Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 452
Irish Crime Fiction and True Crime
27/28 June 2009
All the Dead Voices by Declan Hughes
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 18 USD / 12 UK; 308 pages
Ed Loy has made some changes. He has moved into an apartment in Dublin's city centre, leaving behind his family home: he wants to break free of the ghosts of his own past, to live in the teeming present. But if that's what he wants for his own life, it's not always what his clients will permit: the baggage they bring with him propel him relentlessly into past. The police are working along similar lines with their new Cold Case unit. Looking back over a fifteen-year-old murder, they are satisfied by their original findings – but not so Loy. He has been hired by the victim’s daughter to investigate the suspects ignored by the first investigation: a rich property developer, an ex-IRA man and Loy’s own nemesis, George Halligan. But Loy has to watch his back: in the murky world into which he has fallen, he can’t tell which threats come from the IRA and which from the police protecting their old case. Can Loy persuade his longstanding friend DI Dave Donnelly to help solve the Fogarty case, or does he have to rely on the murderous George Halligan? Does it all go back to the IRA? Are the men who gave the commands now respectable citizens? In his toughest case yet, Ed Loy delves into the dirty side of life in the New Ireland, where progress comes at a price and no one is free of their past.
More praise: 'I'd be prepared to swear that there has never been a character in Irish crime fiction with a name so taut, muscular and slyly tongue in cheek as Ed Loy ...' -- Irish Times 'To call Declan Hughes "a natural" is to engage in understatement. Here is a crime novel that's both deftly plotted and truly character-driven. Like Chandler's Los Angeles, Hughes's Dublin is brilliantly atmospheric. The dialogue crackles and the characters have a truly lived-in authenticity. A great read' -- Douglas Kennedy 'Declan Hughes breathes new life into the private detective story' -- Michael Connelly 'Finally Ireland gets a hardboiled detective worthy of the name...- it's not hard to see why [Declan Hughes'] publisher placed so much faith in such a relative newcomer' -- Ireland on Sunday 'Top class ... Fast moving, and paced with acutely observed dialogue, Hughes draws an accurate and decidedly dark picture of the changes wrought by Celtic Tiger Ireland on Seaview and its inhabitants. Highly recommended' -- Irish Independent Review 'Hughes is in his element describing the sites and sounds of the places Loy visits' -- Sunday Tribune 'Declan Hughes manages the extremely difficult trick of not only locating a credible thriller in Ireland but also casting an eye on the way this society has changed utterly in the past two decades ... Hughes laces his plot with razor-sharp and frequently hilarious comments on Irish society' -- Herald AM and Evening Herald 'Declan Hughes has written a thriller that is a hell of a good read ... there's an energy to his writing that suggests he's in it for the long haul' -- Irish Sunday Independent.
The Dying Breed by Declan Hughes
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 8 UK; 404 pages [Add To Basket]
Even the best private eye needs more than a name to find a missing person, but that’s all that Father Vincent Tyrrell, the brother of prominent racehorse trainer FX Tyrrell, will offer Loy when he comes to him for help. A dwindling bank account convinces Loy to delve into the deadly underworld of horse racing, but fortune soon smiles on him: while working another case, he discovers a phone number linked to FX on a badly beaten body left at an illegal dump. Loy’s been around long enough to know that there’s more to the Tyrrell family than meets the eye – and then a third body appears. At Christmastime, on the eve of one of Ireland’s most anticipated racing events, the intrepid investigator bets his life on a longshot: finding answers in a shady network of trading and dealing, gambling and breeding.
Bleed a River Deep by Brian McGilloway
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 17 USD / 11 UK; 300 pages
This is the extraordinary new novel in the Inspector Devlin series, from 'a major force in Irish crime writing' (John Connolly). When a controversial American senator is attacked during the opening of a Donegal gold mine, Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin is blamed for a lapse in security. The shooting of an illegal immigrant in Belfast the same day leads Devlin to a vicious people-smuggling ring operating in the city. Then Leon Bradley, the young environmentalist who attacked the senator, is found murdered near the site of the mine. Devlin questions the group of itinerant travellers who have gathered around a nearby river hoping to strike gold themselves, and soon is becomes clear to Devlin that the mine is a front for something far more sinister. "Bleed a River Deep" is the new novel from one of the most acclaimed new crime-writers on the scene: a labyrinthine tale of big business, the new Europe, and the dispossessed. Politics, industry and the criminal underworld collide in McGilloway's most accomplished, most gripping, and most sophisticated novel yet.
Gallow’s Lane by Brian McGilloway
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 8 UK; 330 pages [Add To Basket]
Taking its title from the name of the road down which condemned Donegal criminals were once led, "Gallows Lane" follows Inspector Benedict Devlin as he investigates a series of gruesome murders in and around the Irish borderlands. When a young woman is found beaten to death on a building site, in what appears to be a sexually-motivated killing, Devlin's enquiries soon point to a local body-builder and steroid addict. But days later, born-again ex-con James Kerr is found nailed to a tree - crucified - having been released from prison and returned to his hometown to spread the word of God.Increasingly torn between his young family and his job, Devlin is determined to apprehend those responsible for the murders before they strike again, even as the carnage begins to jeopardise those he cares about most. "Gallows Lane" is the heart-stopping follow-up to Brian McGilloway's acclaimed debut "Borderlands". 'Brian McGilloway joins the roll-call of excellence in Irish crime fiction' - Marcel Berlins, "The Times". 'A satisfying mystery with an attractive central character' - "Sunday Telegraph". 'Another masterly thriller' - "Irish News".
Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 302 pages
Danny Callaghan is having a quiet drink in a Dublin pub when two men with guns walk in. They're here to take care of a minor problem - petty criminal Walter Bennett. On impulse, Callaghan intervenes to save Walter's life. Soon, his own survival is in question. With a troubled past and an uncertain future, Danny finds himself drawn into a vicious scheme of revenge. "Dark Times in the City" depicts an edgy city where affluence and cocaine fuel a ruthless gang culture, and a man's fleeting impulse may cost the lives of those who matter most to him. Kerrigan's new novel is his finest yet; gripping from start to finish, powerful, original and impossible to put down.
The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell
Paperback; 10 Euro / 13 USD / 8 UK; 246 pages [Add To Basket]
Jay Hamilton lives a comfortable life in fashionable west London, listening to the minor and major dysfunctions of the over-privileged clients who frequent his psychoanalytic practice. But the darker recesses of his own psyche would not stand up to close examination: his brother Richard, a genius professor of mathematical linguistics, was apparently killed by rent boys in Los Angeles and Jay was the first on the scene. Author Dana Flynn is determined to scratch beneath the surface while researching a biography she intends to write about Richard, and finds that Jay’s professional life is as precarious as his personal relationships — he uses his clients’ case studies as material for his fiction writing. Such is Jay’s hunger for recognition as a creative force that he exploits the vulnerable people he counsels, and a decision not to intervene when a troubled patient steals a baby, causes his past to unravel.
Mystery Man by Colin Bateman
Large Paperback; 15 Euro / 19 USD / 11 UK; 400 pages [Add To Basket]
A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the King of the comic crime caper. Call him the Man with No Name, call him what you like, many do, but he is the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. When a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency’s clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. Of course, it's not as if there's any danger involved and really, he’s just treating it as another way to sell books to his gullible, ignorant customers and as a way to impress Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road. When they drunkenly break into the shuttered shop next door they discover the bloated corpse of the detective, with a hundred air freshening pine trees hanging from him. Suddenly their lives are in terrible danger as they follow a murder trail which leads them from small time publishing, to modern dance, to Nazi concentration camps and serial killers…
The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed Its Innocent Children by Bruce Arnold
Large Format Paperback; 17 Euro / 22 USD / 13 UK; 350 pages [Add To Basket]
At the time of independence, the State inherited a country-wide network of industrial schools. These institutions were allowed to become a 'Gulag' or prison system for children. The regimes were universally harsh. Punishment was cruel and excessive. The children were deprived of proper food, medical, and psychological care. They 'lost' their education, working much of their time instead as slave labour. They were abused physically, mentally and sexually. Their detention by the courts was unspeakably harsh, peremptory and unjust, the children rarely benefiting from defence or proper analysis of their circumstances. Many of the children spent their whole childhood in industrial school detention, suffering unending trauma as a result. In 1999, Bertie Ahern apologised on behalf of the State and set in place a reconciliation procedure, its methods secretive and flawed. It did not reconcile. This was the final betrayal of thousands of former inmates whose lives had been deeply affected, and in many cases ruined, by what had happened. This is the story of how 'The Irish Gulag' came into existence, how it was exposed, how those who had suffered were paid off, in secret, and were yet denied proper public reconciliation. In a series of moves charted in this book, the State's main purpose is shown as self-protection, not recompense. Carried out in collaboration with the Church, this was at the heart of the betrayal of innocent children.
At the Edge of Ireland: Seasons on the Beara Peninsula by David Yeadon
Brutal: The Untold Story of my Life Inside Whitey Bulger’s Irish Mob by Kevin Weeks
Large Format Paperback with 8 page full colour photo insert; 12 Euro / 16 USD / 10 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
When James J. "Whitey" Bulger, currently on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list with a $1 million reward for his capture, ran the Irish mob in South Boston, no one was closer to him than Kevin Weeks. Weeks was Bulger's handpicked deputy, trusted confidante, and loyal partner for the last dozen years of Bulger's reign. He was there when Bulger carried out his hits; he dug basement graves when bodies needed burying; and he followed Bulger's instructions to lie low when tipped off that the Feds were moving in. Weeks was so trusted by Bulger that after Bulger went to ground, it was Weeks who met with him five times in New York and Chicago to give him new identification and the latest news. And the it was Weeks who ran the Bulger mob's rackets for five years until he was finally arrested. In 1997, nearly 20 years after Weeks began his association with Bulger, Weeks learned that his mentor in crime had been an FBI informant for 25 years, which went against everything mobsters held sacred. Although Whitey Bulger has been written about before, including a chapter in Paddy Whacked by T.J. English, no one at the top of his operation has ever talked, and the low-level street guys who have talked just haven't gotten it right. The only other person who knows the real deal is Stevie Flemmi, but with Flemmi serving a life sentence with no chance for parole, Weeks is the only one with the goods who is able to set the record straight. Kevin Weeks is now out of prison after serving five and a half years of a lifetime sentence, which was reduced after he testified that Bulger's FBI handler had tipped off Bulger to his impending arrest, revealed the location of numerous mob graves, and cooperated with absolute honesty. Weeks is the first person who has the real inside info, and he's willing to tell it all, what it was like on the inside, how they did business, the actual deals, the hits, and where the bodies are buried.
Chaos and Conspiracy: The Framing of the McBrearty Family by Gerard Cunningham
Large Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 11 UK; 370 pages, with a 16-page full-colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
"Chaos and Conspiracy" tells the full story of what happened in County Donegal from the night Richie Barron died to the conclusion of the work of the Morris Tribunal. The story lays bare the corruption at the heart of the investigation, as Gardai conspired to create false evidence, and the chaotic incompetence that let the corruption go undetected as senior officers let the murder inquiry run out of control. First and foremost, however, this is the story of the families who were wrongly identified as murder suspects, and their dignity and courage in fighting back against the forces of the state ranged against them. Many of those arrested were brutalised in custody, with long-lasting effects that would take years to heal. But when a private detective found evidence of Garda corruption, proving the families were innocent, a legal battle began in the Donegal district courts leading eventually to vindication in the High Court and at the Morris Tribunal.
Dying to Survive by Rachel Keogh
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 19 USD / 11 UK; 222 pages [Add To Basket]
By the time she eventually went into recovery, after a number of false starts, her arms were shrivelled, withered and blackened from the effects of repeated injections. She had suffered every degradation possible. But miraculously she managed to stop. This is Rachael Keogh's own story written in her own words. She is now twenty-nine, a student of psychotherapy, an attractive and optimistic young woman. Her story is a remarkable account of recovery from the very edge of personal destruction. It is a heart-lifting story of personal human redemption.
Private Investigator: My Years Undercover by Shirley Sleator
Paperback; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 10 UK; 268 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1979 Shirley Sleator set up her own private investigation agency in Dublin to do just that. The work came flooding in and Shirley soon found herself the detective of choice for many corporate clients, working on cases that took her the length and breadth of the country. This book has Shirley recalling some of the most intriguing cases from her files and describes the fascinating process of conducting covert investigations.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
Gregory Carr, Independent Bookseller
Read Ireland
392 Clontarf Road
Dublin 3
Ireland
Tel + Fax: +353-1-853-2063
Customer Services Comments, Criticism and Questions
Subscribe to Read Ireland Book News - Our Free Weekly Email Newsletter