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Fiction, Reviews

‘The Day That Never Comes,’ by Caimh McDonnell

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I was much taken with A Man With One of Those Faces, by Caimh McDonnell. I praised it here, and we even got the attention of his publisher in comments.

I won’t say that its sequel, The Day That Never Comes, was a disappointing book. It was a pretty good mystery/thriller, with the expected amount of slapstick humor. But… it didn’t work for me as well as its prequel.

In this outing our heroes, Paul Mulchrone, Brigit Conroy, and police detective Bunny McGarry, have just failed to start a private detective agency. It seemed like a good idea. Paul has finally moved out of his late aunt’s house, Bunny has been forcibly retired from the force, and Brigit has always wanted to be a detective anyway. But it all fell through. Paul sent Brigit… unfortunate photos from his cell phone on a drunken night, ending their engagement. And Bunny has now disappeared, his beloved car abandoned at a spot where many people commit suicide. But Bunny wouldn’t kill himself… would he?

Meanwhile Paul, left alone in the detective office, is approached by a Raymond Chandler-esque leggy blonde in a red dress, who wants him to follow her boyfriend, something he’s not actually sure how to do. And Brigit is certain Bunny wouldn’t commit suicide, so she’s looking for him. Though they don’t realize it at first, both their cases are related to the trial of three property developers who swindled thousands in the collapse of the Irish Celtic Tiger boom. After those three are acquitted, one of them is tortured to death. And that’s just the beginning of violence that will convulse all of Dublin.

The Day That Never Comes wasn’t a bad book, but it disappointed me. It was as if someone sat down with author McDonnell and said, “Now this time, tone down the funny writing. Concentrate on character development, back story, and social awareness.” There are plenty of humorous situations in the book, particularly slapstick arising from Paul’s adoption of a flatulent German Shepherd with an attitude. But the funny lines aren’t here. McDonnell’s Wodehouseian gift for hilarious phrasing isn’t much on display.

But it’s a perfectly fine humorous mystery. I recommend it, with cautions for the usual stuff.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Man With One of Those Faces,” by Caimh McDonnell

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A Man With One of Those Faces

She was not a bad looking woman, truth be told; a couple of years older than himself, short brown bobbed hair, decent figure – she wouldn’t be launching a thousand ships any time soon but she’d undoubtedly create a fair bit of interest in a chip shop queue.

Paul Mulchrone is “A Man With One of Those Faces” – a face so ordinary that people frequently mistake him for other people. This comes in handy when he helps out in a Dublin hospice, sitting with dying old people, holding their hands, letting them imagine he’s a family member or a friend. He does this to fulfill the terms of his aunt’s will, which allows him to live in her house on a small stipend so long as he puts in a certain number of public service hours every month. It’s all fine until one night when Nurse Brigid Conroy persuades him to stay a little beyond his time with a particular old man, in return for a drive home. In the event, the old man tries to murder Paul with a knife he’s somehow acquired, and then drops dead.

Turns out the old man is a gangster whom everyone thought dead years ago, one who was involved in a legendary unsolved kidnapping. And his old partners in crime don’t know what he might have told Paul in those last moments. Best to kill him, just to be on the safe side. And Nurse Brigid too. Continue reading ‘A Man With One of Those Faces,” by Caimh McDonnell →