Well Paced Crime Fiction

• Book: Hurt
• Location: Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland
• Author: Brian McGilloway

Review Author: Anne Cater

Published on 21 November 2013 by C& R Crime, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, Hurt is the second in the Lucy Black series from Brian McGilloway, the sequel to the number one bestseller Little Girl Lost (2011). McGilloway is also the author of the successful Inspector Benedict Devlin series.

Despite not having read Little Girl Lost it really didn’t take me long to become very involved in this story. The author has cleverly included snippets from Lucy Black’s past which will help anyone who is discovering this series for the first time.

Hurt is a very tense and often dark story, covering some disturbing issues that expose the vulnerabilities of those young people who have been badly let down – by their families and by society. Lucy Black is a complex character, fighting her own personal demons and battles, whilst caring passionately for those that she wants to help.

This is a hard-hitting thriller that does not avoid the seedier side of life nor the effects of both the current financial troubles in Northern Ireland and the sectarian battle that has raged in Derry for many years. Although officially now a city of peace, memories are long and the troubles will never be forgotten. McGilloway has cleverly created realistic characters who still bear the scars of battle. His use of local phrases and dialect gives the story even more realism, but is not off-putting for non-local readers.

Although the crime and the hunt for the perpetrators is at the heart of this story, it is also the story of Lucy Black and her colleagues and the internal office politics play as big as part as the country’s politics.

I’m eager to learn more about Lucy and her relationship with her mother the Assistant Chief Constable, and to see how this progresses throughout the series. I enjoyed the quite darker aspects, exploring the underworld, the Derry setting and the plot line, despite some disturbing issues.

This a very well-paced story, which ratchets up a gear towards the end. Crime fiction and police procedural fans will enjoy this. Lucy Black is a welcome addition to the ranks of fictional detectives.

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