Book Roundup: Art of the thrill to be found, predictably, in the twist
L-R: Andrea Mara, Douglas Kennedy, Olivia Kiernan
You'd wonder whether they all start at the end, writers of thrillers, coming up with the killer (pun intended) twist first, and then working backward from there, like in the twistiest Inspector Morse, where at the finish poor John Thaw literally needed a blackboard to explain how he’d solved the case.
Read enough thrillers and you will unavoidably see formulas, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing; after all, in the right hands, the formula is only the delivery system to get you to the good stuff, and each of the five thrillers reviewed here is good, and some are very good.
Each of these novels, all of them written either by Irish authors, or, in one case, by an author with a lengthy attachment to Ireland, is worth the price of admission, and the time it takes to read, and more than one will stay with you after the last page.
is the fourth in Olivia Kiernan’s Frankie Sheehan series, the rights for which have just been purchased Freedom Films and actor and producer Victoria Smurfit.
The Murder Box has a fantastic premise. TV personality Teddy Dolan has been missing for a month, and, lacking leads, Detective Chief Superintendent Sheehan’s high-profile investigation is becalmed. When a murder mystery game arrives at her office in Dublin’s Bureau for Serious Crime, Frankie initially thinks it a birthday present from an anonymous colleague, but the game’s disturbingly realistic contents soon reveal unsettling similarities to another missing person, 22-year-old Lydia Callin.
When a link between Dolan and Callin becomes apparent, and a series of horrific crimes connected to the game occurs across the city, Frankie soon finds herself drawn into an online group of gamers who may or may not realise that the game is real, even as she races against time to find a murderer.
This is a brilliant read, and if The Murder Box is anything to go by, Victoria Smurfit’s investment seems like money well-spent.
is Martina Murphy’s 21st novel, and it shows. She writes with confidence and efficiency as she tells a gripping and well-written story with believable and rounded characters.
Detective Sergeant Lucy Golden is assigned to a murder case on her native Achill Island, investigating the killing of Lisa Moran, a popular local teacher. A decade earlier, DS Golden’s husband was jailed for fraud, and now she raises their teenaged son alone. She sees this case as a chance for redemption, but when another body is found, will she be able to find the killer before they strike again?
One possible complaint is that the threading of Golden’s backstory through the novel in broad strokes might leave some readers wondering whether they have missed out on earlier instalments of a series, but this is Lucy Golden’s first appearance.
Hopefully it won’t be her last.
American author Douglas Kennedy has already shifted some 15 million books, and with the former long-time Irish resident will likely add a few more units to that tally, even if approximately one third of the Irish electorate might find this novel distasteful. (Declaration of interest: this reviewer campaigned for the repeal of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment.) Brendan is a former salesman, downsized now to the only work Los Angeles will offer a man of six decades, that of an Uber driver, a barely sustainable, soul-destroying job where his future livelihood is perpetually at the mercy of the next passenger.
An Uber fare, Elise – a retired professor – brings Brendan to an abortion clinic just as a fanatic attacks with fatal results. Brendan’s ensuing friendship with Elise up-scuttles every certainty in his life, costing him in family and friendship, and it sets him on a path he – if not the reader – could never have predicted.
Kennedy could never be accused of subtlety on the issue of abortion, and some of his characterisations of those who oppose freedom of choice are cartoonish. One particular outcome in the novel’s denouement gives every impression of having been typed whilst using a sledgehammer.
Still, with the state of Texas now enacting what is an effective ban on abortion, while encouraging citizens to police that ban, Kennedy’s novel – despite any shortcomings - could hardly be timelier.
is Cork-born Siobhán MacDonald’s fourth novel.
On a winter’s night in Kylebeggan, a heritage town in Kerry, a woman is murdered in her bedroom, and laid out in her wedding gown. Soon, another woman is found murdered in her home, also laid out in her wedding dress. Weeks later, taxi driver Ellie Gillespie picks up a fare, three young women on a hen night, one of them the bride-to-be.
The following afternoon, Ellie is shocked to hear her passenger has also been found murdered. As Kylebeggan’s mayor and gardaí try desperately to tamp down talk of a serial killer on the prowl in the tourist town, Ellie finds herself working with local reporter Cormac Scully as they try to find the Bride Collector before another woman dies.
Without indulging in spoilers, an important character here is cliched, to this reader unconvincingly so, and some might say offensively, which is a pity, as the story deserved better. Still, as page-turners go, The Bride Collector works just fine, and it is often intense – there is a genuinely terrifying moment involving one vulnerable character - and, with one exception, the characters are nicely drawn, and the plot fairly zips along.
The elevator pitch for , Andrea Mara’s fourth novel, (Bantam Press, €12.99,) would be “every parent’s nightmare”, and it’s hard to avoid that cliché.
When Marissa Irvine rings the doorbell of 14 Tudor Grove, she expects to collect her little son Milo from a playdate arranged by text with – apparently - another mother at Milo’s new school, but the woman who answers the door has no idea what Marissa is talking about, and Marissa’s world comes crashing down around her when she realises that Milo has been abducted.
Marissa and her husband are prosperous, good-looking, tasteful people, and Ross and Sorcha O’Carroll-Kelly would feel very much at home in their affluent South Dublin neighbourhood. Even as Marissa is desperately trying to find her son, she is soon judged by all around for her failings. The comments on the (barely-fictionalised) TheDailyByte.ie news-site are exactly as poisonous and moronic as you would expect.
And, if it’s twists you like, well, I’ve said too much, but this is a book which would probably reward a second reading, perhaps a few months later, when the details have faded a little from memory. It’s really that good.
Each of these novels creates a good sense of place, with The Bride Collector nicely portraying a tourist town (metaphorically) halfway between Kenmare and Killarney, and The Night Caller is a love-letter to Achill, wild and windswept, and you can almost smell the salt air as you turn the pages. In Afraid of the Light, Douglas Kennedy portrays Los Angeles as grim, unrelenting and soulless, in other words, completely accurately.
In The Murder Box, Frankie Sheehan’s swanky Grafton Street apartment suggests Olivia Kiernan always had an eye to the TV adaptation, while All Her Fault perfectly recreates every leafy, well-to-do and unforgiving Dublin suburb.
Despite the differences between the books reviewed here, the formula is the formula, and the destination is ultimately the destination, predictably or otherwise, but it’s the journey that matters, and if the writer is worth their salt, the good stuff is in the reading.
Each of these thrillers is worth a read, and some well worth it, even if Inspector Morse might well find it hard to shake the suspicion that thriller writers probably do all think of the twist first and work backwards from the end.
