| Taylor-made for suspense  Galway-based
author Ken Bruen continues his series of Jack Taylor novels with The Magdalen
Martyrs. Rí-rá looks at the latest adventure by the award-winning
writer and reviews the best of the rest.
Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn’t trust
when his phone rings. He’s in debt to a Galway tough named Bill
Cassell, what the locals call a hard man. Bill did Jack a big favour a
while back. The trouble is, he never lets a favour go unreturned.
Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman —
now either dead or very old — who long ago helped his mother escape
from the notorious Magdalen laundry where young wayward girls were imprisoned
and abused. Jack doesn’t like the odds of finding the woman but
counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the
law.
Until that is after spending a few days spinning his wheels he is dragged
in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorities. Bill’s
goons do a little spinning of their own playing a game of Russian roulette
a little too close to the back of Jack’s head.
It’s only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts
that land Jack back on the street rather than facedown in a cellar with
a bullet in his skull.
He’s got one chance to stay alive — find this woman. Unfortunately
he can’t escape his own curiosity and an unnerving hunch quickly
turns into a solid fact: Just who Jack’s looking for and why aren’t
nearly what they seem.
 The Magdalen Martyrs
is the third Galway-set novel by Edgar, Barry and Macavity finalist and
Shamus Award-winner Ken Bruen and is a gripping, dazzling story that takes
the Jack Taylor series to explosive new heights of suspense.
Ken Bruen has lived a life even more dark and troubling than the one his
protagonist Jack Taylor is barely leading in The Magdalen Martyrs.
He has been a teacher, an actor in Roger Corman horror films and a security
guard at the former World Trade Centre. Born in Ireland Ken lived in Greece,
Spain and South-east Asia before a fateful journey to South America.
His hard drinking had cost him several jobs. A teaching job in South America
offered escape from unemployment and the demons that dogged him.
Ken’s plan as he boarded the plane was to work hard, read and quit
drinking. But one night there was a bar fight and three foreigners including
Ken were thrown in jail.
He spent four months in a South American prison, where violence and rape
was the norm. During Ken’s stay two fellow prisoners died from dysentery.
He had to find a mental excape route just to survive.
Finally he was released and sent back to Ireland.
The darkness and depth that Ken Bruen has lived is echoed in his writing.
Siobhan Dowd
A Swift Pure Cry
 This is the story
of Shell Talent. Her mother has recently passed away and her father has
turned his back on reality, preferring to look at life through the bottom
of a glass, leaving Shell to take care of her younger brother and sister.
Shell is bored of going to Mass and has lost all interest in school except
for sharing cigarettes and jokes with her friends Bridie and Declan. Without
her mother to explain life and the needs of a growing woman Shell begins
finding out about life for herself, with a little help from her best friend
Bridie.
When a new young priest Father Rose arrives in the small Irish community
Shell is dazzled by his humanity and inquisitive nature. Father Rose brings
new life to Mass and a passion that awakens something in Shell. In turn
her mother’s spirit seems to have returned to Shell to lend a guiding
hand.
When she comes across an old, pink satin dress belonging to her mother
in the back of her dad’s wardrobe strange and terrible things are
unleashed. She finds herself in the centre of an increasing scandal that
not only rocks the small community of Coolbar but the whole country and
she needs all her courage and strength to face the ordeal.
A Swift Pure Cry is the brilliant and heartbreaking debut novel by Siobhan
Dowd inspired by a true story. This story is told with the innocence and
naivety of a young girl and leaves the reader to feel the true emotion
behind it. This story will have you hooked; you will go through the usual
emotions a well-written book should stir up — laughter, sadness,
anger, and compassion. The only criticism I could give this book is that
it was not long enough, I wanted more and I think that is the always a
good sign.
Martin Bengtsson
If You’re Not In Bed By 10, Come Home
 Martin Bengtsson
is living proof that truth can be stranger than fiction. His extraordinary
autobiography, If You Are Not In Bed By Ten, Come Home, contains all the
ingredients of best-selling fiction — murder, intrigue, sex, royalty,
piracy and espionage. Yet it is all true.
Martin’s story has many threads which are sewn together in a wonderful
narrative that would be impossible to replicate.
This raffish rogue spied for MI5, worked for the Mafia, planned an international
kidnapping for the CIA, partied with Errol Flynn and Gracie Fields and
even forged a plot to overthrow an island government.
His voice — witty, debonair and emphatically non-conformist —
sings from the pages whether he is describing working as a stunt-double
alongside Clint Eastwood and Richard Harris on Spaghetti Westerns such
as The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and Buddy Goes West, conducting a ballet
orchestra or fighting Greek pirates on the high seas.
Martin started in life as a bank clerk for Coutts but he soon escaped
the drudgery when he began smuggling cigarettes along the Mediterranean
coastline for the Mafia — whom he describes as the most ‘conscientious
employer he has ever worked for.
Among many subsequent undertakings — some legal, some not so legal
— he recounts how he worked as a bodyguard for a Saudi prince, forged
famous impressionist paintings (famously duping BBC’s Antique Roadshow),
was part of a CIA plan to catch the leader of the Black Panthers and smuggled
guns to a breakaway African republic.
Resembling an old James Bond who refuses to hang up his cravat, although
he has no need for it in his isolated mountain retreat, Bengtsson is charming,
witty and a natural storyteller.
This charm carries throughout the book, making it a gripping and thoroughly
entertaining read.
If You Are Not In Bed By Ten, Come Home is currently available in bookshops
priced £7.99 or online at www.maverickhouse.com
Marian Keyes
The Other Side of The Story
There are three sides to every story: Your side, their side and the truth...
 For events organiser
Gemma the departure of her father into the arms of a younger woman is
the biggest show in town. Suddenly she’s doling out tranquillisers
to her mammy and cleaning up after her when she breaks every plate in
the house. Being from a broken home is no fun when you’re 32 —
she could write a book about it.
Meanwhile first-time novelist Luly is enjoying overnight success with
her debut novel. But the person she’s celebrating with is Anton
— her best friend Gemma’s ex — and the guilt is kind
of getting to her.
And then there’s Jojo — a literary agent whose star is on
the rise. In love with Mark her very married boss and with her burgeoning
career not much distracts her. Until she finds herself representing two
women who used to be best friends. That’s right: Used to be.
What goes around comes around and in the world of million-pound book deals
and the race for a slot on the best-seller list, Lily, Gemma and Jojo’s
lives intersect in a collision of love, loyalty and payback time.
Terence Patrick Dolan
A Dictionary of Hiberno-English
 This is the first
paperback printing of the revised and expanded edition of T.P. Dolan’s
standard dictionary. Dolan’s seminal work has established its pre-eminent
position as the leading reference authority on the form of English spoken
in Ireland.
A Dictionary Of Hiberno-English contains over 1,000 new entries and appears
for the first time in handy pocket format.
Tom Paulin of the Guardian said: “Terry Dolan’s A Dictionary
of Hiberno-English is a pioneering work of scholarship which ascertains
the nature of English as it is spoken and written in Ireland.
“I see it as one of the foundation stones of a new civic culture
in the island.”
Dolan is associate professor in English at University College Dublin.
A well-known broadcaster and guest lecturer he travels extensively and
is regarded as the pre-eminent academic authority on Hiberno-English.
|
