This follow-up to the highly praised “The Ghosts of Belfast” deserves the same reception. It picks up where the earlier noir ended, carrying forth the characters and events, and, presumably, planting the seeds for a third novel which hopefully will develop into a full-blown series.
Jack Lennon, a Catholic detective in an otherwise Protestant police force in Northern Ireland, is warned off investigating the deaths of three persons associated with the massacre of numerous criminals and politicians at Bull O’Kane’s farm in Belfast. But having knowledge of the event, at which his girlfriend, Marie McKenna, and their young daughter, Ellen were present, pressures him to continue pursuing knowledge of the murders and their relationship to the past. Marie was whisked away from the massacre by the notorious killer, Fegan, and into hiding, promising to return whenever she needed protection. He leaves for New York City for adventures of his own.
O’Kane has a grudge against Fegan and employs The Traveler, a killer of equal stature to Fegan, to kill the three victims as well as his nemesis, who was responsible for a gut wound which incapacitated the gangster. When Marie comes out of hiding to visit her dying father, she and the child are abducted, serving as lures to draw Fegan out of hiding and resulting in an unlikely collaboration between Lennon and Fegan to rescue Marie and Ellen.
The novel develops the characters in more depth than was exhibited in “Belfast,” and the pace is steadier. But the writing is the same tense hard-driven prose which made the first so highly readable. It is a graphic tale of the corruption between the politicians, criminals, British authorities and others in the fraught Northern Ireland of the era. It is powerful and tragic, with intense violence and deep insights into a country still affected by long-continued terror. It is highly recommended, and we look forward to the hoped-for sequel.
