Book review: Dangerous cat-and-mouse game
Dervla McTiernan is the author of the Cormac Reilly series and two other standalone thrillers.
- Three Reasons for Revenge
- Dervla McTiernan
- HarperFiction, €16.99
is about loss, family, the long-term effects of abuse and, of course, revenge. It has a twisty plot, with a simple premise.
Three attractively wrapped packages are delivered anonymously via courier to three very different people.
Each one contains an item that could blow the recipient’s life apart.
When the novel opens we learn that Detective Sergeant Judith Lee is responsible for the arrest of a corrupt colleague, who happens to be the son of the Assistant Commissioner of police.
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She knows she has done the right thing but in doing so has threatened her own career as Rocky, a colleague who is a father figure in her life, warns her.
She is distracted from her personal concerns when a young woman called Alexis asks for Judith by name.
She wants to report how she was referred to Robert Walker, a well-known psychologist, who assaulted her by touching her inappropriately.
Judith goes to see Walker and seems to be quite hostile towards him which, at first, the reader doesn’t understand.
What follows is that, when Judith tries to interview Alexis again, she cannot find her. She has given a false name and address and has vanished.
The first to receive a mysterious parcel is Robert Walker, the psychologist Judith is investigating. The second is a single father, and the third is a friend of Judith’s.
What Judith has to do is find out what connects them, and who is responsible for sending the packages.
The narrative is told in different parts, and in each we learn about the recipients of the packages.
This encourages the reader to get emotionally attached to at least some of the characters, not only the recipients but also others in their lives.
As well as a murder investigation, the novel explores how past traumas influence actions in the present.
The structure works well, moving between the three recipients while slowly building the bigger picture. You know everything is going to have to connect somehow and feel compelled to keep trying to work it out.
Judith herself is haunted by traumatic events in her past, and her troubled relationship with her mother is fascinating.
Cleverly, the author does not immediately reveal why that is so and what had happened in their home years before.
The detective comes across as intense and determined. She is not a very sympathetic character, although believable and interesting, she lacks warmth.
She seems to have quite a lonely life and is haunted by nightmares.
As she pursues the investigation Judith starts to realise that she is involved in it on a personal level, and that this case is very similar to an encounter with a victim a decade earlier, who she believes she failed.
Gradually she finds she is being forced to play a very dangerous cat-and-mouse game.
The author does a great job maintaining the tension while weaving together the past and present as the connections between the characters are gradually revealed. It is an absorbing read, and one you will remember.
The novel is set in Australia where the Irish writer now lives, but it could be anywhere as its setting does not play any part in the story it tells.
Dervla McTiernan is the author of the Cormac Reilly series and two other standalone thrillers. This reader hopes we will meet Judith Lee again.
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