Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

March 1, 2019

Gr 4-7-At the age of 14, Ronan Boyle is the youngest recruit to the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, the Irish law enforcement agency tasked with investigating crimes involving the wee folk. While Ronan enrolls in the Garda as a means of finding evidence to free his parents, museum curators framed for the theft of an artifact, he learns that chasing after law-breaking faeries and other magical beings is not for the faint-at-heart. Ronan's training includes shillelagh class and weaponized poetry, as well as tin whistling for beginners; he needs all these skills and more when he and his captain set out to catch some leprechaun wine thieves. After encountering a dizzying array of faeries, and with the aid of a smarter-than-average Irish wolfhound police dog, the criminals are apprehended and Ronan returns to the human world with a lead on his parents' case. In the author's forward, Lennon states this book is his "love letter to Douglas Adams," and his efforts to emulate Adams' linguistic zaniness are evident throughout the book. However, Adams' genius is a challenging muse to follow, and this story reads like frenetic slapstick. Additionally, Lennon relies on the stereotypical trope of the Irish fondness for alcohol, and an overabundance of footnotes slows the pacing. VERDICT While the premise of the series is enticing, this first entry has trouble finding its voice. Hand readers Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" series instead.-Nancy Nadig, Penn Manor School District, Lancaster, PA

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2019
A 15-year-old recruit becomes the newest faerie-fighter in Ireland in the first of a series, Lennon's debut.After the imprisonment of his parents, curators at the National Museum of Ireland wrongfully accused of stealing the Bog Man by shady art dealer Lord Desmond Dooley, young Ronan Boyle is taken in by a sympathetic member of the Galway garda as an intern in the evidence department. Being skinny, Boyle is summoned to a castle ruin to rescue a changeling baby that a leprechaun has thrown down an oubliette. His success leads to his recruitment by the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, the Irish land of faeries. After a required course of study that includes tin whistle, he embarks on a series of adventures that eventually point in the general direction of the Bog Man and his parents' fate. They don't arrive there, but they're heading that way, and it's the vagueness of Boyle's quest and the plot as a whole that are the novel's primary weaknesses. Dry Irish humor and relentless wackiness are its primary strengths; with lines like "Pat Finch is what a heart attack would look like if it could walk around eating fish-and-chips and saying terrible things about Roscommon Football Club's starting lineup," the joy is in the journey, not the destination. The cast is default white, with diversity mostly of the nonhuman variety.As flavorful as the strongest Irish stout, though equally an acquired taste. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)

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callie_b - Ronan Boyle is a hilarious, unlikely hero in his country of Ireland. He is part of the Galway garda (the Irish word for police) and after being used to squeeze through a tiny oubliette (the French word for 'to forget,' thus a shaft where people would drop things and they would end up in there, forgotten) during a garda case (because Ronan is known for being gangly) he gets promoted to the Special Unit overnight! Suddenly his life is changed FOREVER. First off, he had always heard the legends of the mythical creature-filled town Tir Na Nog, but when he started training with the garda Special Unit, he discovered that Tir Na Nog is not a legend at all, but a real town! And yes! It WAS filled with faerie folk, leprechauns, you name it! And Ronan Boyle is the good guy amongst the crime-filled streets of Tir Na Nog, faced with new cases every day. But there is one ultimate thing Ronan wants to accomplish: clearing his parents' names. His bookish, museum curator parents were *SUPPOSEDLY* involved in a business of finding artifacts that could be considered Irish national treasures, and selling them to shady art dealers for da big bucks. But Lord Desmond Dooley accused Ronan's parents of *again, SUPPOSEDLY* stealing the "Bog Man," which was an artifact they found that ended up testing out to reveal it was over 4,000 years old, meaning it was Ireland's OLDEST KNOWN ARTIFACT. Ronan's parents were thrown into the slammer, and much to Ronan's dismay, barely seemed unhappy there, as they had BOTH joined GANGS at the jail!!!!! YES. PRISON GANGS. Yet Ronan still wants to clear their names regardless of their experience. In this laugh-out-loud funny novel, Ronan tries to find his place in the Tir Na Nog Special Unit, and all in all, the world. I thought this book was incredibly funny, the author Thomas Lennon has a great sense of humor when it comes to writing! Ronan was a very relatable character at times, and I stressed, smiled, and gasped with him along his journey throughout the book. This was a great book, and I recommend it to anyone who likes comedic, adventure, or folklore books!