Book review: Action in no short supply in Cork crime writer Amy Cronin's debut

"It is no surprise that much later in the story, the narrator reckons that Cork has become the setting for a gangland movie as the body count rises"

Tue, 19 Apr, 2022 - 21:30

Liam Heylin

Blinding Lies
Amy Cronin
Poolbeg Crimson, €14.99

Action and storylines are not in short supply in the debut of Cork-based crime writer Amy Cronin.

In the opening line, we’re given a picture of a man being shot in the neck. It is no surprise that much later in the story, the narrator reckons that Cork has become the setting for a gangland movie as the body count rises.

Themes of domestic violence are to the fore in the first storyline as it is clear that the man with the bullet through his windpipe has coercively controlled his partner and she has fled from him. The cudgels of this battle are picked up by her sister who comes up with the final solution to protect her twin.

Then there are missing diamonds and a mysterious memory stick with information that is getting a lot of people killed. The fictional Cork crime family are the Gallaghers and as we get to meet them, they are under savage pressure. One of the young men in the family is the chap who is murdered in the opening line. Elsewhere his brother is tortured and mutilated to give up information that he doesn’t have. The henchmen protecting the Gallagher home don’t fare too well either.

And then there is another family of German criminals who have fallen out with the Gallaghers over the missing memory stick. So, as if there isn’t enough going on in Cork city with its home-grown heroes of criminality, the Germans are coming now.

Locally, there is a sexual predator on the loose and a big international conference that might just be the target of criminal interest. The fictional Lee Street garda station is alive with all of these investigations and perhaps the station could do with a little scrutiny of its own.

The reader’s focal point for these disparate narratives is Anna Clarke a clerical assistant to gardaí at Lee Street. Her own backstory is the loss of her parents when she was a child. Their crashed car was located but they were never found.

The book does its bit to topple the patriarchy from Anna’s lowly administrative position as her curiosity and considerable investigative nous get to the heart of matters. She soldiers on in the face of derisive ‘Nancy Drew’ jibes from some unfriendly senior figures in the station. But unsurprisingly, Anna will overcome.

While the stories coming thick and fast make it a page-turner, we don’t get enough depth of character to feel for them as they are moved about in what is fairly orthodox crime novel fare. Less would definitely have made more. A smaller number of stories would allow for the writer to put more time into building up the credibility, sympathy, suspense, and tension. One of the most underwritten ‘characters’ in the book is Cork itself. Fair enough that the garda station is fictionalised but the city never makes its presence felt and feels generic – as if the story had to be set someplace so it might as well be Cork.

The truth of Anna’s troubled backstory revealed in the closing pages feels like it has strayed in from another novel and it requires quite the suspension of disbelief.

The publisher indicates that this is the opener in a trilogy. As things stand, she has debuted with a page-turner that has a whole lot going on. A smaller number of more developed storylines could allow the writer to cut deeper and for us to care more for her characters on her next outing.

And as for Cork, let’s be having it, like.