Review: IN THE DARK RIVER by Conor Brady

Joe Swallow should be a happy man. Recently promoted to detective inspector in the Dublin Metropolitan Police as a result of consistent excellence, as detailed in former Irish Times editor Conor Brady’s previous Victorian-era novels – A June of Ordinary Murders (2012), The Eloquence of the Dead (2013) and A Hunt in Winter (2016) – Swallow is liked by the rank-and-file of Dublin Castle and esteemed by his chief, John Mallon. He has even earned the grudging respect of Dublin’s criminal fraternity, chief among them the Vanucchi Gang. Newly married to his beloved Maria, Joe Swallow should be able to put his feet up on his desk and enjoy the fruits of his labour.
  Not that he wants to. The tragedy of Maria’s recent miscarriage, and his inability to articulate his grief, have driven Swallow to take on a greater workload, overseeing an investigation into the skeleton discovered in an underground branch of the Poddle and taking responsibility for investigating an armed robbery at the Rathgar home of one of Dublin’s legal eagles. And then there’s the rather pressing issue of British intelligence operatives employing the Victorian equivalent of black ops as they try to destroy Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party …
  In the Dark River opens in Madrid, with journalist Richard Piggott brooding on his disgrace. His attempt to smear Parnell revealed as forgeries, Piggott likely faces a charge of perjury should he return to Ireland. Was Piggott’s humiliation and ruin sufficient to cause him to take his own life, as the British Secret Service suggests? Or is Swallow right to believe that Piggott, a pawn, was simply taken off the board?
  Parnell’s imminent fall from grace casts a long shadow across In the Dark River – the reader understands that, in the long run, Swallow’s machinations as he strives to protect ‘the uncrowned king of Ireland’ are irrelevant. That flies in the face of the certainties (truth, justice, the status quo upheld) that crime fiction tends to offer, but Brady offers a similarly idiosyncratic take on the other investigations that occupy Swallow’s time: crooks get off scot-free, killers go unaccused, villains form covert alliances with the police. Don’t be fooled by the historical setting and the genteel tone, the ‘cosy’ style and the police procedural form: beneath its apparently placid surface, In the Dark River is anything but a traditional mystery novel.
  It’s as if the dark river – which we initially assume to be the Poddle, which wends its way beneath the Dublin streets, and in which the woman’s skeleton is discovered – is in fact Time itself. All the cases that present themselves for Swallow’s investigation began bubbling up long ago, and only emerge into view when it is too late for Swallow to do anything but belatedly appreciate the extent to which he is out of his depth. He can make all the appropriate gestures – open a murder book, delegate detectives to investigate killings and robberies, engage in counter-intelligence designed to frustrate the British Secret Service – but all the while the river keeps flowing relentlessly on.
  Joe Swallow is a good man, and a good policeman, but he is not superhuman. Crime was as intrinsic to Victorian Dublin as it was to the modern city, and one man, no matter how grudgingly respected he is, is going to persuade the Vanucchi Gang and their ilk to go straight. Despite Swallow’s best efforts, Charles Stewart Parnell is doomed. If that fatalistic streak runs contrary to the crime novel’s expectations, so be it. Joe Swallow – solid and dependable, loyal to the cause of the greater good even as he flounders about in the dark river – is arguably the most realistic policeman in Irish crime fiction’s thin blue line. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Irish Times.

Publication: IN THE DARK RIVER by Conor Brady

Conor Brady publishes the fourth in his Joe Swallow series of Victorian-era murder mysteries, IN THE DARK RIVER (New Island), on October 19th. Quoth the blurb elves:

In the dark waters beneath the streets of Victorian Dublin, a gruesome discovery awaits Detective Inspector Joe Swallow – diamonds and death in the River Poddle.
  Swallow and the legendary Chief Superintendent John Mallon must also work tirelessly to counter espionage and subterfuge by the British secret services, who are hell-bent on destroying Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish struggle for Home Rule. If Parnell falls, the G-men of Dublin’s Metropolitan Police fear the chaos that will rise in his wake.
  As Swallow struggles to hold his marriage together, he must choose between the life he wants and the career he has built. The pressure mounts on Swallow from all sides: a death under Dublin, an Irish journalist murdered in Madrid, the pursuit of a suspect across the breadth of Ireland and all the while, the sinister machinations of the British Empire against the ‘uncrowned king’.

  For more on Conor Brady, clickety-click here …

Publication: A HUNT IN WINTER by Conor Brady

A HUNT IN WINTER (New Island), set in Victorian Dublin, is the third in Conor Brady’s series of mystery novels to feature Detective Inspector Joe Swallow. Quoth the blurb elves:

Joe Swallow, newly promoted to detective inspector, is back, and life looks to be taking a turn for the better. But his new-found peace will soon be chaotically upturned, with far-reaching consequences.
  In Dublin, a series of violent attacks against women leads to an outbreak of panic and fear, and things on the home front are about to change in an unexpected way.
  In London, Charles Stewart Parnell tirelessly pursues the Irish cause for Home Rule. While the British are eager to discredit the Irish parliamentary leader and to quash the growing movement towards independence, Swallow’s conflicted loyalties pull him in different directions.
  Swallow has no choice but to traverse this volatile political scene, while his continuing hunt for a terrifying killer takes him across Europe in pursuit …

  For a review of Conor Brady’s THE ELOQUENCE OF THE DEAD, clickety-click here …

Publication: I AM IN BLOOD by Joe Murphy

The author of DEAD DOGS (2012), Joe Murphy returns to the fray with I AM IN BLOOD (Brandon), a Gothic-flavoured tale with an ominous Shakespearian title. Quoth the blurb elves:

A multi-layered, Gothic tale of obsession and bloodshed set in modern-day and Victorian Dublin.
  Present day: Seventeen-year-old Nathan Jacob’s interest in real-life crime leads him to a series of horrific murders committed in Dublin’s red-light district, The Monto, in the late nineteenth century. As he delves deeper into this grisly mystery, someone – something – begins to speak to him through the pages of time. Something half-formed and dark; something that draws Nathan and his bloodline back to Victorian Dublin and the horrors that took place there.
  1890: Sergeant George Frohmell of the Dublin Metropolitan Police is under pressure. His beloved, bedraggled city has become the hunting ground for a faceless monster, a creature that preys on the poor and vulnerable, leaving them butchered in back alleys. As the death toll increases and the violence moves ever nearer to his own heart, Frohmell must find his man – or lose everything.

  I AM IN BLOOD will be published on April 30th.

Review: THE ELOQUENCE OF THE DEAD by Conor Brady

Conor Brady made his debut as a historical crime novelist with A June of Ordinary Murders (2011), and that novel’s hero, Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow of the Dublin Metropolitan Police ‘G-Men’ Division, makes a welcome return in THE ELOQUENCE OF THE DEAD (New Island). The novel opens in Galway in 1887, with Lady Gessel bidding a none-too-fond farewell to her estate as she prepares to sell her family’s ancestral home, as so many of her peers are doing, and move to England. Meanwhile, back in Dublin, Swallow is called in to investigate the murder of a pawnbroker in the Liberties area, a man who appears to have paid a very harsh price for handling stolen goods. How these events are connected gradually emerges in a propulsive but stylish tale of conspiracy and corruption on a grand scale. Swallow, a keen amateur painter, brings a sharp eye to bear on his surroundings, which in turn allows Brady to give us a vivid account of late Victorian Dublin in all its squalid glory. The result is a very satisfying police procedural / mystery and an equally fine historical novel. ~ Declan Burke

  This review was first published in the Irish Times, in a column that also included reviews of the latest titles from Jo Nesbo, Sophie Loubiere, Conor Fitzgerald and John Lawton.