The Luck of the Irish - Ireland Reading Challenge Roundup

Today I completed the Ireland Reading Challenge for 2011 at the Luck o' the Irish level (4 books)
Click on the links for full reviews.

5.0, THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin
This was a very ambitious first novel. So much action occurs in just 12 days, so much blood is shed, and from a writer's point of view, so many threads to be tracked, so many characters to be fleshed out. And for me, this was the best novel I read in January. An excellent read, one you must add to your list.

4.3, THE BURNING, Jane Casey

I wouldn't yet put THE BURNING into the top drawer of police procedurals but Jane Casey is certainly an Irish author worth following.

4.3, THE LIKENESS, Tana French

A very long book, but the plot is intriguing. A fictitious undercover "personality" backfires in the way its creators could never have predicted.

4.7, WINTERLAND, Alan Glynn

A thriller set in Dublin with a very contemporary feel. Politics, a flagging economy, and ambitious men result in the murders of two men with the same name.

Review: WINTERLAND, Alan Glynn

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 626 KB
• Print Length: 318 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0312539223
• Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd (November 5, 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002YYWEFE
• Source: I bought it

Product description (Amazon)

The worlds of business, politics and crime collide in contemporary Dublin when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night - one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That's the official version of events.

But when a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions, this notion quickly unravels. Devastated by her loss, Gina's grief is tempered, and increasingly fuelled, by anger - because the more she hears that it was all a coincidence, that gangland violence is commonplace, that people die on our roads every day of the week, the less she's prepared to accept it. Told repeatedly that she should stop asking questions, Gina becomes more determined than ever to find out the truth, to establish a connection between the two deaths - but in doing so she embarks on a path that will push certain powerful people to their limits...

My take

Dublin docklands

There is a very contemporary feel to WINTERLAND enhanced for me by a flying visit we made to Dublin in the middle of this year. On the first day of our tour we were taken to the regenerated docklands, the setting of this book.

Knowing something of Ireland's descent into the economic dumps added to understanding too.

The Richmond Centre, a new multi-storey building on the docklands will be a sign to the world that Ireland has beaten off its economic woes, and will also bring with it a great partnership with a wealthy American corporation. So there are lots of hopes riding on it, not the least those of Larry Bolger, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, hoping to rise to Taoiseach, the Prime Minister of Ireland. He hasn't always been squeaky clean so it is very important to him that nothing blots his copybook now. However one of his close associates, Paddy Norton, solves most problems by outsourcing the solutions to a "security" firm. Paddy Norton has a long standing interest in the completion of the Richmond Centre, so nothing must get in the way,

But Larry Bolger only entered politics when his brother was killed in a car accident twenty five years earlier, the same crash that took the lives of Mark Griffin's parents and sister. Mark has never thought about whether it really was an accident, not until Gina Rafferty, raw from the recent death of her brother in a similar accident, suggests it might have been otherwise.

Alan Glynn has an interesting style in WINTERLAND, moving seamlessly from present to past tense. It seemed to me that most of the novel was written in the present tense, with past tense being used for reflection.

WINTERLAND is a great page turner. I read it to complete my final book for the Ireland Reading Challenge

My rating: 4.7

Read another review on Reactions to Reading

Review: THE LIKENESS, Tana French

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 900 KB
• Print Length: 708 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0340924799
• Publisher: Hodder (September 4, 2008)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002V092CY
• Source: I bought it

Publisher's blurb

Six months after the events of In the Woods, Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to recover. She's transferred out of the murder squad and started a relationship with Detective Sam O'Neill, but she's too badly shaken to make a commitment to him or to her career. Then Sam calls her to the scene of his new case: a young woman found stabbed to death in a small town outside Dublin. The dead girl's ID says her name is Lexie Madison - the identity Cassie used years ago as an undercover detective - and she looks exactly like Cassie.

With no leads, no suspects, and no clue to Lexie's real identity, Cassie's old undercover boss, Frank Mackey, spots the opportunity of a lifetime. They can say that the stab wound wasn't fatal and send Cassie undercover in her place to find out information that the police never would and to tempt the killer out of hiding. At first Cassie thinks the idea is crazy, but she is seduced by the prospect of working on a murder investigation again and by the idea of assuming the victim's identity as a graduate student with a cozy group of friends.

As she is drawn into Lexie's world, Cassie realizes that the girl's secrets run deeper than anyone imagined. Her friends are becoming suspicious, Sam has discovered a generations-old feud involving the old house the students live in, and Frank is starting to suspect that Cassie's growing emotional involvement could put the whole investigation at risk. Another gripping psychological thriller featuring the headstrong protagonist we've come to love, from an author who has proven that she can deliver.

My take

No review could ignore the fact that this is an extremely long book, and that it really took me about 10 days to read, which is a very long time for me.

Part of what makes the book so long is that we are given an immense amount of back-story for all the main characters. However I did feel that in one relationship at least, the one between Cassie and her former boyfriend Rob, we were not given enough back-story. I think we were meant to have remembered what happened in the first title IN THE WOODS, and that would have been fine if I had read THE LIKENESS while the earlier book was fresh in memory. As it was, I floundered.

The plot of THE LIKENESS is an intriguing one on two levels - first of all it is a murder investigation into the death of a girl who is calling herself Lexie Madison, an identity created by Cassie Maddox and her boss at the time Frank Mackey. Not only is she using that name, but she is the spitting image of Cassie herself.

The second intriguing plot line is the decision to plant Cassie as Lexie in the house where Lexie has been living with four other students from Trinity College. Cassie's under cover preparation is reminiscent of the preparation of a spy, and there remains the question of whether she will be strong enough and disciplined enough to carry out her assignment to find out who killed Lexie without becoming emotionally involved. There are bets on whether she will last. How long Cassie stays under cover will be determined by how quickly she solves the murder.

I found reading the book slow, but not particularly heavy, going. There is no doubt that it is well written. I just became impatient for the break to come. However the breakthrough comes and still the book doesn't end. I think the purpose of the final two chapters is to make the reader question whether we have actually got the story correct, and to send us back through the book to check aspects of the plot. This is not an easy thing to do on a Kindle, and my attention was a bit half-hearted towards the end.

My rating: 4.3

Other reviews to check

• Maxine Clarke at EuroCrime
• Dorte at DJ's Krimiblog
• The Book Whisperer

Other websites

• Penguin Reading Guide includes an interview with Tana French as when as discussion questions
• Read an excerpt on Tana French's website
• Reading Group Guides

Review: THE BURNING, Jane Casey

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 629 KB
• Print Length: 498 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0091936004
• Publisher: Ebury Digital (November 11, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0049U48F0
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

A serial killer who wants to watch you burn…
The media call him The Burning Man, a brutal murderer who has beaten four young women to death, before setting their bodies ablaze in secluded areas of London’s parks. And now the fifth victim has been found…

Maeve Kerrigan is an ambitious detective constable, keen to make her mark on the murder task force. Her male colleagues believe Maeve’s empathy makes her weak, but the more she learns about the latest victim, Rebecca Haworth, from her grieving friends and family, the more determined Maeve becomes to bring her murderer to justice.

But how do you catch a killer no one has seen? And when so much of the evidence they leave behind has gone up in smoke?

My Take

There are a number of things to talk about with THE BURNING.
First of all, it is Jane Casey's second novel in a series, and I'm regretful that I haven't read the first, although I wasn't aware of it being #2 while I was reading. [The first is titled THE MISSING]

DC Maeve Kerrigan is an interesting character whose position in the murder squad raises some issues related to the promotion of women into coveted positions.

'You’re Irish too, aren’t you? Paddies always get on.' 

'Great,' I said bleakly. My name was the giveaway – that and my wild hair, typically Irish, I’d been told. From the first day I walked through the door at Hendon, I’d been called Spud, or had to listen to jokes about how stupid the Irish were, or even fucking Riverdance, for God’s sake. It was all too petty to make a formal complaint, but it bothered me. I’d grown up in England – I had an English accent – but I still didn’t fit in and they made sure I knew it. I had been more than happy to live up to the reputation for having a fiery temper, but it got me in trouble and I was trying to keep it under control, so on this occasion I said nothing else.

Her male colleagues have their own opinion about her worth to the squad.

'Turns out a pretty face will only take you so far,' the other one commented. 'What’s that supposed to mean?' 'Nothing. Just that it’s harder for some people to get on to murder squads than it is for others.'

And she gets plenty of reminders that she is female:

After five years in the job, I had enough material for twenty sexual harassment cases if I had wanted to take them, but the constant innuendo never really bothered me.

We get an insight into the competitive nature of being a  member of the murder squad. Superintendent Godley, nicknamed 'God', is constantly pressing for results, and doesn't tolerate mistakes. Maeve is the only woman in the murder squad and she feels that she is constantly under scrutiny. Others are not backward in climbing the ladder at their colleague's expense.

The story of THE BURNING is told from a number of points of view. This technique means we often see an event from different angles. It also means that one of the narrators is unreliable and even reliable narrations are tinged with personal opinions.

I wouldn't yet put THE BURNING into the top drawer of police procedurals but Jane Casey is certainly an Irish author worth following.

My rating: 4.3

Other reviews to check:

• Bernadette at Reactions to Reading
• Maxine at Petrona

Review: THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin

Publisher: Pen Press, 2009
ISBN13: 978-1-906710-57-6
352 pages
Source: complimentary copy supplied by the author.

Blurb:

April in the Wicklow mountains and a young woman is found dead, seemingly sacrificed. Accompanying her body is Chapter One of The Rule Book – a self-help guide for prospective serial killers. The case is assigned to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and headed up by Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy. Since the recent death of his wife, McEvoy is a shadow of his former self – two stones lighter with a wardrobe of ill fitting suits, struggling to quit the cigarettes that killed his wife, and still getting used to being a single parent. Less than twenty four hours later a second murder is committed. Self-claiming the title ‘The Raven’, the killer starts to taunt the police and the media. When the third body is discovered it is clear that The Raven intends to slaughter one victim each day until The Rule Book is published in full. With the pressure from his superiors, the press, and politicians rising, McEvoy stumbles after a killer that is seemingly several steps ahead.

Is The Rule Book as definitive as The Raven claims?

My take:

This was a very ambitious first novel. So much action occurs in just 12 days, so much blood is shed, and from a writer's point of view, so many threads to be tracked, so many characters to be fleshed out. And for me, this is the best novel I've read so far this year.

I came to THE RULE BOOK having already met Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy in the second novel from Rob Kitchin, THE WHITE GALLOWS. The author took pity on me after I had reviewed the latter, and sent me a copy. My local library still doesn't have either. 

McEvoy is still grieving the death of his wife Maggie, trying to cope, not very successfully, with being a single parent, when the serial killer, whom the media will label The Raven, hits. The first scene of crime is a gruesome one - the victim appears to have willingly swallowed a sword - and they really don't get any better. As McEvoy pits his brain against that of The Raven the murders pile up, tempers fray. The media, hot on the heels of McEvoy's superiors, bays for blood. There is even a member of McEvoy's team who does his best to gain glory for himself at the expense of the team effort. The personal cost as McEvoy struggles on working 16-18 hour days is huge.

An excellent read, one you must add to your list.

Obtainable at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rule-Book-Rob-Kitchin/dp/1906710570/
http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Book-Rob-Kitchin/dp/1906710570/

My rating 5.0

Don't just take my word for it: check the reviews on the author's site.

My review of the next in the series:  THE WHITE GALLOWS

I'm counting THE RULE BOOK as my first book in the Ireland Reading Challenge