Review of The Deal by Michael Clifford (Hachette, 2013)

After ten years in Australia, Karen Riney returns to Ireland after the death of her husband.  On the rebound she ends up in Kerry with Jake, who is paying off a debt to Dublin crime boss, Pascal Nix by running a grow-house.  When the house is raided and Jake arrested, Karen heads to Dublin with the idea of using her new knowledge and Jake’s contacts to go into the grow-house business herself, with the aim of making enough money to make a fresh start.  Without the capital for set-up costs she turns to Nix, a man nobody wants to be in debt to.  As Kevin Wyman well knows; a builder who chased the bust to the bottom, borrowing money from Nix to try and keep his business float.  Nix ensures a healthy return on his investments through the services of Charlie Small, an overweight thug, and Dara Burns, a cold hearted killer for hire.  Karen has little conception of the terms of her debt, confident that she can use her business skills to make a quick profit.   But when Nix is involved there’s no such thing as easy money.

The Deal is a story about ordinary folk, down on their luck in a recession, turning to the fringes of crime to try and make a quick buck and keep their heads above water, and the criminals who exploit them ruthlessly.  It had a strong feel of social realism, as might be expected from a journalist author, and my sense was it gave a good portrayal of dark underbelly of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, much like Clifford’s excellent first book, Ghost Town.  Indeed, the story is an interesting tale and its competently told, but it felt a little flat until the last third when it picked up in pace and tension.  Likewise the characters felt somewhat two-dimensional and I never really connected with them or their troubles.  Overall, then, whilst the plot was well worked and is a timely portrait of contemporary Ireland, the telling seemed to lack bite and sparkle.  Nevertheless, I look forward to Clifford’s next offering.

Review of Ghost Town by Michael Clifford (Hachette, 2012)

Joshua ‘The Dancer’ Molloy could have been a professional footballer.  Instead, he turned to drink and became a member of a drug’s gang.  Having just got out of prison for drug smuggling, as part of his AA programme he has returned to Ireland to confront his past and to see his young son.  Only his past mugs him, implicating him in the shooting of a gang leader, Junior Corbett.  The hit unleashes a fresh wave of tit-for-tat killings amongst Dublin’s gangs and a contract being served for Molloy's life.  The Dancer tries to go to ground, at the same time using the services of Noelle Higgins, a solicitor, to seek access to his child.  Noelle has problems of her own.  She’s married to Donal Higgins, a property developer whose empire is falling around his ears and who has fled the country leaving her to face disgruntled investors, the courts and the media.  Alan Slate, a crime reporter trying to rebuild his career and working for a small start-up magazine, has been assigned to investigate both the attempt on Corbett’s life and Noelle’s husband.  Well connected with the police, Slate excels at putting his nose where it’s not wanted.  In a twist of fate, Corbett has invested in one of Higgins’ schemes and wants his money back.  The scene is thus set for a complex game of cat and mouse, Molloy and Noelle trying to survive as various forces are ranged against them. 

Ghost Town is a very well written and entertaining debut novel.  Michael Clifford is an Irish journalist and columnist and brings all his skills as a seasoned writer to the book.  The real strengths of the novel are its plotting, the characterization, the sense of place, and the contextualization.  The story is told through a series of short, tight scenes, shorn of any flab.  This works to drive the plot along and to create a high tempo and good tension.  And although the plotline is relatively complex, told from multiple perspectives, Clifford makes sure that the reader never loses the thread of the narrative.  All of the characters are well penned with sufficient back story to give them depth and make them interesting despite there being a number of central cast members.  A real plus for me was that Ghost Town is very much a book about modern Ireland, clearly set in Dublin and Kerry, and detailing elements of the property crash and how it has affected the lives of many.  One touch I particularly liked was the symmetry between the professional footballer turned media mogul slowly disintegrating (Slate’s boss), with the failed footballer putting his life back together (Molloy).  Clifford does an excellent job of bringing the story to a climax; though a couple of aspects of the resolution were a little clunky though just about credible.  Overall, this is a very solid and enjoyable book and a very good complement to Alan Glynn’s Winterland and Gene Kerrigan’s The Rage.

This book was written by someone else, wasn't it?

I’ve almost finished Ghost Town by Michael Clifford, which has proved to be a very entertaining read.  I’ll try and post a review tomorrow.  The only thing that I’ve found a little unsettling is that it reads like another author's work.  If I’d been given the tome minus the cover I would have sworn it had been written by Gene Kerrigan.  It has the same voice, same style, the same locale, the same themes, and the same types of characters as Kerrigan’s books, especially The Rage and Dark Times in the City.  This is no bad thing, per se.  I’m a huge fan of Kerrigan’s writing and I’ll be buying the next Clifford book based on the quality of Ghost Town.  More just an observation.  Both Kerrigan and Clifford are reporters and columnists working for Irish papers, both are writing about the present woes of the country.  Perhaps the similarities are inevitable and coincidental.  I got the same feeling reading one of Robert Crais’ novels: it read like a Michael Connelly story and again had the same locale, same kinds of characters, same kind of storyline. 

How about you, do you ever feel you are reading a book that might have been written by another author?