7.30.2016

finished reading

This is the fourth installment of the Dublin Murder Squad mysteries. They are stand alone books with a thread of characters from previous books--so they don't need to be read together or in order.

This is a compelling book. I actually listened to it for six hours straight--I was lost in the story and lost track of time, while knitting. I loved the narration. And the writing is rich, there were times I backed up the audio so I could hear bits again. I also read it in bed, because I couldn't wait to see how it ended.

Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy is the lead detective and his newbie partner, Richie Curran, makes a nice foil. However, toward the end of the story, I wasn't sure if Mick was a reliable narrator or not. Another deft layer.

From the publisher:
In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin – half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned – two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder Squad’s star detective. At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable details and the evidence is pointing in two directions at once.

Scorcher’s personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she’s resurrecting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk . . .

1 comment:

Cat. said...

I didn't read the summary because I don't think I've read this one. I find her characters amazingly real--good, bad, weird and ugly. I'll have to reserve this at work so I remember to read it!