager, and a bank manager, each of whom knows her superintendent, who tries to rein in her confrontational approach. Lottie, however, is determined to get to the truth, even if that means neglecting her three teenage kids, and when a priest from Rome is found dead the pressure to bring the killer to justice mounts. Gibney’s strategy for holding the reader’s attention is to keep the pace and tension high throughout, the body count and abductions mounting, and to create as much drama in Lottie’s life as in the case itself. It works well in terms of maintaining interest and keeping the pages turning, but also works to mask the unlikeliness of much of the plot. Almost the whole of Lottie’s family are integral to the case – her son and daughter, her mother, her brother, her best friend. She’s also in an will-they-won’t they relationship with her sergeant and is jousting with her boss. Gibney uses a series of obvious plot devices to keep things on track – not answering phone calls, talking in front of suspects, idiot boss – and the denouement was somewhat contrived and over-the-top (but then that’s common enough for the genre). My one other quibble was Ragmullin was so obviously Mullingar (as the anagram denotes) why not just use the real name? As long as one suspends belief and doesn’t press too hard on conspiracy plot, or Lottie’s tangled personal connections to it, and thinks of the story as a thriller rather than realistic police procedural then it’s an engaging and entertaining read.

Review of Last Orders by Caimh McDonnell (2018, McFori Ink)

Two bodies are discovered buried in the Wicklow Mountains. Former policeman, Bunny McGarry, knows that the evidence trail will eventually lead to his door. Always somewhat unhinged and further traumatised from ten days at the hands of a mad-man the previous year, Bunny begins to come apart at the seams, talking to ghosts, seeing trackers everywhere, and acting more erratically than usual. Bunny’s two business partners are not fairing much better. Having built a successful investigations company, Paul seems determined to destroy it through a pointless tit-for-tat rivalry with a competitor that quickly escalates into all-out war. Brigit is in despair over Paul’s actions, the perilous state of the company, and Bunny’s mental health. Both situations are spiralling out of control and neither seems set to end well.

Last Orders is the third book in the Dublin trilogy, plus prequel, and marries both together, with the events of the prequel catching up with Bunny McGarry and effecting the fate of MCM Investigations, which is already hanging in the balance due to a feud with another company. McDonnell runs the tale as two strands – the investigation into the deaths of two men found buried in the Wicklow Mountains, and Paul and Bridget’s war with the Kelleher brothers – that become entwined through Bunny administering a dose of rough justice to a cheating gigolo. It should have been great fun, but the story felt too staged and contrived, moving from one set-piece to another, the humour a little flat with few laugh-out-loud moments, and the denouement was pretty much signalled from the start. The characters are somewhat pale shadows of themselves – Bunny is missing some verve, Paul seems to have become someone else – and the bionic FBI agent Alana Dove is straight from the ‘larger-than-life and completely unbelievable’ casting couch. Comic crime capers often suffer from stagey-ness and oddball characters, but in the best of them – as with earlier books in this series – they are inherent or incidental to the story rather than being its crux. While the story has its moments, for me it’s the weakest of the books so far.

Review of Code Breaker by Marc McMenamin (2018, Gill)

During the Second World War Ireland declared itself neutral and sought to stay out of the conflict. Its strategic location on the edge of the Atlantic and sharing a land border with Britain meant it was under pressure from both the Allies and Germany to favour and aid their cause. As McMenamin details, while the Irish government cooperated covertly with the British, especially on intelligence work and enabling flights over Donegal, it stuck rigidly to neutrality with Germany. The government maintained diplomatic relations and let its legation operate throughout the war, but also actively policed spying and jailed German spies, and sought to limit German influence on domestic politics and activities that might lead to the Allies to occupy the country. The IRA, on the other hand, hoped collaboration with Germany might lead to a united Ireland and the organization actively aided German spies sent to Ireland, notably Hermann Gortz. In response, section G2 of the Irish intelligence service sought to actively limit German communications and capture spies, and the Irish government interred IRA members. The Abwehr and SD sent a relatively small number of spies to Ireland including a handful of Irish nationals, a couple of South Africans, and an Indian. All but Gortz were caught shortly after landing or never made it ashore, and most seemed ill-suited to the task with the exception of Gortz and Gunther Schutz.

McMenamin provides a relatively broad account of Ireland’s relationship with Germany and Britain and its quest to remain neutral, focusing on the various spies Germany sent to Ireland and the work of G2. In particular, he spends some time detailing the work of Richard Hayes, the Director of the National Library, who was recruited on a part-time basis by G2 to crack German ciphers and help interrogate prisoners. Hayes was a polymath, skilled as both a linguist and a mathematician. His approach to cryptography was mathematical, but also social and technical, spending time talking to spies, riflling through their possessions for clues, and using forensics on burned paper. He made a number of contributions to cracking German ciphers including being the first to identify the use of microdots and solving agent in-field radio and legation ciphers, the latter of which were used in the Ardennes offensive. After the war his work was officially recognized in a secret meeting with Churchill and MI5, and he continued as director of the National Library until 1967 when he took up a position of librarian for the Chester Beatty Library.

While the book is nicely written and interesting, it’s timeline jumps around a bit, much of the material about German spies in Ireland has been told previously, and the new focus on Hayes is a little thin, in part due to the lack of source material. It would have also been nice to get more technical explanation of how the ciphers worked and were cracked, and the text linked to its sources. It would have also been preferable if the hyperbole could have been dropped. Hayes work was important, and his story worth telling, but he was not all that ‘stood between Ireland and Nazi Germany’ and ‘the fate of the country and the outcome of the war’ did not rest ‘on his shoulders’. His work was far from ‘crucial’ to the war (though it no doubt influenced Irish position and policy), and had marginal effect on turning the tide in the Allies favour (by late 1944 the tide had long turned). And some statements simply don’t stack up. Gortz was arrested in November 1941 and the idea he could have tipped the Germans to the double-cross system or the plans to land in Normandy as claimed make little sense. This hyperbole aside the book provides a readable overview of Ireland’s approach to Germany and its spies and the efforts of Richard Hayes and his G2 colleagues.

Review of Kaddish in Dublin by John Brady (1990, Harper Collins)

The body of a journalist is washed up on the Dublin shoreline. He is the son of a prominent, well-connected judge, who is also a member of the city’s small Jewish community. A small, unknown Palestinian group claim responsibility for the murder. The judge requests that Inspector Matt Minogue of the Murder Squad is placed in charge of the investigation. Minogue has to contend with navigating the religious landscape of the city, both Jewish and Catholic, and also the internal politics of the police, reporting to the Garda Commissioner and collaborating with Special Branch given the potential political nature of the case. As he slowly makes headway, he senses he might be dealing with a conspiracy much closer to home that has potentially far-reaching consequences.

Kaddish in Dublin is the third book in the Matt Minogue series. To my mind, the series is one of the strongest Irish police procedural series set in the South, though the tenth and last book was published in 2009. The books are straight-up procedurals rooted in the realism of everyday life, Irish society at the time, and institutional politics, with little melodrama or over-the-top action, and police officers who are ordinary people rather than having some traumatic back story. In this sense, the books are more Scandinavian in style than most US or UK contemporary series, but with a good dose of Irish humour and under-statement thrown in. This outing focuses on the death of a Jewish journalist and a political conspiracy. Set in the late 1980s and given the power of the Church at that time and political conservatism and scandals, the conspiracy didn’t feel outlandish. In fact, given the era it was written in, the topic seems quite a brave choice to focus on. Minogue goes about his business in his usual way, patiently uncovering clues and rattling cages while worrying about the consequences, and fretting over his family. There is a strong sense of place and the dialogue, in particular, is excellent. Overall, an enjoyable murder mystery with a political edge.

Review of Black Water by Cormac O’Keeffe (2018, Black & White Publishing)

Jig is ten years old and already enrolled as a foot soldier in a Dublin drugs gang. When he’s not doing dirty work for Ghost and his crew, he’s skipping school, avoiding his abusive father and blitzed mother, skulking around the canal with his dog, Bowie, and playing football for a local team. Shay, the coach, believes Jig could escape to a better life through his football skills, but Jig is enthralled by Ghost and his power. When a small job Jig performs leads to the death of an elderly woman the police start asking questions. Detective Tara Crowe wants promotion and taking down Ghost is a route to that. But nobody is prepared to risk talking to the police, least of all Jig and his family. But that isn’t going to stop Crowe trying to serve justice.

Set in inner city Dublin, Black Water is Cormac O’Keeffe’s assured debut novel. The focus is very much on poor, working class communities dominated by a drugs gang that operates largely with impunity, the police struggling to exert any control. The story revolves around four main characters – Jig, a ten year old boy living in an abusive household who has already started to work for the drugs gang as a gofer; Ghost, the ruthless visible power in the drugs gang; Shay, a local football coach and reluctant police informer; and Tara, an ambitious detective who wants to make her mark. The catalyst for the story is a job by Jig going wrong, with an elderly lady who is being intimidated for her son’s drug debt dying. The strength of the story is the strong sense of place through the portrayal of a poor neighbourhood being ruled by a drugs gang and the struggle of local actors and the police to counter their influence and the effects of the drugs, as well as depiction of the dysfunction of Jig’s family and his upbringing. My sense is that there's a strong degree of realism in all the social relations – the family situation of Jig, Shay and Tara, the operations and effects of the local gang, and the power games inside the police. The result is a well-told, engaging - if somewhat depressing - story of a cat-and-mouse game between a criminal gang and the police, with local folk caught in the middle and suffering the consequences.

Review of The Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter (Constable, 2016)

Marguerite Etienne, a French woman living on the Inishowen peninsula is found washed up on a shore, her clothes on a beach on the other side of the bay. It appears she has committed suicide by walking out into the sea. Solicitor Benedicta ‘Ben’ O’Keeffe is not so sure. The woman had visited her the night before looking to make a will and was due back to sign it. Surely she would have completed putting her affairs in order before killing herself? The police, however, move to close the case. Unable to believe the death wasn’t suspicious, Ben starts to dig around, discovering that the woman had been acting strangely in the last year and had a troubled past linked to a cult. She becomes convinced there is more to the case, but her meddling exposes secrets and places her in danger.

The Treacherous Strand is the second book in the Inishowen mysteries series featuring solicitor Benedicta ‘Ben’ O’Keeffe. This outing sees Ben investigating the suspicious death of one her clients, a troubled French woman, which the police has ruled suicide. Her unconsummated romance with a local policeman is on rocky ground, so she is pursuing the case solo. Inevitably, her nosing about unearths secrets and unsettles the small rural community. The cosy-feel to the story, the close rural village set-up, the colourful community and mix of characters, and a blow-in lead character reminded me of the TV series Ballykissangel given a mystery spin. The result was a certain charm to the storytelling, with a plot that jaunted along. While there was strong telegraphing as to the denouement, there is also a nice twist. My main issue with the tale was the over-use of two plot devices to make everything work: interruptions that led to information not being passed on or the deliberate holding back of things when they should have been shared regardless of any personal romantic strife. There were also a couple of things that made little sense to me. Nonetheless, this is a story carried along by its charm and lead character and was an enjoyable read.

Review of Rain Falls on Everyone by Clár Ni Chonghaile (2017, Legend Press)

Rescued by an Irish aid worker, Theo arrived in Ireland from Rwanda aged seven. Aged twenty two and with an engineering degree, the financial crisis means he cannot find suitable work. Instead he takes up a job working in a restaurant kitchen and sells drugs for a criminal gang. At the restaurant he meets Deirdre, a middle-aged woman with three kids, and the pair form an unlikely friendship. Both are struggling to make a place in the world they are happy with. Theo is haunted by his childhood memories and is looking for a way out of the drugs trade. Deirdre wants an end to her domestic abuse but is too afraid and resigned to leave. When Theo’s friend Neville, the boyfriend of Deirdre’s daughter, Grace, is given a punishment beating by the criminal gang that Theo deals for, it provides the catalyst for change. But change comes with a heavy cost that neither is sure they want to pay.

Rain really does fall on everyone in Clár Ni Chonghaile’s tale of identity and belonging in situations of violence. Set in Dublin, the tale focuses on the life of Theo, a young man bought up in Dublin after being rescued from the Rwandan genocide, and his friendship with Deirdre, a middle-aged woman living with domestic abuse. Theo is somewhat of a lost soul who finds solace in the Irish language and poetry and deals drugs for a criminal gang to get by. Deirdre has resigned herself to living with the violence of her husband. Their lives become intricately interwoven through two key events centred on Theo’s best friend, Neville, that forces them both to confront their past and their future. Ni Chonghaile’s tale is a carefully crafted slice of social realism. It is shot through with empathy and pathos, but it is not for the faint-hearted with its scenes and discussion of domestic abuse, genocide, gang violence, suicide, and racism. These are not glorified, but rather form an everyday backdrop to ordinary people living difficult lives. The characterisation, character development across the story, social interactions and sense of place are excellent, and the whole tale has a deep-sense of believability to it. I can’t say it was a joyous or entertaining read, but it was certainly engaging, thought-provoking and compelling.

Review of The City in Darkness by Michael Russell (2016, Constable)

The tail end of 1939. The IRA have raided a military arsenal in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. A postman has gone missing in Wicklow. Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie of the Dublin Special Branch finds himself involved in both cases. In the former, he’s hunting down the perpetrators and the missing weapons, all the while suspecting his boss might have a hand in the raid. In the latter, he’s sent to help with the investigation given the local police are suspects in the disappearance and suspected murder. The postman had a side line in gossip and blackmail and in his possessions is a hint that the tragic accident that led to the death of Gillespie’s wife several years earlier was actually part of a series of four murders. He starts to investigate, with the evidence suggesting a man in Spain might be able to shed some light on the matter. As it happens, the Irish ambassador to Spain requires an escort back to the country, where he is hoping via connections with German intelligence to free Frank Ryan, an Irish man on the wrong side in the Spanish Civil War, and Gillespie sets off as his chaperone.

The City in Darkness is the third book in the Stefan Gillespie series set in 1930s/40s Ireland, with jaunts to other locations. In this book, Gillespie suspects his boss of involvement in an IRA raid on a military arsenal and investigates the disappearance of a postman, which segues into an investigation into the death of his wife. The trail leads him to Spain and the old Irish college at Salamanca and to efforts by the Irish ambassador to free Frank Ryan from one of Franco’s prisons. As usual, Russell uses Gillespie’s cases as a way to explore the wider politics and international incidents at the time. In this case, the involvement of Irish forces on both sides in the Spanish civil war, the role of German military intelligence in freeing IRA leader, internal politics between agencies in Ireland, the actions of the IRA during the war, and Ireland’s neutrality. Even the disappearance of the postman was a real event, though Russell spins it into a whole other story line. The result is an murder mystery with an interesting context, a nice sense of place and time, and an engaging plot. It did feel a little contrived in places, with the story shoehorned around real events, though this little detracted from the read. Overall, another good addition to a very good series.

Review of Echobeat by Joe Joyce (Liberties Press, 2014)

Winter 1940. Like America, Ireland has so far managed to remain neutral in the war. It is coming under more pressure however from both Britain and Germany to declare sides. Britain is wanting use of Irish deep water ports for convoys, is building up troops in the North, and is threatening to minimize trade. The Germans want to increase the size of the legation, are agitating for pro-German stance, and are offering arms to fight the British if they try to sieve the ports. Despite the pro-German stance of the IRA, the Irish government is desperate to remain neutral and avoid Ireland becoming a battleground. To keep the Germans at bay they need to increase the strength of their diplomatic hand and decipher German intent from recent bombings. They turn to G2, Irish military intelligence, for answers, who in turn seek out Hermann Goertz, the chief German spy in Ireland, who has been on the run for almost a year. Captain Paul Duggan is charged with finding Goertz, as well as run an operation eavesdropping on German aviators who frequent a Dublin café. Under pressure from his political masters, Duggan turns to his uncle, a republican Fianna Fail TD, a friend in special branch, and a young German Jew refugee for help. The case takes a strange turn when it becomes clear that a British artist and conscientious objector is also using the café to try and pass important secrets onto the Germans. As well as falling in love with his new agent, Duggan finds himself in a high-stakes game that is explosive enough to change the course of the war.

Echobeat is the second book in the Echoland series featuring Captain Paul Duggan of G2, the Irish military intelligence, during the Second World War. This outing is set over Christmas 1940 and into early 1941. German has conquered much of North West Europe, has lost the Battle of Britain, but is winning the Battle of the Atlantic. The United States, like Ireland, is neutral. Britain wants access to Ireland’s deep water ports and for the US to enter the war; Germany wants to prevent both. Ireland is being subject to diplomatic pressure and sabre rattling by both, including a few bombs being dropped by German planes. G2’s job is decipher both countries intentions and the games they are playing to bring pressure to bear on the Irish government, and to discover and track their spies. Duggan is given the task of locating Germany’s spymaster, who is on the run, as well pick up gossip from downed airmen. His job takes an unexpected turn when he stumbles across a plot to halt America entering the war. Joyce does a nice job of spinning this scenario into a compelling spy thriller that has plenty of intrigue, tension, and at times levity. Duggan and his special branch pal, Peter Gifford, form a nice double-act and the romance with a German Jew turned café spy is well spun. There’s a strong sense of place and time; the historical contextualisation is excellent with respect to the Irish position during the war, the pressure placed on the government, and its internal politics, without swamping the story. I wasn’t wholly convinced by one part of the denouement and the wrap-up seemed quite perfunctory, but overall an interesting and entertaining read.

Review of The Confession by Jo Spain (Quercus, 2018)

Harry and Julie McNamara are watching television when a man walks into the front room of their luxurious mansion and beats Harry into a coma with a golf club then leaves. An hour later JP Carney hands himself into a local police station and confesses to the crime. He claims he does not know the McNamaras, selected the house at random, and cannot rationally explain his actions. This seems somewhat dubious given that McNamara is a notorious Irish figure, famous for running the bank that collapsed the country. Recently McNamara was acquitted in the case being taken against him by the state for financial malpractice. Carney, however, is insistent he has no connection or axe to grind against McNamara. While Julie tries to come to terms with the attack, JP is moved to a mental illness clinic for assessment, and Detective Sergeant Alice Moody investigates the case, convinced there is more to the assault than a random explosion of violence.

The Confession is an in-depth character study of two people involved in a violent incident. JP Carney walks into the home of Julie McNamara and beats her husband, Harry, into a coma then hands himself into the police. JP grew up in a dysfunctional family, moving from London to Cork, then Dublin, as a kid. Julie met Harry - already the owner of a bank in his twenties - while a student and married him shortly after. They seemingly have little in common and their paths have not crossed. Detective Sergeant Alice Moody is convinced that there must be a reason for JP’s actions, while everyone else is happy for the case to be mothballed – Harry McNamara was famous for precipitating the crash of the Irish economy and JP seems to be suffering from mental illness. Jo Spain tells the story from the perspective of Julie and JP, giving a detailed back story of each, and also narrates Alice’s investigation. In this sense, the story provides the confessions of Julie and JP, revealing the context and fallout from the attack. The three narratives are all nicely told, creating a rich sense of the character and lives of Julie and JP. The hook is whether there is a reason for the attack. While the character narratives work well, the thread following Moody’s investigation is more problematic. Portrayed as a talented detective, the investigation strategy was sloppy and had one fatal flaw that nagged away at me for most of the novel and was acknowledged in the story right near the end when one of the characters exclaimed “how the fuck did we miss that?” Which had been my thought for quite some time. Overall, an engaging, character-driven read that suffers a little from a shaky investigative thread.

Review of The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan (Sphere, 2018)

As a fresh-faced guard, Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her ruined home, apparently dead from a drugs suicide. He takes the two children, Jack and Maude, to a local hospital where the daughter disappears. Twenty years later Reilly is back in the West, having transferred to Galway to follow his university researcher partner. He arrives to a frosty reception from his new police colleagues and is assigned to cold cases. A few weeks later and Jack Blake is dead, reported as committing suicide by leaping in the Corrib river. His partner, Aisling is devastated, but accepts the guards’ explanation until Jack’s sister, Maude, turns ups, having returned from Australia. She uncovers evidence that there is more to Jack’s death than first assumed. Reilly remembers Jack and Maude from his first fatal case, but is kept from the investigation into Jack’s death. Instead, he is asked to look into their mother’s death and the possibility that Maude killed her mother. Nothing about either case is what it seems and Reilly is swimming against the police tide in his new posting.

The Rúin is Dervla McTiernan’s debut novel, a police procedural set in Galway in the West of Ireland. There’s a kind of play on words in the title, with Rúin meaning secret in Irish, and the first body and anchor to the story being found in a ruin. The story links together an old and new case: the suicide death of a mother and twenty years later, the death of her son. The lead character is Detective Inspector Cormac Reilly, who has transferred from an elite unit in Dublin to the regional city to follow his partner. Reilly connects both cases, having discovered the mother and moved to the same station investigating the son’s death. He has been marginalised in his new role however, relegated to reviewing cold cases, and shunned by his new colleagues. He knows though when something smells off and the inquiry into Jack Blake’s death is being badly handled. McTiernan does a nice job of telling the tale, with a deep sense of foreboding throughout and plenty scheming, tangled histories and station politics that does a good concealing over the many coincidences holding the plot together. I wasn’t convinced by the denouement, but the tale is nonetheless intriguing and entertaining and an assured start to a series.

Review of Angels in the Moonlight by Caimh McDonnell (McFori Ink, 2018)

1999, Dublin. A well-organised and ruthless gang are committing armed robbery. The police have a good idea as to who is behind the clever heists, but they are smart and their local neighbourhood protects them given they had rid the area of drug dealers. Detective Bunny McGarry and his partner Detective Sergeant Tim ‘Gringo’ Spain are drafted in to help with the investigation. Both have their own problems – Spain has separated from his wife and has a gambling habit, McGarry has fallen for an American jazz singer who is living with an order of nuns, on the run from a crime committed in New York. As the cat and mouse game between the police and gang intensifies, so does McGarry’s ardour for Simone. The path to justice and love though are never smooth, especially when Bunny McGarry, a man who rubs both his colleagues and criminals up the wrong way, is involved. 
 
Angels in the Moonlight is a prequel to McDonnell’s ‘Dublin trilogy’ focusing on a key case and romance of Detective Bunny McGarry, a Cork man with a passion for hurling who is serving in Dublin. McGarry is a delightful character, a man with a distain for authority and a trouble-maker, but fiercely loyal to friends, committed to upholding justice, and with a soft, romantic side that he keeps well hidden. McDonnell exposes these traits through the investigation of an armed gang of robbers and his wooing of an American jazz singer hiding in Dublin. As with the Dublin trilogy, the story moves at a relatively quick clip, has a number of well-penned, colourful characters, and has a streak of dark humour running throughout with a number of belly-laugh moments. The scenes with the order of nuns and the hurling matches were a delight, with some wonderfully witty dialogue. The two parallel storylines were interesting, though both were well signposted and fairly predictable. Overall, a fun and funny read.

Review of Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent (Penguin, 2016)

Judge Andrew Fitzsimmons and his wife Lydia live in a mansion on a large plot of land in south Dublin with their son, Laurence. It should be an idyllic life but their accountant has mis-invested their savings. To add to their woes they have sought to solve one aspect of their domestic life by taking a risk with a young troubled woman who has turned the tables on them. In a fit of rage the judge strangles the woman, but it is Lydia who finishes her off. They decide to bury the body in an old pond turned flower bed and hope that the police do not connect them to the missing woman. Laurence has an inkling as to what has happened, but his manipulative mother steers him into silent complicity. The police make little effort to find out what happened to Annie and the case is soon shelved. Karen, the dead woman’s sister, is determined however to discover the truth. When the dead woman’s father intersects with Laurence’s life he sees a way to atone for his parent’s sins, but in so doing he places the family secret and all his mother holds dear in jeopardy.

Lying in Wait is an extended family drama and psychological crime tale, plotting the intersections of the well-to-do Fitzsimmons and the working-class O’Tooles. At the heart of the tale is the obsessive, manipulative, sociopath Lydia Fitzsimmons, who cares only about herself, her family home, her son, Laurence, and having more children. The latter brings the family into contact with Annie Doyle, a victim of a Mother and Baby home and heroin addict. A showdown with the young woman leads to her death, with Lydia determined to cover up the murder. Nugent tells the story from the perspective of Lydia, Laurence and Karen, the dead woman's sister, with each chapter switching to another perspective. In this sense, the book is very much character-driven, plotting the unfolding lives and dramas of the lead protagonists, held together by the murder of Annie and Lydia’s determination to keep a secret, Laurence’s desire for atonement, and Karen’s quest to know what happened and justice. Nugent focuses on the intricacies of their lives, thoughts and interactions avoiding melodrama or shifting the register into thriller territory. The result a kind of realistic ordinariness, despite the tragedy at the centre of the tale. At one level, this is what makes the book work, but at another it flattens the storytelling in the sense there is no sense of urgency or pace or tension. The result was a nicely constructed and told tale, which was excellent on its own terms, but one I was never felt absorbed by.

A review of Sleeping Dogs by Mark O’Sullivan (2014, Transworld)

Shot three times on an isolated lane, Harry Larkin, head of a criminal family, lies dying in a Dublin hospital. Before slipping into a coma he asks Eveleen, the ward nurse, to find Detective Inspector Leo Woods and to tell him to find his daughter, Whitney. Leo has history with the family, having run Harry as a police informer thirty years ago and had an affair with his wife, Liz. As Harry’s son and his right-hand man vie to take over the dying man’s operations, Leo and his team try to discover who shot him and what has happened to his teenage daughter. The case soon become more murky when a second death is linked to the investigation, as well as a Slovakian and Libyan connection. Dealing with the Larkins was always fraught and this case feels to Leo like an intimate family affair, tinged with an international twist that makes it tricky to decipher.

Sleeping Dogs is the second book in the DI Leo Woods series set in Dublin. In this outing, Leo is forced to revisit his past involvement with a criminal family through an investigation into the death of its patriarch and the disappearance of his daughter. Initially the case seems like it might be relatively straightforward, but it soon becomes clear that there is much more to Harry Larkin’s death than a simple shooting by a rival gang or a family feud, including a couple of international connections. As with the first outing, Sleeping Dogs is an excellent tale with strong characterisation, nicely portrayed social interactions, and an intricate, engaging plot. There’s plenty of backstory of the Larkins and Leo’s past relations, as well as the contemporary lives of the police characters inside and outside work. And the case is an interesting multifaceted puzzle built around a somewhat dysfunctional family who have little trust in the police. The only element that’s somewhat subdued is the sense of place – while located in Dublin there’s little real sense of the city or Ireland more generally and the tale could have been set just about anywhere. Nonetheless, a very fine police procedural.

Review of The Dust of Death by Paul Charles (Brandon Press, 2008)

A man is found crucified in the non-denominational Second Federation Church in the small village of Ramelton in North Donegal. The victim is a local master carpenter and he was having an affair with the Minister’s wife, who has disappeared. Inspector Starrett and his team are soon tracking down clues, interviewing locals as they try to determine who was responsible. All the evidence points to the Minister, but he is adamant that he was ignorant of the affair and innocent of the murder.

The Dust of Death is the first book in a pair of Inspector Starrett mysteries set in northern Donegal. This one focuses on solving the murder by crucifixion of a local carpenter. Starrett is a genial though lovelorn copper who had a career as a classic car dealer in London before returning to Ireland and becoming a policeman. Despite the gruesome murder, the tale is somewhat of a cosie-style police procedural – a kind of Ballykissangel meets Midsomer Murders mystery set in a small village full of characters and gossips. The tale is pleasant enough, but suffers from a weakness in detail with regards to characters (one policeman is a champion hurler from Galway but plays for Donegal; another is 72 years old and a former major in the British Army – both highly unlikely) and police procedure, which seems to lack structure and process but rather meanders along. Indeed, a logical and critical question is not asked by the police at the start of the investigation that would have led to it being solved very quickly. The result is a light-hearted tale that lacks depth and substance.

Review of City of Lies by Michael Russell (Constable, 2017)

September 1940, Ireland. Two elderly brothers, their sister, and servant are found dead on a Wicklow stud farm, along with their prize horse. In the burnt out remains of the home is a German radio. The case seems open-and-shut, with the farm-hand accused of murder, but Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie is not convinced. It’s not his case though and he has other things to occupy him, including an on-going feud between the IRA and the Irish state, the activities of the German legation, and the movements of mysterious Welshman. Then he’s asked to travel to Berlin via Lisbon and France to deliver a new code book to the Irish embassy. Once he arrives he discovers that an Irish woman is in prison accused of murder. Tangling with the Kripo and Gestapo in wartime Berlin runs certain risks, but nonetheless Gillespie smells rough justice and uses his diplomatic status to ruffle feathers. Whilst there the case brings him into contact with the small Irish community in the city.

City of Lies is the fourth book in the Inspector Stefan Gillespie series set in the late 1930s/early 1940s, with each book involving domestic and overseas adventure. As with previous outings, a lot of the story is based on real events and people, though recast fictionally. In this book, set in autumn 1940, Gillespie is tangling in Ireland with the IRA, who are dwindling in numbers as their brethren are interred for the War, and the Irish secret service. His overseas trip is to Berlin where he tangles with the German police and meets a handful of Irish citizens still living in the city and seeks to aid an Irish woman accused of killing a German soldier, and to London. At the heart of the book is Ireland’s internal politics and its relationship to Germany and Britain and two murders – one in Wicklow, one in Berlin – that are cases of rough justice, with two innocent people receiving the death penalty. In both cases, Gillespie seems the only person interested in the truth, but that’s often the victim in wars, especially where politics and intelligence services are involved. There’s an awful lot going on in the tale, with multiple strands unfolding, but Russell holds it altogether admirably. However, there probably is a little too much taking place, and the trip to London felt like a contrived plot device, and the ending seemed to tail-off into a fractured set of conclusions that felt like explanations rather than a denouements. As usual, Gillespie holds it altogether, along with Russell’s assured writing and the strong sense of time and place. Another good addition to a strong series.