Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award 2007.
Rejoice in the arrival of a great new Irish series featuring a very human, very likeable, moral Inspector Devlin. The setting is bleak and atmospheric and the plot well structured and compelling, albeit a little full of twists at the unexpected end. A great find.
The corpse of local teenager Angela Cashell is found on the Tyrone-Donegal border, between the North and South of Ireland, in an area known as the borderlands. Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin heads the investigation: the only clues are a gold ring placed on the girl's finger and an old photograph, left where she died. Then another teenager is murdered, and things become further complicated when Devlin unearths a link between the recent killings and the disappearance of a prostitute 25 years earlier - a case in which he believes one of his own colleagues is implicated. As a thickening snow storm blurs the border between North and South, Devlin finds the distinction between right and wrong, vengeance and justice, and even police-officer and criminal becoming equally unclear.
‘Beautifully written and very gripping . . . Brian McGilloway is going to be a major force in Irish crime writing.’ – John Connolly
‘McGilloway’s command of plot and assurance of language make it difficult to believe that Borderlands is his debut.’ – The Times
‘A taut, well-paced story with strong characters and an ingenious plot that seizes the reader’s attention from page one and holds it to the last sentence.’ – Irish Independent
‘Oozes authenticity. . . great dialogue and a convincing portrait of small town claustrophobia.’ – Sunday Tribune
‘A mystery of labyrinthine complexity.’ – Sunday Telegraph
Author
About Brian Mcgilloway
Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1974, and teaches English at St Columb's College, Derry. He lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife and their four children. He is the author of six previous crime novels: Little Girl Lost, The Rising, Bleed A River Deep, Gallows Lane, Borderlands and The Nameless Dead. Little Girl Lost was the first novel to feature DS Lucy Black, who returns in Hurt.
