Even Dogs in the Wild le Ian Rankin
You can’t keep a career cop down, and retirement definitely doesn’t suit Edinburgh’s finest – John Rebus. So when DI Siobhan Clarke – his longtime colleague – gets in touch to ask for his help with a case involving his nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty, Rebus is only too happy to come on board. Clarke’s investigation initially centered around the death of a senior lawyer whose body was found along with a threatening note. Now Cafferty has received an identical note, and a bullet through the window of his house. But the police team are stumped as to what connects the two men. When a turf war breaks out between two rival gangs, another layer of complexity is added to the case. Rankin does Rebus, and Edinburgh, very, very well, so it’s to be hoped that he can keep the former Detective Inspector supplied with many more consultancy cases.
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Hopscotch: A Memoir le Hilary Fannin
If you’re looking to banish January blues, you could do a lot worse than this beautifully written memoir by playwright and Irish Times columnist Hilary Fannin. You’ll be hard-pushed to stop smiling as she recounts her compelling story, told in the voice of a child but with the adult’s knowing laced subtly throughout. Her father’s fecklessness and her mother’s frustration are sketched all too incisively, as is their seeming insouciance when it comes to the education of their older children. As the baby of the family, by a long mile, Fannin – or Billy as she was affectionately known – was closer to her father, but this brought its own particular set of problems. Too young to join in her siblings’ pursuits, she nevertheless had a bird’s eye view of the goings-on in the family and this is an extraordinarily frank and honest memoir. Credit is due to her family for not objecting. If you’re a fan of memoirs which read like fiction – in the vein of Jeanette Walls’ excellent The Glass Castle – this is definitely the one you’ve been waiting for, and a brilliant start to the reading year.
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The Silent Dead le Claire McGowan
Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire doesn’t necessarily do stomping around crime scenes, but at almost nine months pregnant, and dealing with a particularly horrendous series of murders, she can be forgiven for the odd stomp. Five suspected bombers responsible for an Omagh-like atrocity have gone missing in or around the fictional town of Ballyterrin (modeled on McGowan’s native Newry), and when bodies start to show up – each murdered in a more gruesome way than the one before – McGowan realizes that police investigators are working against the clock in a bid to save some of the condemned. She is also wrestling with her feelings about her father’s remarriage, and the fact that her mother’s disappearance some 20 years ago may now have some sectarian link. This is a series that just keeps getting better, and book four is due out in a few months, which is great news for fans of her writing.
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City on Fire le Garth Risk Hallberg
Be prepared for some serious wrist strain if you take this behemoth on – it clocks in at just over 900 pages. And, to be fair, it’s a doorstopper of a novel that, while very worthy, may not be engaging enough for most readers to invest the necessary amount of time. Set in New York in the mid-1970s, but spanning back and forth through the years depending on the particular character involved, City on Fire tells the story of a bunch of Bohemian young misfits, heads filled with the desire to restore the natural order. It is, more than anything else, a love song dedicated to New York City, and there is much to admire about Hallberg’s writing. William and Regan are heirs to the Hamilton-Sweeney dynasty, but both are messed up in the way only rich kids can be – too much of everything except genuine human connections. William’s lover Mercer is the king of reinvention, but even this is not enough to save their relationship. And a shooting, on New Year’s Eve, brings multiple other characters together – all of whom are hurting in their own individual way. This reader found it the perfect Christmas read.
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Sonraí
Darina Molloy, Lárleabharlann Chaisleán an Bharraigh, Bóthar Sheáin Uí Mhóra, Caisleán an Bharraigh, Co. Mhaigh Eo. Rphost: dmolloy@mayococo.ie Teil: +353 (0)94 9047953
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