Book Review: Islandbridge

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Islandbridge     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
John Brady
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Matt Minogue # 8
McArthur & Co., $24.95 trade paperback, 345 pages

Detective Inspector Matt Minogue is trying hard to focus on the PowerPoint presentation on European crime and fighting a losing battle until he gets a phone call from fellow detective Tommy Malone, only a few seats up. Malone has an informant who might possibly have a lead for them on a cold case, that of undercover detective Emmett Condon, who was found dead of a drug overdose some months before. But the informant, a fellow ironically named Lawless, refuses to talk unless Minogue and his former superior James Kilmartin are there to witness it.

Lawless offers Malone and Minogue a tale of a Dublin crime boss having a senior Guard in his pocket, but nothing more than that. Within 12 hours, though, Lawless is found dead. Despite himself, Minogue is drawn into re-opening the investigation into Condon’s death. When someone takes pot-shots at him and Malone in the middle of Temple Bar, Minogue realizes that they may be onto something, and that it goes farther back than just to Condon. Worse, he begins to understand that it could involve someone very close to him.

Islandbridge is the first of John Brady’s Matt Minogue books that I’ve had the pleasure of reading, but it won’t be the last. There’s nothing like an Irishman for the sheer dirty beauty of language. Oh, the plot is there, and good and strong; well-drawn characters abound. Minogue himself is a grand character, as real as your neighbour with the same troubles as anyone: he keeps a resignation letter in his desk drawer, just in case. But the best thing about this book is the language: crude yet lyrical, it is sheer poetry to the ear.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM