When All Is Said by Anne Griffin

First published in Great Britain in 2019; published by St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books on March 5, 2019

When All Is Said is told from the perspective of a lonely, grieving, guilt-driven man who left much unsaid to the few people he cared about. Maurice Hannigan, once known as Big Man, is 84. He starts the novel with a visit to a bar. While he interacts with the staff, his interior monologue tells his life story to his son in New Jersey. He wonders how his son grew up to be “so sure and happy” in his life, given Maurice’s inability to be happy with anything, least of all himself. He has been a widow for two years and just sold his farm outside of Dublin. He misses his wife desperately. Maurice is in the bar “to remember — all that I have been and all that I will never be again.”

His memories begin in Ireland when, apparently dyslexic, Maurice is a poor student but a determined football player. At the age of ten, he is encouraged to drop out and learn to be a farmer. He and his family suffer abuse by the wealthy landowner who employs them; Maurice is also abused by landowner’s son Thomas despite their similar ages. Thomas’ father beats him and Thomas can only gain self-respect by beating Maurice. When the opportunity for revenge in an unexpected form arrives, Maurice seizes it, changing lives in a way he cannot imagine. In the present, he is just coming to understand the consequences of his actions, and his attempt to make amends for his petty vengeance might only make things worse.

The story follows Maurice through a life that is materially successful and emotionally cabined. He falls desperately in love with Sadie, marries and has children, but he will experience multiple losses and will never acquire the tools to address them. By the end of his life, he prefers solitude. He cannot abide the thought of opening himself to others. Others see him as a mean and unyielding man because that is the only face he shows; few can guess that his heart longs to be open and humane.

The novel’s other key character is Emily, part of Thomas’ family and an unintended victim of Maurice’s small act of revenge. Maurice sees Emily as a gracious and courageous woman, the kind of woman he hopes his own daughter would have been. Maurice's interaction with Emily is a form of atonement, although not everyone in the novel sees it that way. Surprising facts that have shaped their relationship are unknown to Maurice until the are revealed in the final chapters.

At times, the narrative is not written in a persuasively male voice, but that flaw is not often noticeable. Most of the time the voice is appropriately gruff while elegantly expressing the regrets that Maurice admits to himself when drunkenness encourages insight. In its best moments, when Maurice’s monologue addresses his failure to open himself to his son, when he recalls awkward moments and details his failings, the story perfectly captures his masculine heartache, his inability to express his the warmth he feels. The novel is so rich in the layers of personality that define Maurice, and is told with such conviction, that it is difficult to believe this is Anne Griffin’s debut novel.

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Himself by Jess Kidd

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published by Atria Books on March 14, 2017

I’m a sucker for novels by Irish writers who populate small Irish villages with eccentric residents. Himself is sort of a murder mystery, but Jess Kidd’s delightful prose and quirky characters, some of whom are dead, set it apart. The plot is engaging but almost beside the point.

The dead take particular note of Mahoney, who as a baby was saved from death by a forest that hid him from his murderous father. That was in Mulderrig, a place Mahoney doesn’t recall, but to which he returns 26 years later, prompted by a letter that was held by the orphanage that raised him, to be passed on to Mahoney after he was grown.

Mahoney’s mother was Orla Sweeney, a name that is still well known in Mulderrig. She might have been a witch, or perhaps was merely mistaken for one. Orla was unjustly regarded as wicked because she passed messages from the dead to the living, and the people of Mulderrig didn’t appreciate the news that the departed revealed. The reader meets Orla in flashbacks.

In the present, Mahoney meets a priest whose face can’t be trusted; a woman who produces plays for the church that the priest considers to be scandalous; a lecherous old man who has his sights set on a widow; the widow he chases, who is anxious for Mahoney to leave the village; a couple of women who are anxious for the handsome Mahoney to stay; a gossipy cat lady; the village police officer; and a variety of ghosts.

Mahoney (like many in the village) assumes that someone did away with his mother. The plot centers on the efforts of Mahoney, assisted by the play producer and opposed by nearly everyone else, as he tries to uncover the truth about Orla’s disappearance. Even a little dead girl warns him away from his quest.

Ireland is a land of folklore, a fact that Irish fiction often reflects. I always like the ghosts in Irish novels. Unlike American ghosts, they tend to be foul-mouthed, gossipy, and quite funny. There are plenty of ghosts in Himself, including a priest who haunts a commode, but most of them are silent. They confine themselves to shaking their heads or drawing their fingers across their throats when they want to communicate. Other supernatural elements include signs and portents for characters to interpret or misinterpret and quarrel about.

Like many modern Irish tales, Himself shines a light on the condition of Ireland, which a scholarly character describes as “a dying civilization, romantic Ireland, the ancient and untarnished imagination of the pure and noble peasant making sense of the harshness and beauty of their life and the landscape.” There is, as that description suggests, a serious undercurrent to Himself, enough to give the novel literary heft, but it doesn’t detract from the novel’s reliance of several forms of humor, including slapstick, farce, burlesque, satire, and parody. The humor is gentle rather than mordant, light rather than dark (despite some gruesome murders).

Himself isn’t really a murder mystery, given that the reader learns at least some of the truth long before Mahoney. But the village is good at keeping secrets from outsiders even as they gossip among themselves. Some things they would rather not to discuss at all, preferring to let the dead rest — which they aren’t about to do after Mahoney’s return stirs them to recall fragments of the lives they once had. While it’s not a mystery, Himself is a tale of good versus evil, of the few village residents who want to expose the truth versus those who have a motive to hide it. But most of all, regardless of its higher ambitions, this imaginative novel is tremendously entertaining.

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The Eloquence of the Dead by Conor Brady

First published in Ireland in 2013; published by Minotaur Books on March 15, 2016

Decades after the Famine, the owners of large estates in Ireland have agreed (or been forced) to sell their land to the government, part of a plan to give Ireland back to the Irish. Corruption in that process provides one of the plot threads in The Eloquence of the Dead.

The story begins in 1887 with the murder of Ambrose Pollock, a pawnbroker in Dublin. The police, eager to avoid any actual investigatory work, are quick to blame the pawnbroker’s sister, Phoebe Pollock, who has gone missing. The question soon arises whether she is missing or dead.

DS Joseph Swallow investigates Ambrose’s murder and Phoebe’s disappearance. His investigation requires him to consider a robbery, the origin of rare coins that are turning up in Dublin, and a land fraud scheme. The interweaving of these plot elements is sufficiently complex to hold the reader’s interest without becoming convoluted. The story works its way to a conclusion that is satisfying if not particularly surprising.

Certain that his Catholicism will prevent him from rising above his current rank, Swallow wonders whether he should pursue another profession as he chases down a variety of criminals. Swallow is typical of a crime fiction police protagonist in that he has difficulties with relationships, grievances about being underappreciated, and complaints about cops who are more committed to making themselves look good than to catching criminals.

A number of other characters, including detectives and criminals, are given about as much characterization as they need in a murder mystery. One of the stronger characters is Margaret Gessel who, having sold the family land, traveled from Ireland to London, only to be disappointed that her cousin, a prominent politician, is barely acknowledging her existence.

The politics of the time and place add an extra layer of interest to The Eloquence of the Dead. The novel illustrates that some things never change. Power protects power, whether in England and Ireland of the 1880s, or any other place at any other time.

Conor Brady’s prose is above average for a mystery, although about average for Irish crime writers, and well above the prose wielded by American crime novelists (featuring single sentence paragraphs and single page chapters) who too often dominate the market. The writing, characters, and plot make Brady’s second Joe Swallow novel an entertaining read, although I wouldn’t shelve it with the best examples of Irish crime fiction.

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Those We Left Behind by Stuart Neville

Published by Soho Crime on September 22, 2015

Two brothers, Ciaran and Thomas Devine, were prosecuted for killing the foster father with whom they lived. Ciaran, the younger brother, was convicted of beating the man to death while Thomas was convicted of acting as an accessory. At the time, Ciaran said he was protecting Thomas from ongoing abuse. The dead man's son, Daniel, never believed his father abused Thomas and has always been convinced that Thomas was the actual murderer. When Ciaran and Thomas are released from juvenile detention years later, Daniel remains obsessed with exposing what he regards as the truth.

DCI Serena Flanagan participated in the investigation at the time Ciaran and Thomas were arrested. A bit of the story is told in flashbacks as Flanagan recalls her suspicion of Ciaran's innocence and her botched attempt to persuade him to tell the truth. Most of the story, however, follows the two boys after their release, including Flanagan's suspicion that one or both of them have committed another murder. Breaking the bond between the brothers may be the only way Flanagan can get at the truth, but can she do that without placing her own life at risk?

The other key character, Probation Officer Paula Cunningham, is charged with supervising Ciaran after his release. Her role in the story is less central than Flanagan's and her character development is scant compared to Flanagan's. Having first appeared in The Final Silence, Neville is establishing Flanagan with the typical stereotypes of fictional police detectives -- her home life is troubled because she puts her work ahead of her family -- but, unlike fictional cops who are always right when everyone else thinks they're wrong, Flanagan is capable of making bad judgments. That makes her a more believable police character than most.

The most interesting feature of the plot is the question of how far Flanagan will go to get the truth from Ciaran. Is it acceptable for a police officer to question a suspect, even informally, in a way that might cause the suspect to believe that the officer wants to be intimate with him? Police deceive suspects all the time by pretending to be their friend, but at what point is a line crossed when an officer exploits the romantic or sexual feelings of a vulnerable young suspect? The exploration of that question gives the novel its moral force.

After the truth about Thomas and Ciaran is revealed, the story loses its energy. The remaining 50 or 60 pages are standard thriller fare, although the ending is intense. I appreciated the attempt to humanize Ciaran but Thomas, clearly intended as a contrast, is a shallower and less interesting character. On the whole, Those We Left Behind is not as powerful as some of Stuart Neville's Belfast novels, but it is a solid police thriller.

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Green Hell by Ken Bruen

Published by Mysterious Press on July 7, 2015

I'm a fan of Ken Bruen's no-frills writing style, with its frequent references to pop culture, its creative use of foul language, and its striking visual arrangement of words on the page. Some pages consist of quotations from excellent crime novels and American television shows, broken into lines that reveal their poetry. Bruen takes on critics who complain that his books are for "people who don't read" by having a bartender opine, "How [censored] insulting is that to readers?"

Bruen knows that good writing can be found in movies and television shows and popular crime novels, not just in Nobel Prize winning fiction. Bruen's own crime fiction is a prime example. Descriptions of people and places are vivid, pointed, and mercifully short. Dialog is snappy. (My favorite snatch of dialog in Green Hell is this:

"I have a Kindle."
"And may God forgive you.")

The bartender suggests that the pop culture references "ground the story in stuff I know" but there's really no need for Bruen to defend himself. The quotations and lists are necessary amusements. They balance the pervasive darkness to which his characters are exposed, the unfairness that they were born to endure.

In Green Hell, an American named Boru Kennedy puts aside his dissertation on Beckett to write about Jack Taylor, the man who saved him from young thugs who were about to "kick the [censored] be-Jaysus out of this bollix." Taylor is well known to Bruen's fans as the former Guard who tries to steer his way through a crime-filled Galway that he typically perceives through an alcoholic and pill induced haze. Kennedy, fascinated with Taylor's combination of roguish charm and full throttle violence, decides to interview the people who know Taylor best, none of whom hold him in high regard. A former colleague who describes Taylor as "a spit in the Face" once thought that the light shone stronger in Taylor than the darkness. That person now thinks that Taylor has embraced the ugliness and brutality of life. Others are less kind.

Part I, which covers more than the first half of Green Hell, is Boru's take on Jack. In Part II ("Jack's Back"), Jack is again the narrative voice. But since the voice is always Bruen's, the change is one of perspective rather than style. Taylor's perspective is bleak. That the story takes place at Christmas only contributes to Taylor's grim mood. Part II also introduces a character who is even more messed up than is normal for the series. I suspect she will resurface in later installments.

Apart from its biographical content -- the latest installment in the story of Jack -- a plot occasionally surfaces, having to do with a woman Boru starts dating and an academic who physically abuses his female students. The plot takes a sharp turn and finally comes into focus in Part II. It soon becomes clear why the story's perspective has changed.

Green Hell didn't pick me up and throw me down a flight of stairs like some of Bruen's novels, although it delivered Bruen's characteristic knockout punch at the end. This is a worthy installment in Jack Taylor's life. The greatest joy in reading these novels lies in knowing (knock on wood) that my life will never be as bad as Jack's.

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