Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 232
The Parts by Keith Ridgway
Trade Paperback; 18.50 Euro / 21.00 USD / 15.00 UK; Faber, 455 pages [Add To Basket]
In her mansion in the Dublin Mountains, Delly Roche, widow of pharmaceuticals millionaire Daniel Gilmore, is getting ready for death. Keeping her company are her companions of many years, Kitty Flood and the discreetly insane Dr. George Addison-Blake. Why is Delly so keen to die? What exactly is in the letter discovered by Kitty? What is Dr. George doing in the shed by the overgrown tennis court? And does any of it have anything to do with the conspiracy theories hinted at on Joe Kavanagh's radio show? Down in the city, Barry Joe's producer, is getting caught up in something and he's not quite sure what. Meanwhile Joe is trying desperately to lose his foothold on life and is succeeding only in annoying his neighbours. And all the time, conducting business down by the river, doing his best to keep out of this, is Kez.
The Day of the Dead by John Creed
Trade Paperback; 18.50 Euro / 21.00 USD / 15.00 UK; Faber, 245 pages [Add To Basket]
The newest Jack Valentine thriller, a deadly chase stretching from one end of New York to Mexico and culminating in incandescent conflict in the searing and pitiless uplands of central Mexico. Jack Valentine thinks he is finished with the covert life but the covert life is not finished with him. The assignment seems straightforward. An old friend's daughter, Alva Casagrande, has been sucked into what looks like a minor league Manhattan heroin vortex and Jack is persuaded to go there to pull her out. Simple enough, until the old friend is fighting for his life courtesy of a kilo of Semtex in the wheel arch of his car. Two days later Jack is in New York calling on old friendships and provoking ancient hatreds. He realises that the little girl's Mexican partner is as wealthy and hard-wired as they come and also that his friend's daughter carries a punch herself. The agenda is drugs on a large scale and Jack is fixed for a descent into hell.
The Sirius Crossing by John Creed
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Faber, 250 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a tense, gripping and intelligent thriller - the first in the Jack Valentine series - from one of Ireland's finest writers. Jack Valentine has been in the intelligence game too long and it is starting to show, but he accepts one more mission. He always does. It seems like a simple task but it throws up deadly questions and he doesn't know the answers. What were American Special Forces doing in Ireland twenty-five years ago and why does it matter now? What is the thread, which leads from a deserted mountainside to the offices of the White House? Valentine no longer knows which threatens him most - the dark alliance of men who want to kill him or his own dangerous cynicism.
Resurrection Man by Glenn Meade
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Coronet, 740 pages [Add To Basket]
In seven days Islamic terrorists will unleash an appalling new weapon on the Western world unless their demands are met. With millions of lives at stake, Washington and Moscow realise they have no choice but to join forces and put their two top investigators in charge of the manhunt. As the President of the United States contemplates choosing between humiliating defeat and mass destruction, Jack Collins and Alexi Kursk find themselves pitted not only against a ruthless enemy, but also against each other. This explosive novel offers a terrifying insight into a world in the grip of a monumental crisis.
Wild Geese by Lara Harte
Hardback; 22.50 Euro / 26.50 USD / 18.50 UK; Weidenfeld; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
Set on the eve of the French Revolution, this novel is a tale of two cities, Dublin and Paris. Isabella, a headstrong Irish girl flees Dublin and an unwanted suitor to join her father in Paris, a city that already shelters a number of Irish escapees from the penal restrictions at home. When she arrives in Paris, Isabella finds her father's beautiful but penniless cousins already in place. It looks at first as if Isabella's unexpected appearance will fatally damage the accomplished duo's schemes. But, when the idealistic Isabella discovers the real origin of her father's fortunes, the cousins set out to exploit her innocence and horror to their own ends. Isabella's quest for independence takes her through the snowbound streets of Paris to the door of the infamous Bastille itself. In this book, the author offers a story of 18th-century intrigue and romance.
The Ledge by Blanaid McKinney
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Vintage, 278 pages [Add To Basket]
The care and maintenance of bonsai trees, the sex life of pandas, Anthony Perkins's singing career, suicidal bakers, bad song lyrics, good graffiti … this novel is a blazing urban love story, with robbery and torture thrown in.
The Map of Tenderness by William Wall
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Sceptre, 276 pages [Add To Basket]
Joe Lyons has never had much success with relationships until he meets Suzie, a young music teacher. Living a solitary existence as a writer, he's alienated his mother with his autobiographical fist novel and has little to say to his stridently religious sister, Mary. Only his father keeps in regular touch. But now, in the warmth of this new love, the happy endings finally seem to outnumber the tragedies. So when news comes that his mother is seriously ill, he returns home to Ireland, hoping to make amends. Instead, what he finds shocks him out of his complacency and, like his father, he comes to understand the true nature of love.
Marble Gardens by Deirdre Purcell
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 11.00 USD / 8.50 UK; New Island, 540 pages [Add To Basket]
Sophie and Riba have known each other since childhood. They've played, fought, shared traumas and bedded their lives on the substance of friendship. The bond between them is unbreakable. Then Riba's teenage daughter Zelda falls gravely ill. Frustrated by the limitations of conventional medicine, Riba pins all her hopes on alternative methods. Sophie is torn between loyalty to her friend and her fear that Zelda will not get the help she desperately needs. United in their distress, Sophie and Brian, Riba's husband, find themselves drawn toward each other. Time is running out for Zelda, for two marriages, and for a friendship
Rosemary by Margaret Kaine
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Poolbeg, 479 pages [Add To Basket]
For three women - Rosemary, her mother Beth and grandmother Rose - a single phone call ends years of heartbreak and regret. For Rosemary, alone and determined to find her roots, it is the end of a search begun when she first held her birth certificate, staring in bewilderment at the heading: Certified Copy of Entry from Adopted Children's Register. But the end of one journey is the beginning of another - one that brings both romance and the nightmare truth about her conception. Rosemary has sprung from tough soil: the clay of North Staffordshire where her ancestors have worked in The Potteries for generations. Yet will she have the strength to endure what she is about to discover?
Why Do Fools Fall in Love? By Louise Marley
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Poolbeg, 453 pages [Add To Basket]
When Shelby Roberts is forced to resign from the police, her new job - three weeks on location in a 5-star hotel looking after dangerously hunky actor Luke McFadden - doesn't look so bad at all. Well, just how much trouble can one actor get into? But spoilt Luke is outraged at being lumbered with a bodyguard. Outrage soon turns to intrigue and before long Luke is crazy about Shelby. But has he left it too late? Shelby fancies mean and moody director Ross Whitnes, but Luke's co-star Courtney has her own plans for him. When Luke's ex-fiancee Paige comes back on the scene, and a stalker makes his presence felt, passions continue to rise long after the cameras stop rolling.
Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 8.50 UK; Hodder, 503 pages [Add To Basket]
On Coronation night in 1953, the ex-pat community in Hong Kong gathers for a celebration party. While they strain to listen to the proceedings on a faulty wireless, twenty-one year old Joy falls in love. She is engaged within twenty-four hours, but will not see her fiancee again for a year. In 1980, eighteen-year-old Kate's rebellion is to run away from County Wexford with her illegitimate child. Fifteen years later, Sabine leaves trendy Hackney to visit the grandparents she has never known, and finds that time in Wexford seems to have stood still. When Sabine, her mother and grandmother are brought together, a deeply buried family secret is discovered - as well as some fundamental truths: about the conflict between love and duty, about women's choices, and about mothers and daughters.
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