Killer Words: An event and books by Anthony J. Quinn, Declan Burke and Andrea Carter

Less than an hour from now the event featured in this image will start, and I will be attending. In preparation, I read and reviewed one book by each of the featured authors.

The Blood Dimmed Tide by Anthony Quinn

Publisher: No Exit Press

255 pages

Historical Mystery

Blurb

London at the dawn of 1918 and Ireland's most famous literary figure, W.B. Yeats, is immersed in supernatural investigations at his Bloomsbury rooms.

Haunted by the restless spirit of an Irish girl whose body is mysteriously washed ashore in a coffin, Yeats undertakes a perilous journey back to Ireland with his apprentice ghost-catcher Charles Adams to piece together the killer's identity.

Surrounded by spies, occultists, and diehard female rebels, the two are led on a gripping journey along Ireland's wild Atlantic coast, through the ruins of its abandoned estates, and into its darkest, most haunted corners.

Falling under the spell of dark forces, Yeats and his ghost-catcher come dangerously close to crossing the invisible line that divides the living from the dead.

Review

It’s been a while since I read a mystery. As you may have noticed, I’ve been all about (MM) romance recently. But, crime was my preferred genre for a very long time and I have to admit it was good making a return, even if I’m not exactly sure what I think about this book.

I wanted to read a book by Anthony Quinn who is, for a few more weeks, the writer in residence in County Cavan where I live, and the blurb of The Blood Dimmed Tide intrigued me. A mystery featuring WB Yeats and Maud Gonne among a host of others, was too fascinating for me to ignore. Throw in ghosts, spies, occultists, smugglers, and Irish rebels too and you have my full attention.

But, as I said, now that I have finished the book, I’m not 100% sure what I think. Yes, the story was gripping and action as well as intrigue-filled, but almost too much so. This book was almost an embarrassment of riches—too much of a good thing. All the individual strands of this book would have made for a perfect story on their own. Ireland in the aftermath of the Easter Rising is a fascinating setting. WB Yeats and Maud Gonne are intriguing (historical) characters. The combination of spies, dubious law-enforcers, and smugglers makes a gripping read almost unavoidable. But, all of these thrown together didn’t quite work for me.

For starters there’s the fact that while the blurb suggests that this is an investigation into the death of a young woman led by WB Yeats, the truth is that the real main character in this book is Charles Adams, the younger man Yeats choses to unravel the mystery. Yeats, no matter how compelling, was little more than a strong secondary character. And the same is true for Maud. Not that Charles Adams was disappointing as a lead, far from it. He was an inspired combination of searching for facts while investigating what appears to be a supernatural mystery.

As for that mystery; I had it figured out pretty much from the start and my ongoing fascination with the story had less to do with the whodunnit and why then with the setting and the historical figures appearing in it. But I can’t help feeling that the unravelling of what had happened would have made more sense if there had been less other eye-catching events and characters.

Having said all of that, there is one thing in which this book succeeds very well and that is displaying the confused and threatening atmosphere shortly after the fateful events in Dublin over Easter. People have to pick sides and nobody is sure who can and can’t be trusted, a dilemma that’s perfectly symbolised by yet another side character, whom I won’t name for exactly that reason. All of which leads me to think that maybe I should give the author the benefit of the doubt and conclude that the at times frantic and confusion succession of events in the story was intentional and a reflection of the chaos ruling the setting of this tale.

Overall this was an easy read that held my attention and kept me turning the pages. In fact, despite my various reservations, I’m delighted to see this is supposed to be the first book in a three-part series and I will definitely look for those two sequels.

Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke

Publisher: Liberties Press

238 pages

Blurb

Absolute Zero Cool is a post-modern take on the crime thriller genre.

Adrift in the half-life limbo of an unpublished novel, hospital porter Billy needs to up the stakes. Euthanasia simply isn’t shocking anymore; would blowing up his hospital be enough to see Billy published, or be damned?

What follows is a gripping tale that subverts the crime genre’s grand tradition of liberal sadism, a novel that both excites and disturbs in equal measure.

Absolute Zero Cool is not only an example of Irish crime writing at its best; it is an innovative, self-reflexive piece that turns every convention of crime fiction on its head.

Declan Burke’s latest book is an imaginative story that explores the human mind’s ability to both create and destroy, with equally devastating effects.

Review

(From 2011)

Wow! I know I’ve said it before, but this is most definitely a book unlike any I’ve read in the past. I’m not even sure if I will be able to describe the plot in a way that makes sense to those who haven’t read the book, but I will try.

An author, on a retreat to finish a book he is working on finds himself confronted by Billy Karlsson, a character from a previous, unfinished novel. In that story Billy is a hospital porter who occasionally helps people who wish to die, but finds himself in trouble when his girlfriend finds out. For five years now Billy’s story has been on hold and as a result, so has Billy’s life.

Now Billy is taken things into his own hands. He has meetings with his creator, offers to write parts of the story himself and introduces a massive twist to the old plot. Just killing sick old people who wish to die isn’t enough anymore. A bigger statement is needed and therefore Billy plans to blow up the hospital where he works.

As the author and his character start to work together on reviving the old story the question is; can the creator stop his creation from inflicting death and destruction, or is he somehow complicit in the planned attack.

This is a truly original story. The lines between the stories told by the author and those narrated by his character become ever more blurred as the drama unfolds. Who is leading who? Who is the actual creator and who is the one following along? What is real, and what is fiction? All questions the reader is faced with, and for a very long time there don’t appear to be any clear cut answers.

All the blurbs about this book describe it as being “laugh-out-loud funny”, “full of the blackest humour” and “outrageously funny”. I however, didn’t get the humour in this book. I found the story to be original, disturbing, thought-provoking and inventive. I also think the book would make a wonderful subject for a book club discussion since there are so many angles to this story. I just don’t think my Dutch sense of humour was up to this Irish form of black comedy.

I was thoroughly impressed by the writing style though, the use of words and themes in this story and the way in which the author kept me hooked to a story I wasn’t entirely sure I liked.

All in all a very intriguing reading experience.

The Well of Ice by Andrea Carter

An Inishowen Mystery #3

Publisher: Little Brown

329 pages

Blurb

December in Glendara, Inishowen, and solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is working flat out before the holidays. But on a trip to Dublin to visit her parents, she runs into Luke Kirby - the man who killed her sister - freshly released from jail. On the surface he appears remorseful, conciliatory even, but his comment as she walks away makes her realise he is as foul as ever.

Back in Glendara, there is chaos. The Oak pub has burned down and Carole Kearney, the Oak's barmaid, has gone missing. And then, while walking the dog up Sliabh Sneacht, Ben and her partner, Sergeant Tom Molloy, make a gruesome discovery: a body lying face down in the snow.

Who is behind this vicious attack on Glendara and its residents? Ben tries to find answers, but is she the one in danger?

Review

In my last-minute quest to read books by all three of the authors taking part in the crime-writing event in Cootehill library, I plucked The Well of Ice off the fiction shelves simply because it was the only Andrea Carter title available at the time. How fortuitus that it turned out to be a book set during the lead up to and over Christmas, the dates almost coinciding with real-time.

The Well of Ice is the third Inishowen mystery and although a large part of the story pulls heavily on events that happened in Ben O’Keeffe’s past, I can honestly say this book can be read and thoroughly enjoyed without knowledge of the prior books.

First things first. Benedicta ‘Ben’ O’Keeffe is a solicitor in Glendara, Inishowen, a place she moved to after traumatic events which took place about a decade earlier. She is in a mostly secret and fairly new relationship with Tom Molloy, the local garda Seargeant, although she can’t help feeling something isn’t quite right there. When the local pub burns down, the barmaid disappears and subsequently a corpse turns up, Ben can’t help herself and starts investigating. By the time she realises how deeply she herself is involved in what’s happening to her small town, it may well be too late.

This turned out to be exactly the kind of mystery I enjoy; one set in a relatively small community where people think they know each other but turn out to have secrets nobody could have guessed at. There are a host of possible suspects, quite a few complicated and, if I’m honest at times confusing, connections between the various characters and an explosive (pun intended) conclusion. I had one day to read this book if I wanted to finish it before the library event, and having to keep on turning the pages to make my self-imposed deadline was no hardship—quite the opposite in fact.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite there being one or two WTF moments; things that probably made sense as far as pacing was concerned, but not from a logical point of view. I’m also not a huge fan of the ‘will they, won’t they’ dynamic between the two protagonists that appears to be all too common in mystery and thriller series. But, neither of those reservations put a significant dent in the captivating power of this story and it’s safe to say that I will be picking up the next book in this series when it releases/hits the library shelves.