Collusion

Starred review from August 23, 2010
Irish author Neville follows his stunning debut, The Ghosts of Belfast, with an even more powerful tale of revenge, violence, and redemption. Collusion among Loyalists, IRA members, and the cops stymie the efforts of Det. Insp. Jack Lennon to find his former lover, Marie
McKenna, and their daughter, Ellen, who've been targeted by Belfast crime boss Bull O'Kane. Jack finds an unlikely ally in former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan, who knows that his murderous actions at a border farm where O'Kane was wounded and the gangster's son died have put mother and daughter at risk. Neville rides the perfect Celtic storm in an action-packed, cerebral thriller with fully realized characters and an insider's view of the ever-shifting politics of Northern Ireland, where the "peace boom" has also brought hordes of investors. Jack and Gerry emerge as two distinctly complicated antiheroes, neither of whom has illusions about himself.

Starred review from August 1, 2010

Former IRA gunman Gerry Fegan returns in Neville's follow-up to The Ghosts of Belfast. After (spoiler alert!) the massacre at Bull O'Kane's farmhouse, O'Kane is alive but desperate to kill Fegan, the only man to ever beat him. Fegan himself has left Northern Ireland, but a strange connection to six-year-old Ellen McKenna keeps him tied to the events of that night. When Ellen and her mother are threatened by O'Kane in an attempt to draw Fegan out, he returns to Northern Ireland to right the wrong that put them in danger. Ellen's father, policeman Jack Lennon, who has never been a part of her life, is also desperate to keep his daughter safe, and the two men search for Ellen and her mother amidst the collusion of Loyalists and Republicans, Irish and English, and killers and cops. VERDICT Neville's sophomore effort is just as well written and just as violent as his debut, winner of the LA Times book prize for best crime fiction 2009. Neville creates sympathy for his characters in the midst of violence and betrayal and reveals Northern Ireland as a country still under the effects of decades of terror. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 5/1/10.]--Lisa Hanson O'Hara, Univ of Manitoba Libs., Winnepeg

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2010
Sectarian hatreds and an assassins quest for absolution were at the heart of Nevilles brilliant debut, The Ghosts of Belfast (2009). In this riveting sequel, collusion, dating back decades between and among Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries, the Royal Ulster Constabularys Special Branch, Britains MI5, and British Army Intelligence, is the cornerstone. Ulster police detective Jack Lennon is caught in the middle of the sectarian hatred and the psychopathic desire for revenge that live on in Belfast, even in peacetime. Fearing for their lives, Jacks daughter, six-year-old Ellen, and her mother, Jacks former lover, have disappeared. Lennons superiors tell him to stop searching for his daughter, but Ellen is all he has in the world. Her trail leads him to the collusion that helps fan the flames of hatred in Northern Ireland. Lennon goes rogue in order to protect Ellen and her mother, and he forms an edgy alliance with the terrifying IRA assassin Gerry Fegan, the main character in The Ghosts of Belfast. Nevilles deft style builds mounting tension, and his characters, all tragic figures, are skillfully developed. The collusion he describes sounds all too plausible; its devious and endemic enough to impress even descendants of the infamous Borgias. The violence, administered up close and personaland the rage of those who commit itis almost operatic. A feast for thriller fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)