Review: The Ghosts of Galway

The Ghosts of Galway by Ken Bruen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“It’s not that the Irish are cynical. It’s simply that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.” – Brendan Behan

Jack Taylor returns in “The Ghosts of Galway” with the “lack of respect” to which author Ken Bruen alludes in his Behan quote, but also with a healthy dose of cynicism. The all-weather Garda coat and the hurley return too along with “newish 501s, and the scuffed Doc Martins. You never knew when you might need to kick someone in the face.” And, as always, kicking is only the beginning of the violence meted out, and suffered, by Jack as the story proceeds and he deals with a strangely named Ukrainian; a Ron Hubbard wannabe and his enforcers; dead animals being dumped in Eyre Square; a girl with an imaginary brother; his former best friend, and now sworn enemy, Garda Ridge; and, most troubling, the return of “Emily and her diffuse weirdness” who made Taylor’s life such a “Green Hell” in his last outing. As Jack muses,

“…a thriller writer would throw out all these strands and then, presto, wrap them all up with a rugged hero, battered but unbowed, heading into an award-winning future.”

Of course, Jack Taylor, often battered, is not the traditional ‘rugged hero’ but then Ken Bruen is anything but a typical ‘thriller writer’…. There really is nothing like a Ken Bruen novel – the lyrical, poetic prose; the wry commentaries on current affairs (this time the 2016 deaths of musical heroes, the rise of Trump and Brexit; water charges…); the humour in the darkest of dark noir; the unique way he uses language, not only in the words he chooses to use but also
The
Way
Bruen
Puts
Words
On
The
Page
No other novels read like Ken Bruen’s. Brutal realism collides with stream of consciousness surrealism, commentary on the Kardasians with extreme bloody violence. The dialogue is rhythmic and musical… And profane.

For avenging angel Jack Taylor there is little redemption but, for the reader, there are few experiences to rival these books. I couldn’t put this down. Said,
“I can’t put this down.”

Unfortunately, it was over far too quickly.

“The Ghosts of Galway” is not published until November and I thank Mysterious Press and NetGalley for the early review copy and look forward to doing it all again on publication date.


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Review: Bloodstream

Bloodstream by Luca Veste
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first Luca Veste and I enjoyed it. Yes it is a little clichéd and a little ITV Crime Drama-like but Veste is very readable and his Murphy and Rossi team are likeable. The plot concerns the murder of a Liverpool-based celebrity couple and the subsequent investigation which reveals the existence of a serial killer targeting couples who have been keeping secrets from each other. It is a competent police procedural which has something to say about the way social media and the tabloid press exploit both celebrity and victims of crime. Veste could perhaps have explored this aspect of his story more but there was enough here to make me read more of the series and, on Whispersync, John Keeble's Liverpudlian narration really captured the Scouse wit.

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Review: A Dark So Deadly

A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Welcome to Mother’s Misfit Mob”

Stuart McBride’s new novel, “A Dark So Deadly”, is a standalone, separate from his Logan McCrae or Ash Henderson series although set in the same fictional town of Oldcastle as the latter. DC Callum MacGregor has ended up on a squad of police officers that no-one else wants, suspected of contaminating a crime scene but without enough evidence to have him sacked. His fellow ‘Misfits’ are similarly tainted and together they have been side-lined, unlikely to see a decent case again. When a mummified body is found in a landfill site the team are tasked with ringing round museums to find out from where it has been stolen. Then the discovery of another mummy and some strange post-mortem results suggests that the bodies are not in fact centuries old but the result of more recent experiments and that the Misfit Mob has a serial killer on their hands.

The novel is full of McBride’s usual dark humour and some characteristically Scottish descriptive terms.

“The old station house in Castleview had a weird sour coconutty smell, as if it’d got blootered on Malibu the night before and vomited all over itself. Maybe the Security Monitoring and Analysis Department liked to lube themselves up with suntan lotion of a Saturday morning?”

Initially like a dysfunctional family, we see the Misfit’s pull together as the strange case develops. Callum, who because of events in his childhood has little sense of self-worth, proves to be a capable investigator, even as his personal life gets messier. The characters, fr all their issues, become real and likeable.

In the background of the investigation is a music festival and the narrative is accompanied in places by a cheesy radio DJ advertising the event. McBride has great fun capturing the inanity of such local radio personalities as he does with the band names of those appearing at the concert – new album from ‘Overture for a Riot’ anyone?

This is a long book for a police procedural but the story rattles along. There are a few missteps – I could have done with less bad poetry from what was otherwise a really interesting character; there are a few convenient coincidences – but the book is thrilling, scary in places and very, very entertaining. I hope we see more of the Misfits and that this ‘standalone’ is the start of a new series.

I thank NetGalley and HarperCollins for the advance copy.


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Review: A Game of Ghosts

A Game of Ghosts by John Connolly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

John Connolly is currently one of the best writers, and the Charlie Parker novels one of the best series, in any genre. In what genre these books sit is debatable; they are thrillers, detective stories, mysteries, horror stories. What is not debatable is that Connolly writes poetic, lyrical, haunting prose and dialogue which compares favourably with Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald or Elmore Leonard.

If you know these books, you know just how rewarding, if disturbing, an experience each addition to the series is. If you don't, then put down what you're reading and pick up 'Every Dead Thing', the first Parker novel.

'A Game of Ghosts' is the 15th in the Parker series. It is not a jumping on point. The books really need to be read in order and to do so is one of the most intense and satisfying journeys in modern fiction.

I envy you....

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Review: Bloodstorm

Bloodstorm by Sam Millar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this. I didn't hate it; I just didn't love it. "Bloodstorm" is a Private Detective novel set in Belfast; I am from Northern Ireland and I love PI books. When we met it should have been murder....

The idea is a good one - take a traditional, hard-boiled, wise-cracking gumshoe and put him on the mean streets of post-troubles Belfast. Unfortunately, this could be set anywhere, Belfast never becomes a character, there is no sense of uniqueness of setting and, worst of all, people just don't speak like that, not least the people of Belfast. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural for the most part; there is no rhythm to it and in key scenes is reads like poor actors reading a laboured, expositional script.

As I said, I didn't hate it. There is a decent plot although it would benefit from a good editor; sections could have been streamlined or left out altogether, wild dogs become confused with wild pigs (both appear on Belfast's Cavehill at times in the novel), and, while I love Billie Holiday, her voice was anything but 'flawless'. I may pick up other work by Millar. His bio certainly suggests that he should have an authentic voice but it just doesn't come through in "Bloodstorm"...

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Review: Behind Her Eyes

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

#WTFthatending

“A tenner says you’ll never guess this ending”

When the promotion for a book emphasises the ending so strongly, more strongly in this case than any I have come across before, the ending becomes the focus, the thing by which the story's success is measured. I would not have won the tenner and the conclusion certainly was #WTF but unfortunately not in a good way.

'Behind Her Eyes' is a well constructed psychological thriller, a story of martial infidelity narrated by two women who may not be what they tell us they are. The narrative moves quickly, the characters are compelling and the dialogue is good. But the twist.... The ending is so out of context, although there are clues that here is something strange going on below the surface, that, when I realised where this was going, I was completely thrown out of the story.

So, despite its merits, when the publicity concentrates on an ending that, for me, is unsuccessful, I have to judge the book accordingly.

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Review: Before the Fall

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stopped reading the X-men about the same time as Charles Xavier's son, Legion turned up. I didn't like the character and although I've watched the movies, I didn't think much of Apocalypse. So I was surprised when, having watched the first episode almost by accident, I was blown away by the Legion TV series. Even more so when I discovered the series was written and created by Noah Hawley and that he is also behind the Fargo series, another I had avoided simply because I enjoyed the movie so much. And then, courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley, I received a review copy of the same Noah Hawley's Before the Fall. Synchronicity...?

Before the Fall is the story of Scott Burroughs, a down on his lunch artist, who accepts an invitation to travel by private jet from Martha's Vineyard to New York. When the jet crashes into the sea all but Scott and the jet-owners' four year old son are killed. Scott becomes part of, perhaps subject of, the investigation and is pursued by news agencies eager for the story. That is essentially the plot. A large part of the narrative is the backstories of the passengers - the 24-hour news mogul and his wife, the dodgy businessman, the bodyguard, the flightcrew - and how they came to be on board the doomed plane.

But plot is not what Before the Fall is about. The novel is an exquisitely written examination of life in the 21st century; what it means to be living in a society where news has to have an 'angle', where so many people base their world view on 'what's in it for me' that it becomes impossible to comprehend that someone may just act rather than act selfishly. It is in the passengers individual stories, the little connections, the seemingly unrelated choices, that lead to larger consequences, where the real weight of the book, the message, is contained -

"Life is a series of decisions and reactions. It is the things you do and the things that are done to you."

Noah Hawley has a real gift for language, an ear for dialogue. Whole passages deserve re-reading, the reader's appreciation of the lyrical, mesmerising quality of the writing only grows. I will be going back to watch Fargo and The Good Father is on my to-read list and i might have missed it all had I not read the X-men....

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Review: The Blade Itself

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have always struggled a bit with Fantasy novels. As a pre-teen I discovered Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian by way of Marvel's Roy Thomas and John Buscema and proceeded to read everything I could find. I to see the Arnie movie version two nights in a row. But I couldn't get to grips with Tolkien and, although I later read and enjoyed the Lord of the Rings, it is still somewhat po-faced and humourless, not to mention full of irritating diversions with the likes of Tom Bombadil. Game of Thrones was a revelation and, after watching the first episode of the TV series, I read the first volume of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' in a week and quickly caught up with the those who had been reading the books for ten years.

GRRM also inspired Joe Abercrombie to begin his First Law saga, and it is a saga, a return to the days when Fantasy was still called Sword & Sorcery. It has barbarian heroes (at least I think they are heroes), powerful wizards, women who can hold their own with the men, politics, warmongering and generally a lot of strange goings on. But just as importantly, 'The Blade Itself' has a sense of humour and a huge amount of fun. It was the humour in Howard's work that kept me reading Conan's adventures and it is the playfulness in Abercrombie's writing that will keep me coming back. His cast may be archetypes but they are written as real people, three dimensional characters with understandable, if sometimes contradictory, motivations, not a few faults and insecurities. We have Logen Ninefingers, the Bloody Nine, the Conan character, a legendary but tired killer who questions his black legacy and whose berserker rages are ferocious; Jezal dan Luthar, a nobleman whose snobbery forms his world view and who may be really out of his depth; and Bayaz, First of the Magi, a possibly centuries old wizard, whose sardonic wit is a source of much of the early humour in the book.

Abercrombie has a real talent for naturalistic dialogue, profanity and bloodshed. 'The Blade Itself' is very entertaining; I loved it and the second book in the series has just moved up a few places in my 'to-read' list....

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The Missing by Chris Mooney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have never been a huge fan of the serial killer sub-genre; I love Thomas Harris's 'Silence of the Lambs' and consider the predecessor, 'Red Dragon', a masterpiece. And the movies made from these novels are classics (I am including Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' here, not the Anthony Hopkins 'Red Dragon') as is Fincher's 'Seven'. However, aside from these, and very few others, and perhaps because of the success of 'Seven', it seems that every serial killer novel has to have a fiendish villain who meticulously lays out his victims in biblical tableaux, or in the styles of the great artists, or in tribute to classic 'Friends' episodes - actually that's not a bad idea, "The One with the Missing Limbs".

Chris Mooney is an author I had never come across and, though drawn by endorsements from Michael Connelly, George P. Pelecanos and, especially, John Connolly, I approached the first Darby McCormick novel with some trepidation. I am glad I did.

The book is well-written and Mooney has a talent for description and an ear for dialogue. The plot follows Darby, whose teenage encounter with a killer and survivor's guilt, has led her to a career as a CSI. The book speeds along with some genuinely tense and frightening sequences. Darby is an interesting protagonist and the bulk of the story is hers with visits into the head of the killer used sparingly and in short scenes to keep the suspense level just right. There a couple of twists which, in less capable hands, could have fallen into the clichés of the genre but which Mooney makes work. I enjoyed 'The Missing' a lot and look forward to the rest of the series, although I will still be wary that, should Darby McCormick stumble from one serial killer to another, Mooney may struggle to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

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Blood Tide by Claire McGowan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aside from one short story, this is the first time I have read Claire McGowan (courtesy of Headline and NetGalley) and, despite it being the fifth book in the Paula Maguire series, I had no difficulty in picking up the story. Maguire, a Forensic Psychologist and missing persons expert, is sent to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland to aid in the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of an English husband and wife. Bone Island resonates with Paula as this was the last place she holidayed with her parents before her mother's equally mysterious disappearance over 20 years before. Wife of a Roman Catholic RUC officer in Northern Ireland, Margaret Maguire was assumed to be among 'the disappeared', victims of IRA killings, presumed 'touts', buried in secret, but Paula has recently discovered a note left by her mother which suggests that she may have left voluntarily.

The two threads run in parallel as Paula discovers that the couple's disappearance is only the latest in a series of strange occurrences on the island while we also discover in flashback that an ex-colleague of her father's may have more knowledge of Margaret's fate than he has ever revealed. Some of the missing couple's life on the island, including some suspicions about the local seaweed processing plant, are revealed through the words of the wife, Fiona, the local GP of whom many of the islanders appear wary.

Claire McGowan is excellent at creating suspense and generating a feeling of unease. What appears initially to be a police procedural takes a left turn into almost gothic horror but never becomes unbelievable. She is also good at dialogue, realistically capturing the differences between the Northern and Southern Irish voices. My only criticism is that one or twice things are revealed to the main character and artificially withheld slightly longer from the reader to try and increase the tension - the story does not need this. Paula's messy personal life and her mother's arc are obviously series storylines and I look forward to both going back to the start of the series and finding out what happens next....

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Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite having listened to Elvis Costello’s music since 1977, following his career from his early angry, spiky New Wave recordings with The Attractions, through the country songs of ‘Almost Blue’ and later collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Paul McCartney, knowing he is married to Diana Krall, when I think of Costello it is still the skinny, snarling young man spitting cynical lyrics from behind a Fender Jazzmaster that I picture. Only when you list the artists that Costello has written, recorded and performed with - Attractions, Imposters, Nick Lowe, Specials, Daryl Hall, Diana Krall, Ray Brown, Chet Baker, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Ann Sofie Mutter, Brodsky Quartet, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Burt Bacharach ,Bill Frizzell, Allen Toussaint, George Jones, James Burton, Jerry Scheff, T-Bone Burnett, Paul McCartney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Wyatt, London Symphony Orchestra, The Roots - do you appreciate the breadth of his music and the impact he has had on the musical landscape of the last 40 years.

In ‘Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink’, written without ghostwriters and narrated in the audiobook version by the author himself, Elvis Costello tells of this perhaps unlikely journey and his experiences along the way. It is not a traditional chronological autobiography - “I was born in Paddington in 1954….” - rather a series of themed chapters dealing with particular aspects of his love of music. Costello is candid about his personal life but these stories are told in context and always framed by the music. The music is the most important character in this book. We learn about his grandfather, a White Star Line trumpet player, and his father, the big-band singer, Ross McManus, through Costello’s reflections on the life of a musician on the road. His chapters on, for instance, Allen Toussaint and Burt Bacharach concentrate on these collaborations across several years.

Costello, as anyone who has listened to his lyrics will know, is a natural storyteller and his stories here are frank and honest, as when he talks of his drinking and his marriage failures, but also comical like the unlikely sounding story of how he and Solomon Burke stood in a corridor outside Aretha Franklin’s dressing room hoping to speak with her only to have the Queen of Soul fling the door open and snap their picture with a disposable camera, or he and Bob Dylan accidentally locking themselves out of a concert hall and having to make their way back through queuing fans.

This is a big book but it rattles along. It is almost liking sitting with Costello as he relates a series of “Did I ever tell you about the time…” stories, illustrating points by quoting song lyrics, both illuminating their meaning and sending you back to the recordings. I began this book as an Elvis Costello fan, albeit intermittently over the last 10 or 15 years. I finished it with an increased admiration for, and appreciation of, one of the most singular talents of the last 40.
____

Link to Costello speaking about the book on November 3, 2015 as part of the 26th annual Chicago Humanities Festival - https://youtu.be/_wVjxAN8j-8

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