Review: BELFAST NOIR by Adrian McKinty (editor), Stuart Neville (editor) - audio book

• available from audible.com
• Written by: Adrian McKinty (editor), Stuart Neville (editor)
• Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies, Gerard Doyle, John Keating, Terry Donnelly
• Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins 
• Series: Akashic Books: Noir
• Unabridged Audiobook
• published 2014

Synopsis (publisher)

Reflecting a city still divided, Belfast Noir serves as a record of a city transitioning to normalcy, or perhaps as a warning that underneath the fragile peace darker forces still lurk. 

Featuring brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan. 

From the introduction by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville: "Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968–1998) dominated life in Ireland's second-biggest population centre, and during the darkest days of the conflict - in the 1970s and 1980s - riots, bombings, and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. The British army patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and civilians were searched for guns and explosives before they were allowed entry into the shopping district of the city centre... Belfast is still a city divided... You can see Belfast's bloodstains up close and personal. This is the city that gave the world its worst ever maritime disaster, and turned it into a tourist attraction; similarly, we are perversely proud of our thousands of murders, our wounds constantly on display. You want noir? How about a painting the size of a house, a portrait of a man known to have murdered at least a dozen human beings in cold blood? Or a similar house-sized gable painting of a zombie marching across a post-apocalyptic wasteland with an AK-47 over the legend UVF: Prepared for Peace - Ready for War. As Lee Child has said, Belfast is still 'the most noir place on earth.'"

Part I: City of Ghosts
“The Undertaking” by Brian McGilloway (Roselawn)
“Poison” by Lucy Caldwell (Dundonald)
“Wet with Rain” by Lee Child (Great Victoria Street)
“Taking It Serious” by Ruth Dudley Edwards (Falls Road)

Part II: City of Walls
“Ligature” by Gerard Brennan (Hydebank)
“Belfast Punk REP” by Glenn Patterson (Ann Street)
“The Reservoir” by Ian McDonald (Holywood)

Part III: City of Commerce
“The Grey” by Steve Cavanagh (Laganside, Queens Island)
“Rosie Grant’s Finger” by Claire McGowan (Titanic Quarter)
“Out of Time” by Sam Millar (Hill Street)
“Die Like a Rat” by Garbhan Downey (Malone Road)

Part IV: Brave New City
“Corpse Flowers” by Eoin McNamee (Ormeau Embankment)
“Pure Game” by Arlene Hunt (Sydenham)
“The Reveller” by Alex Barclay (Shore Road)

 
My Take

Not a set of stories for the faint-hearted, most of these are truly noir.
As with most short story collections, there are some that are very good, clever, or amusing, but there are others that tempt you to skip to the next.
They do make the reader appreciate that Irish noir fiction is alive, well, and strong.
Surprisingly, apart from the introduction, there is not a contribution from either of the editors.

Read a feature on Stuart Neville, Adrian McKinty, and Lee Child at the Wall Street Journal.

Listen to an interview with editors Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty at RTÉ Arts Radio.

My rating: 4.2

I've read and reviewed
McKinty, Adrian:
FIFTY GRAND
4.6, THE COLD COLD GROUND
4.8, I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET
4.6, FALLING GLASS
4.9, IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE

Neville, Stuart:
THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST
4.8, THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND

Review: THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND, Stuart Neville

• review copy from publisher Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, through NetGalley
• publication date June 26, 2015
• ISBN 9781448138517

Synopsis (NetGalley)

They’d used the same picture in the Sunday red top she’d read at the weekend. SCHOOLBOY KILLER TO BE RELEASED, the headline had screamed above a half-page story.'

DCI Serena Flanagan, newly returned to work after undergoing treatment for cancer, is forced to confront a troubling case from her past: the murder conviction of a 12-year-old-boy who has just been released back into the community.When 12-year-old Ciaran Devine confessed to murdering his foster father it sent shock waves through the nation.

DCI Serena Flanagan, then an ambitious Detective Sergeant, took Ciaran's confession after days spent earning his trust. He hasn’t forgotten the kindness she showed him – in fact, she hasn't left his thoughts in the seven years he’s been locked away.

Probation officer Paula Cunningham, now tasked with helping Ciaran re-enter society, suspects there was more to this case than the police uncovered. Ciaran’s confession saved his brother Thomas from a far lengthier sentence, and Cunningham can see the unnatural hold Thomas still has over his vulnerable younger brother.

When she brings her fears to DCI Flanagan, the years of lies begin to unravel, setting a deadly chain of events in motion.


My Take

Set in Belfast, really a police procedural, this was a difficult plot structure to pull off successfully: three main strands and two time frames seven years apart. I think Neville has done it very well.

Life has moved on since 12 year old Ciaran Devine confessed to murdering his foster father. His brother Thomas has served five years for his role in the murder and has been "out" two years waiting for his younger brother's release. Ciaran is nearly twenty but in many ways still immature, a child who relies on his older brother for advice, and even for permission to speak. Flanagan is a mother of two, and recently returned to work after a bout of breast cancer and is a member of a breast cancer support group. . She remembers Ciaran Devine very well. Paula Cunningham too remembers Ciaran Devine and his older brother Thomas.

An excellent read.


My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST

About Stuart Neville's work: The Twelve won the prestigious LA Times Book Prize and was longlisted for the Theakston's Best Crime Book of the Year. Stolen Souls was shortlisted for the Theakstons Best Crime Book of the Year, Ratlines was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award and The Final Silence was longlisted for the Theakston's Best Crime Book of the Year.

Review: THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, Stuart Neville

Soho Press (US) 2009
Published in the UK by Harvill Secker Random House as THE TWELVE
ISBN 978-1-56947-600-0
326 pages

Maybe if he had one more drink they'd leave him alone. Gerry Fegan told himself that lie before every swallow..... No. They were still there, still staring. Twelve of them if he counted the baby in its mother's arms.

Fegan is still a respected man in West Belfast, despite the drink. His constant companions wherever he goes though are the shadows of those he killed: five soldiers, a policeman, two Loyalists, and four civilians who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ghosts are demanding that he pay his debts. Gerry Fegan knows that means killing those whose orders he had been carrying out.

The first is relatively easy: Mick McKenna, once an IRA fighter but now a politician. Down at the old shipyard, no CCTV, no people, just two bullets. After that there's only 11 shadows.
What Gerry Fegan can't take into account is Marie McKenna, Mick's niece, and her young daughter Ellen. And between them they threaten to bring Gerry's plans unravelled.

The structure of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is an interesting one. As Gerry works to rid himself of the ghosts, Stuart Neville explores the fragile peace that's broken out in the last decade or so in Northern Ireland. Corruption, violence, and guilt simmer just below the surface. The Minister of State for Northern Ireland and the Chief Constable are fearful that McKenna's assassination will cause an outbreak of a war of retribution.


THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is Stuart Neville's debut novel and won the Mystery/Thriller category of the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

It is one of a literal wave of Irish noir thrillers.

My rating 4.7 despite the fact that it is a little more noir than my usual reading fare.

Other reviews to check:
International Noir Fiction
Mystery Fanfare
Detectives Beyond Borders
Crime Always Pays

Visit the author's website: read an excerpt, watch a trailer, read some reviews.