Garda Bridget ‘Bridge’ Harney’s phone bleeps with a message. A video of Seán Flannery – a violent criminal – at her mother’s nursing home. His hand on her mother’s shoulder. Goaded to the point of madness, Bridge gives chase but Flannery disappears.A huge drugs seizure – the kind that means the cartels are exporting directly to Ireland – is abandoned in Kilkenny. In a high-tech processing plant a dead woman is found.Bridge believes all three events are linked. As she begins to examine the connections, she comes up against the Fuentes cartel. An organisation with billions of dollars at its disposal, a transport empire and informers everywhere.
Two Kinds of Blood by Jane Ryan was published by Poolbeg Press on 20 April 2020.
As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to welcome the author here today. She's talking about the books that are special to her in My Life In Books
My Life In Books - Jane Ryan
Okay...it's more like sixteen and that may be way too many but it's hard to stop when you start! I'll take them in genre rather than individually if that lets me fit in a little more.
Anne of Green Gables was one of the first books I read, the famous story about a red haired orphan. It was so different from my experiences as a child, the time it was set in, the landscape and cleverly crafted characters. The drama and humour, I was hooked from the first moment when Matthew set off to collect Anne at the train station. In later life I would read many Canadian authors and studied at the University of British Columbia and I date my fascination with all things Candian from this first experience with Anne.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was not my first Agatha Christie, but I have always marvelled in 1926 how Agatha pulled the reader in with the now common use of the untrustworthy narrator. It was my first taste of it, and in my opinion the precursor of the modern thriller. The Silent Patient, The Kind Worth Killing, The Girl on the Train all put me in mind of Christie's finest book.
Of course it started me down the road of crime (and organised crime) fiction and I've never been able to get enough! I'm a voracious reader (whomever is reading this blog most likely is too) and Poirot and Marple saw me through my teens as did the Godfather. Reading Puzo at age thirteen made a lasting impression, I lived in a 'if you can reach it you can read it' house. I moved to Morse, Rebus, Smiley and Arkady Renko. I'm a sucker for upended reader expectations - obviously the more you read the more difficult it is to be upended - but I'm endlessly impressed with the authors that continue to surprise. Irish authors in crime are prolific with some of the best in class writing police procedurals, Patricia Gibney, Jane Casey, Jo Spain and Adrian McKinty to name a few.
I adore laughing, and a book that can have me chuckling during my nightly read or keep the light burning for one more chapter is the type of book I relish. McCarthy's bar, Confederacy of Dunces and Rumpole of the Bailey are all in this category. It's the absurdity I'm drawn to, the language seems to recede into the page as you move from the serious to the silly in a nanosecond. Similarly, The Hungry Years is a clever and funny take on a personal memoir and a journey to the centre of yourself.
The Shipping News is a poignant book with the story written between the words, many reviewers will cite Suite Francaise or All The Light We Cannot See - both incredible books - as the perfect example of this type of storytelling, but for me nothing beats the Shipping News. It's the action in the silences I keep coming back to, the quiet pain in the mundane. And of course there's the Canada connection!
John McGahern's Amongst Women - or any of his books - is quintessentially Irish and global at the same time. The themes and incredible structure of the prose resonate. The University of Liverpool has an annual John McGahern Book Prize and it was my privilege to be shortlisted for it in 2019 for 47 Seconds.
Pride and Prejudice needs no introduction from me and will most likely be on many lists. It's sublime.
Stoner by John Williams was a book I happened across, why pick this instead of Richard Ford's Frank Bastible or Richard Flanagans' Road to the Deep North? Hard to say other than it combined all of these - true favourites of mine - into one. It's a quiet journey of an individual passing through life, finding disappointment yet the will to continue and survive.
I could go on and on....twelve seems so few yet I'm very grateful it wasn't one....that's impossible!
Thank you for giving me the chance to share this, Anne. It's been wonderful to reminisce.
Jane Ryan - June 2020
She has written articles for The Irish Times and the Irish Daily Mail and was short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Award.
Her debut novel, 47 Seconds – which also features Bridget Harney - was published in 2019 and was short-listed for the inaugural John McGahern Annual Book Prize.
Her work has won praise from Jo Spain, Jane Casey, Eoin Colfer and Patricia Gibney.
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