“Will she ever see her family again?”
- Book: Bring Her Home (Boyle and Keneally #1)
- Location: Cahirsiveen, County Kerry
- Author: S A Dunphy
Wow! What an explosive start to a brand new series and whilst this book works perfectly well as a stand alone story, if you think I am about to miss out on the chance to follow Jessie, Seamus, Terri and Dawn, as this brand new team gets up and running; you must be joking, just try and stop me!
To reveal too much about this gripping, interesting and unique storyline, would undoubtedly reveal far too many spoilers, so just to whet your appetite…
Dawn is Police Commissioner for Ireland and she has been tasked with rescuing Penny O’Dwyer, the kidnapped daughter of a high profile politician, before the deadline of Halloween when her captors are going to kill her. Following initial investigations by local forces and with leads in short supply, Dawn gathers around her, a small and specialised team, led by her one time friend Jessie Boyle, now a successful Criminal Behavioural Specialist. Jessie, who has just buried her recently murdered life and work partner, William, back on the English mainland, is not really ready to return to work, but can see the advantages of packing up and restarting her life back in her mother country and away from all the bad memories, although she knows that William’s killer is still taunting her and haunting her every waking moment and will continue to do so until they are captured. Besides which, Dawn is calling in a favour, which, should the secret ever leak out, will undoubtedly cost both of them their careers and probably their freedom!
Once the team gets up and running, it soon becomes apparent that Penny is not the good all round girl next door, that everyone believes her to be. The company she keeps is far from salubrious, the extra-curricula deals she does are barely legal and her captors truly believe in the Irish myth and folklore they have built around themselves to disguise and possibly justify to themselves, their nefarious activities. The suspects are many, leading Jessie and the team to uncover a labyrinth of human suffering, which transcends their collective wildest imaginations and spans decades. The abductor quotes from a fantasy fiction book when making their demands and although their many protegees might just be expendable, does their mentor face the same fate, or will they live to fight another battle?
Filled with dread and menace, this multi-layered, well structured storyline, is gritty, intense, highly textured and rich in atmosphere. Told in short, well signposted chapters, which all begin with a short quote or reflection by a selection of notorious and infamous murderers and abductors. Multi-timeline, there are short flashbacks by the four principal characters, as they introduce themselves and perceptively place into cameo, important moments from their lives, offering insights into the individual mind spaces they occupy today. The suspects are many, the twists and turns in the suspenseful storyline just keep on coming and red herrings plague Jessie’s every waking hour. Fluently written and totally immersive, with a keen and honed observational eye for detail, the powerful narrative and dialogue offers great visual depth and a genuine sense of time and place. The locations are real, are easy to explore virtually and never having visited Ireland, the ‘armchair traveller’ in me was left completely sated, if with a slightly disturbing feeling of having been buried alive amongst the claustrophobic intensity of the myth, legend and folklore of the area, which is blended seamlessly into the storyline.
Shane Dunphy has created a cast of well drawn central characters, in Dawn, Jessie, Terri and Seamus, who whilst all from different backgrounds, are linked by a common trait, that of being damaged as children, albeit in separate ways. One has personally experienced the child social care system from the inside, two have been the victims of parental abuse and violence, whilst the other has had to face the premature death of a much-loved parent. All individual experiences, but each resulting in the same common feeling of loss and mental fragility, which still haunts them now, even in later life. Right now, despite being totally focussed on their careers and undoubtedly top notch in their individual areas of expertise, they still show signs of complex and raw emotional vulnerabilities. However this never makes them unreliable, but only adds to their authenticity and determination, making them easy to connect to and identify with. The vibrant synergy between them, makes them compelling and adds strength to the common voice with which they tell their story, discovering a comforting sense of ‘belonging’, as they work together to develop ideas and strategies to solve the crime. There is so much scope for the development of these characters in upcoming storylines, both individually and as a team and I have a feeling that they are destined to grow from strength to strength.
In this debut episode of the series, the remaining, bit part characters, are all pretty much as Shane probably intended them to be, despicable, unreliable, totally unlikable, duplicitous and manipulative. I even began to wonder if the victim, whose life hangs so precariously in the balance, is really worth all the effort and danger she puts the team through, in their efforts to save her. That she is not at all the ‘bright young thing’ she is lauded as by her father and some of her colleagues, becomes only too obvious when the company she keeps in her private life and the ‘alternative’ business dealings she conducts, are thrown into sharp relief by Dawn and her team!
This book works a treat if you are in the market for an outstanding, stand alone crime story, however, as with so many other great detective series, there is one important loose thread from this story, which I have no doubt will come back to haunt the team again and again in forthcoming episodes, especially Jessie, for whom this unfinished business is intensely personal. I have my nagging suspicions about the true identity of Uruz, but my lips are sealed, as I have made bad judgement calls before, so I am just hoping that patience will prove to be the virtue it is claimed to be!
Please wait...
