I Believe In Harvey

Is Michael Harvey Irish enough to qualify as an Irish crime writer? Well, he was born and raised in Boston, graduated from Boston Latin School, is married to Mary Frances and owns a dog called Maggie. He also owns a pub called The Hidden Shamrock. And as if that wasn’t enough, his series protagonist is ‘former Irish cop turned PI, Michael Kelly’. All of which, in our humble opinion, makes Michael Harvey as Irish as a tinkers’ wake. His latest offering is THE THIRD RAIL, about which the blurb elves have been wittering thusly:

This ferocious new novel from the author of THE CHICAGO WAY and THE FIFTH FLOOR finds Michael Harvey at the top of his game in an expertly plotted, impossible to put down thriller set in Chicago’s public transit system. Harvey’s tough talking, Aeschylus-quoting, former Irish cop turned PI, Michael Kelly, is back in another sizzling murder mystery that pits him against a merciless sniper on the loose in Chicago’s public transportation system. After witnessing a shooting on an L platform - and receiving a phone call from the killer himself - Kelly is drawn toward a murderer with an unnerving link to his own past, to a crime he witnessed as a child, and to the consequences it had on his relationship with his father, a subject Kelly would prefer to leave unexamined. But when his girlfriend - the gorgeous Chicago judge Rachel Swenson - is abducted, Kelly has no choice but to find the killer by excavating his own stormy past. Stylish, sophisticated, edge-of-your-seat suspense from a new modern master.

  Impressed? John Grisham is. “A magnificent new voice,” quoth the Grishmeister. “A major new voice,” says Michael Connelly, determined to be outdone. “Gritty and witty … a real winner,” says Kathy Reichs.
  So there you have it. Michael Harvey. THE THIRD RAIL. We’re claiming him for our own …