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    Black Irish: A Novel
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    Black Irish: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Black Irish: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Black Irish: A Novel

    Written by Stephan Talty

    Narrated by David H. Lawrence XVII

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    In this explosive debut thriller by the author of Empire of Blue Water, a brilliant homicide detective returns home, where she confronts a city's dark demons and her own past while pursuing a brutal serial killer on a vengeful rampage.

    Absalom "Abbie" Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn't keep Abbie's troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective's badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she's sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts.

    When Jimmy Ryan's mangled corpse is found in a local church basement, this sadistic sacrilege sends a bone-deep chill through the winter-whipped city. It also seems to send a message-one that Abbie believes only the fiercely secretive citizens of the neighborhood known as "the County" understand. But in a town ruled by an old-world code of silence and secrecy, her search for answers is stonewalled at every turn, even by fellow cops. Only when Abbie finds a lead at the Gaelic Club, where war stories, gossip, and confidences flow as freely as the drink, do tongues begin to wag-with desperate warnings and dire threats. And when the killer's mysterious calling card appears on her own doorstep, the hunt takes a shocking twist into her own family's past. As the grisly murders and grim revelations multiply, Abbie wages a chilling battle of wits with a maniac who sees into her soul, and she swears to expose the County's hidden history-one bloody body at a time.

    With Black Irish, Stephen Talty stakes a place beside Jo Nesbø, John Sandford, and Tana French on the cutting edge of psychological crime thrillers.

    Praise for Black Irish
     
    "Abbie Kearney is one of the most intriguing new suspense protagonists in memory, and Black Irish marks the captivating start of a brilliant thriller series."-Tess Gerritsen
     
    "Luxuriantly cinematic . . . a compulsively readable crime thriller . . . Move over V. I. Warshawski; Buffalo gets its own crime novel heroine."-The Buffalo News
     
    "A suspenseful debut novel with a circuitous plot . . . Black Irish is simply a riveting read."-Booklist (starred review)
     
    "Talty shows his chops when recounting [Buffalo's] Irish roots."-Kirkus Reviews
     
    "Talty does a fine job portraying the cohesiveness of the Irish, their loyalty to one another, and their obsession with their history. . . . A memorable story of betrayal and vengeance."-Publishers Weekly


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 26, 2013
    ISBN9780385360760
    Unavailable
    Black Irish: A Novel
    Author

    Stephan Talty

    Stephan Talty is the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Hand, The Good Assassin, Agent Garbo, and A Captain’s Duty. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He’s written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Playboy. He lives outside New York City with his family.

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    Reviews for Black Irish

    3.5/5

    148 ratings54 reviews

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    • 4/5
      In this book a female police detective in Buffalo, New York is the first on the scene of a grisly murder that becomes the start of an awful nightmare. She finds herself investigating multiple murders in a tight Irish immigrant community that seems too scared to talk to her, as much as it also is concerned about protecting its own people. The IRA is of course implicated in some form or another, and there is a bit of an unexpected twist at the end. Unexpected is a nice way of saying that the information one would need to guess about the surprise resolution is never provided until the last chapter or so, with so little foreshadowing as to make the ending too abrupt and not well integrated with the rest of the story.
      I was not so impressed with the way the big baddie was not really even hinted at until the end of the book- it is pretty easy to be sure that your readers won't guess who is killing people if the killer is never mentioned as even existing until the very end when he suddenly is discovered to exist at the same time as he is identified as the killer. The rest of the story though, with killing off lead suspects in a process of elimination as the book progresses, worked well enough.
    • 2/5
      Okay, I'm from Buffalo, so I enjoyed this noir version of my hometown. While I liked the writing and the detective's character, I found the plot completely ridiculous. I'm not a regular mystery-reader (or even a detective-show watcher) so I'm not familiar with serial-killer tropes, but I found the social and psychological aspects of this novel completely unbelievable and untenable.
    • 3/5
      The reason I took so long to read this book is I was listening to it in my Mustang and I haven't driven it too much this summer!
    • 5/5
      Wow. I need aspirin. I have a tension headache from being so dang tense for most of this book!This story drove me nuts trying to figure it all out. Lots of twists and turns, page turning thrills, one tough ass heroine and just when you think you have it…whapow, another twist. Great believable characters and a very interesting plot line. I learned a lot of things about my Irish heritage and the IRA I didn't know. Who had ever heard of the "Clan na Gael" before? The Irish war of independence in the 1920’s was largely funded by the clan. Seems I got a nifty little history lesson as well.I wanted to read this book when I saw the title. My father is 100% Irish and my family has often been referred to as “Black Irish”. I don't know if any of you out there are Irish but, we are a proud and stubborn people and like Abbie’s dad my father has many similar quirky personality characteristics. My parents had their honey moon at Niagara Falls and I have worked with kids in crisis, seems like me and Absalom do have a few things in common! Detective Absalom Kearney, Abbie, left home years ago to escape the stifling small town life only to return home to Buffalo many years later to tend her ailing father. The town she grew up in is very Irish and close knit. Taking care of their own and dispensing with punishment as they see fit is the Irish law of this new land. There is a serial killer on the loose and it seems it is up to Abbie and her partner Z to figure it out.Men in town are being tortured, killed and a toy monkey is left in or near each victim. Does Abbie’s Adoptive father have something to do with these gruesome killings? Are the police involved? does the Clan na Gael have a long reach from Ireland? The town clams up and as Absalom gets closer who will be the next to die?
    • 4/5
      Pretty good, moved along well. A bit of a surprise at the end.
    • 3/5
      I'd say it's nearer a 4 star than a 3; a good read, well written and plotted and the characters are pretty well drawn, with the protagonist very well fleshed out. Talty is a new author to me, and I'll read more of him, I'm sure.
    • 2/5
      Good start, but then gets too cute by a half and goes off the rails trying to create more suspense. Gets ridiculously implausible for a detective story.
    • 4/5
      I was disappointed by this book. I don't recall where I saw something about it, but it sounded like something I would like. But, I found the story to be strained and unbelievable at times, and the characters one-dimentional.Since I went to school in Buffalo, I did like that it is located there. I recognized some of the locations and street names, anyway. I haven't been back to Buffalo in a long time, so it was good to see some of these locations in my head, and to try and remember what others looked like.
    • 5/5
      This is a hard to put down, well-written novel. Talty introduces some well developed characters and background for them that is both interesting and fun to read. The back-story and historical research is nicely integrated.There are few twists that were completely unexpected, which is not easy to do in this day and age, given all the murder/thriller/suspense novels, and stories and films and television shows.... Talty is an author to watch and I'm looking forward to reading more of his fiction and non-fiction. I can't believe I waited as long as I did to read this and when it was due at the library and I had to wait for someone else to read it, I was biting at the bit waiting for it! I finished it in a couple of days of so much reading I had sore eyes!If you like mysteries/suspense/thrillers, I highly recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      This book, while having a number of plus points is a little confusing. It reads like a fusion of two books, one of which is a very good descriptive piece about the places visited and the other is a relatively moderate, if slow paced, thriller.Unfortunately, the long descriptions slow the pace of the thriller even further and make the story line confused and hard to follow. The plot is not convincing and the characterisations are not very riveting or sympathetic.Although it is by no means the worst book I have read I would not really recommend it to others.
    • 5/5
      bsalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up in Buffalo, NY, but never felt at home. Adopted as a young child by an Irish-American cop Abbie has grown up in a community composed mainly of those of Irish descent where hair is either red or mousy brown and skin is fair. Abbie’s black hair is one of the reasons that she stands out. This close-knit community doesn’t accept outsiders and takes care of its own. Good or bad “the community” will handle it. Now she has returned to Buffalo to care for her father who is dealing with the complications that Alzheimer’s brings. She’s also come home as a police detective with a Harvard degree. Strike three? There’s a serial killer on the loose and Abbie is in charge of the investigation.Jimmy Ryan, a dutiful employee of National Grid and a member of “the community”, making his rounds reading meters disappears. He awakens blindfolded and tied to a chair. There’s someone in the room with him. Jimmy can feel the presence of a body “The thing moved around in front of him. He could feel its physical mass. It was as if some ancient animal sense had woken along the nerves of his skin to compensate for the loss of sight.” The “thing” unties one of Jimmy’s hands and makes him trace a scar on the things forehead. Jimmy knows that a message is trying to be conveyed, but what? What has Jimmy done to deserve this kind of hatred?Two days later Abbie arrives at the Ryan household responding to a missing person report trying to get to his wife before the machinery of the community shuts her off. Dealing with Patty Ryan is like trying to get blood out of the proverbial stone. Abbie knows that Patty is holding back, they both know that at this point they’re looking for a body, and that the community is on the case. The body is found, but it’s not just a body. It’s clear that the killer is sending a message and that he’s not done.This is a very fast-moving and engaging mystery. The history of Buffalo was fascinating as it ties to Ireland and the brutal history on Irish and American soil. A true page turner and the beginning of a terrific new mystery series.Now we wait (patiently?) for the next Absalom installment.
    • 4/5
      Full disclosure here: the only reason I picked up this book was because of the setting: Buffalo, NY. I’ve lived in the Buffalo metropolitan area my entire life and the only time I can remember reading a book set in this city was in Lauen Belfer’s City of Light and the story of the murder of William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, Temple of Music, both historical fiction. So I was immediately drawn into this narrative with so many familiar locales, streets I’ve traveled, restaurants I’ve ordered in, monuments I’ve passed. This probably sounds incredibly shallow to someone from London, New York, or even Moscow, all cities which are often the settings of novels, but believe me, a book set in Buffalo is highly unusual. And in this case, the setting added a great deal to the story.I had no doubt that the author was a native because he nailed the description of the area of the city, South Buffalo, called the County in the novel (or the 27th County, the other 26 being in the Republic of Ireland). The city of Buffalo has more Irish in it than any city in the U.S. other than Chicago. His descriptions of the declining rust belt metropolis, former Queen City of the Great Lakes, with it’s loss of first, industrial complex, followed by jobs and then, people is spot on perfect and really captures the dismal atmosphere of this proud, working class city.Absalom Kearney is back in her hometown, a detective on the Buffalo police force, after doing the same in Miami. She’s come back to care for her Alzheimer’s afflicted father, former Buffalo detective John Kearney. As the novel opens, she is investigating a gruesome murder in her old haunt, South Buffalo. She’s considered an outsider, an adopted child with questionable heritage. And heritage is everything in the County. When a crime occurs in the County, the police may as well not even bother investigating because nobody’s talking and because the County takes care of its own. Abby muses, “the people around here would lead their own investigation, probably better staffed and financed than her own…cops like her, but not working for the Department. Off the clock. County hours.”Against all odds, using the brain that got her through Harvard, Abby figures out that a serial killer is on the loose and targeting members of an old Irish semi-secret organization within the Gaelic Club called the Clan na Gael. Can Abby stop the killer before he kills all the members of the organization? And what does this have to do with the IRA? And most important of all, what does Abby’s father have to do with all this?I had a few minor quibbles with the book, a few details that were somewhat skewed or didn’t add up but for a debut novel it was really quite good and parts of it had me on the edge of my seat. I’m not sure why he felt the need for a double ending but I am ready to follow this series whose author was so good at creating atmosphere. So if you are in the mood for something a little bit different in the crime area, this book might fit the bill.
    • 3/5
      A gruesome serial killer has arisen in South Buffalo, a working-class Irish-American neighborhood known as “The County” (the unofficial 27th part of Ireland.) Detective Absalom Kearney, recently returned to Buffalo to care for her father and make a fresh start, is assigned the case. Abbie must deal not only with the killer, but also with a community hostile to outsiders and harboring secrets that may in fact be personal.This was a generally solid crime novel with a unique setting. Talty does a good job depicting the dreary, decaying city of Buffalo as well as the insular community of South Buffalo. The case is fairly intriguing as well, with the killer attacking a secret group involved with the IRA.The story is a bit unbalanced, however, with a ton of twists and turns that occur near the very end of the novel. It probably would have been better if the author revealed some more details and clues along the way; as it is, the killer’s reveal is rushed and comes a bit out of nowhere. There are also a few bizarre scenes, including one where Abbie flips out with no prior indication; she threatens a former boyfriend at gunpoint and then immediately proceeds to have ridiculous sex with him. It’s also a bit strange that a cop would drive his or her own car everywhere, especially without any sort of siren.Despite a few bizarre and implausible twists, Black Irish still has an interesting setting and story.A review copy was provided through the Librarything Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      Absalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up an outsider in her hometown, Buffalo NY—south side, “the County.” She is the adopted daughter of an Irish American cop. Back in the city after a Harvard education and a stint in a Florida police department, Abby is not just taking care of her senile father but is following in his footsteps as a local detective. When a killer begins targeting members of a semi-secret Irish society, Abby is put in charge. Her usual rational cool begins to crumble when the murders hit close to home and evidence begins to point directly at her. This novel is a solid psychological thriller--murder mystery built over a police procedural core. The bleakness and coldness (emotional and environmental) of the setting, the plotting, and the characters work together to create a chilling, fast moving debut novel. I found the character of Absalom intriguing, but found a few of the plot twists a little hard to believe. A solid 3 ½ out of 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I need aspirin. I have a tension headache from being so dang tense for most of this book!This story drove me nuts trying to figure it all out. Lots of twists and turns, page turning thrills, one tough ass heroine and just when you think you have it…whapow, another twist. Great believable characters and a very interesting plot line. I learned a lot of things about my Irish heritage and the IRA I didn't know. Who had ever heard of the "Clan na Gael" before? The Irish war of independence in the 1920’s was largely funded by the clan. Seems I got a nifty little history lesson as well.I wanted to read this book when I saw the title. My father is 100% Irish and my family has often been referred to as “Black Irish”. I don't know if any of you out there are Irish but, we are a proud and stubborn people and like Abbie’s dad my father has many similar quirky personality characteristics. My parents had their honey moon at Niagara Falls and I have worked with kids in crisis, seems like me and Absalom do have a few things in common! Detective Absalom Kearney, Abbie, left home years ago to escape the stifling small town life only to return home to Buffalo many years later to tend her ailing father. The town she grew up in is very Irish and close knit. Taking care of their own and dispensing with punishment as they see fit is the Irish law of this new land. There is a serial killer on the loose and it seems it is up to Abbie and her partner Z to figure it out.Men in town are being tortured, killed and a toy monkey is left in or near each victim. Does Abbie’s Adoptive father have something to do with these gruesome killings? Are the police involved? does the Clan na Gael have a long reach from Ireland? The town clams up and as Absalom gets closer who will be the next to die?
    • 3/5
      Absalom Kearney has returned to her hometown of Buffalo, NY, particularly the Irish-American community which calls itself "the County" to follow in her well-respected father's footsteps as a police detective. She is currently trying to track down a serial killer who leaves the mutilated bodies with a similar disturbing clue. It becomes clear to Abby that these murders are most likely related to a local group which supports the IRA (Irish Republican Army). As the killer becomes more proficient with each unsolved murder, Abby finds herself pulled in more and more, facing attacks on her own person and people close to her, and trying to tie it all together before more people are killed. Good mystery with a gloomy undertone.
    • 4/5
      I won a copy from the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.The book was pretty good. I enjoyed the storyline and the pace. I would like to get to know Abbie better.
    • 4/5
      Black Irish is a dark mystery/thriller that revolves around Det. Absalom Kearney. Det. Kearney, after recovering from a personal breakdown returns begins life anew in Buffalo, New York. She begins to investigate a grisly murder in the basement of a church in a section of town referred to as "The County." The County has a large concentration of Irish denizens and plenty of secrets to go around. As Det. Kearney follows the leads in the case she is pulled deeper and deeper into a world of violence that she may or may not be able to handle.Absalom Kearney is a character that the reader can attach to and much of the action is well-written and leaves the reader on the edge of his/her seat. If you like mysteries this is a great choice, but don't be shocked by the brutality of the violence.
    • 4/5
      While there were flaws in this thriller, I enjoyed it enough to overlook most of them. After a breakdown, Detective Abbie Kearney has left Miami to come home to Buffalo, in part to care for her ailing father. She is appointed the lead investigator when a missing man is found mutilated. I was especially intrigued by the setting of the story, not a common one in mysteries. As I said, there were flaws, including real carelessness on Abbie's part, but overall I liked what I read.
    • 4/5
      A gloomy mystery perfect for the long months of winter. The setting is fascinating, a glimpse into a tight knit community unwelcoming to outsiders. I love the main character negotiating a world that she has never quite penetrated. Unfortunately the ending grew into a series of gradually more unbelievable twists that left me behind.
    • 5/5
      I hit the jackpot again when I won Black Irish by Stephan Talty on Librarything.com’s Early Readers program. This is the writer’s first novel and I really enjoyed. Detective Absalom Kearney is the adopted daughter of legendary Irish cop John Kearney. Absalom has returned to County as South Buffalo is known. A nickname earned from because of its heavy Irish population. Half Irish from the natural father she never knew, Abbie has never quite fit in despite being raised by John Kearney. When members of an Irish republican organization, Clan na Gael turn up brutally murdered Abbie fears her father is next. She finds herself on a journey into her past as she frantically tries to find the killer before her father is murdered.This is Talty’s first thriller and thankfully it will not be his last. According to the advanced copy I received from Ballantine Books, he is under contract for another novel featuring Detective Absalom Kearney. Black Irish is a great read that I highly recommend.
    • 4/5
      This thriller takes place in Buffalo New York and apparently South Buffalo has the second largest concentration of Irish, second only to Chicago. It was once a thriving city with a large amount of manufacturing plants and steel mills, it has, however, become another city in crisis with many young people leaving the area to find employment. The tone of this novel is pitch perfect, the setting immersible, the heroine, a returning adoptive daughter of a policeman is now a detective herself. The plot concerns a secret Irish group working in Buffalo, where someone is now killing off the last remaining members of this group. I enjoyed this first thriller from non fiction writer Talty, it does require the reader to disband belief with some of the occurrences, but it kept me reading and I really wanted to know who done it and why. Looking forward to the next installment of what I hope is the beginning of a new series.
    • 4/5
      Stephan Talty's Black Irish is a well-crafted tale of an investigation into serial killings in Buffalo, NY. Absalom Kearney returns to the Buffalo Police Dept. where her father had retired and gets involved in a case where a serial killer is leaving plastic monkeys in severely disfigured bodies. The characters are interesting, although Absalom is portrayed as a somewhat stereotypical idealized female protagonist with the cards stacked against her in a traditionally male profession. There were a couple of scenes that did not work for me, but the story is compelling enough to keep one reading until the end.
    • 5/5
      My rating:5 of 5 starsBlack Irish written by Stephan Talty is a March 2013 release, published by Ballantine Books/Random House. Absalom ( Abbie) Kearney is a cop working for the small enclave dubbed "The County" in Buffalo, New York. Abbie grew up here, but always felt like an outsider. She had been adopted by a highly respected cop in this predomintately Irish community. Abbie's dark hair and translucent skin made her stand out. She worked in Miami for awhile, but has come home to care for her father who has Alzheimer's. The mutilated body found in a church has Abbie and her partner "Z" on the case. But, not only is the murder itself shocking, but the reaction of the victims wife and mother are equally strange. As Abbie works the case, she discovers the victim was a member of a secret society. Then another murder takes place, more grizzly than the first. The more Abbie digs the more she is stonewalled by her fellow cops, "The County" and anyone else that may have a clue about who is behind these murders. A lonely librarian is Abbie's best source of information as she learns how involved the IRA has been over the years in this very part of Buffalo. Is the secret society and IRA involved in these murders or is it the work of a serial killer with huge vendetta? Abbie's investigation leads her to the darkest place of her past as she suspects her father may be the next person on the killer's list. On top of that, the killer has left little toy monkeys at his crime scenes like a signature. This is taut suspense thriller. In fact, it's the best thriller I've read in a while. It's hard to believe this is the author's first novel. Incredible. In the beginning the novel is like a police procedural. A body is found and the normal investigation steps are taken. But, then the novel takes a turn when Abbie finds out about the Clan. The history of this secret society, the IRA and it's role changes after 1998, the closed off community that keeps Abbie on the outside looking in as much as possible, Abbie's fear for her father, and the personal communication the killer seems to have with Abbie all build the suspense. There are scenes that had me riveted. I could actually feel the inhuman cold and sleet and could taste the fear of the victims and and the cops working the case. This is one mean serial killer. The killings are graphic and brutal. This book is not for the faint of heart. This is a very gritty crime thriller, with lots of twist and turns. You will not feel relief until the last few pages. No one is to be trusted and Abbie, ever the outsider, must face down the killer alone as she learns shocking secrets about her own past.Highly recommend! A+ Thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for the ARC.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to really like this book but in the end it was just not there. The review by Ridgeway Girl from 2/2013 so perfectly describes exactly what I also thought of the book I cannot add to it. I agree with that reviewer's pros and cons completely. The first half of the book was intriguing and then it just got so complex it seemed like the story just did not know where to turn next and each turn it did take was more unbelievable than the last.
    • 5/5
      The sanctity of a local Buffalo, NY church is forever compromised when the maimed corpse of Jimmy Ryan is discovered in the basement. Tied to a chair, eyelids cut off as if he were made to look at something, the sight of Ryan's body sends a shock through the town. Author Stephan Talty describes the southern part of Buffalo, the County, as having a "small-town feeling". Its best days behind it, the County is a place where news travels fast and nothing stays secret for long.Enter Absolam "Abbie" Kearny. Despite growing up in the County, she has always been a kind of outsider. Adopted at a young age by John Kearny, a local police legend, she has now returned to follow in her father's infamous footsteps. Tasked with the Ryan case, she is quickly met with resistance from the local townspeople and police.The County is mostly made up of Irish immigrants. As Abbie digs deeper into the murder, connections, both historical and personal, begin to reveal themselves. As further murders occur, Abbie struggles to stay ahead of the killer. The Buffalo police run an investigation parallel to hers, and Abbie soon finds herself a suspect in the case. As the tension rises Abbie is forced to question her sanity and family history, all culminating in a shocking twist that is sure to leave readers riveted.With his debut work of fiction, Stephan Talty instantly places himself among the great modern thriller authors such as Dennis Lehane and Tana French. Like Lehane and French, Talty manages to maintain exceptional characters, setting and suspense without ever sacrificing the integrity of his writing. This novel could have easily become a standard thriller, but Talty daftly takes his time to build each character, allowing the suspense to stay at a constant boil. In Abbie, Talty has imagined a believable protagonist, whose flaws and vulnerability allows readers to connect with her emotions and desire to succeed. I was hooked on this novel from beginning to end. Fascinated by the serial killer who tells, "his autobiography through corpses", I was shocked at the final turn that the events took. This exceptional novel has everything thriller fans have come to expect and gives them more than they could ever have hoped for.
    • 2/5
      This is a roller coaster ride of a thriller that has some fantastic assets, but is ultimately too flawed to be successful.Things I liked:The setting is fantastic. Talty really captures the feel of a decaying industrial city, and he clearly knows Buffalo and the surrounding areas. I love reading about places that are a little forgotten, I mean who really needs another book set in New York or London? He also sets the book in winter, and describes things in ways that had me reaching for a sweater. The community presented is vital and real. Talty even captures the cadences of Irish-American speech without resorting to dialect. He describes a community being hit hard by the closing of the port and the steel mills, losing population and closing itself off from the larger city. Things that didn't work:The main character. She's a cop, and described as "hot" and as having "two upturned breasts". Otherwise, she's more of an action/adventure rogue guy with an awful lot of alpha posturing. Other factors of this character made no sense. She's supposed to have attended Harvard, but she's not exactly very smart, or knowledgeable about the world around her. I'd expect an intelligent and curious person growing up in an Irish-American community to have some basic knowledge of Irish history, but this is sadly not the case. The plot. The first half was okay. Then all continuity and plausibility was thrown out for a great deal of nonsense, that was rushed and skimmed over things that should have been explained. And then there were two giant finales, the second of which was tacked on for no reason I could see beyond allowing the protagonist to use her gun a few more times. The silly errors. Streets described as running parallel and radiating outward. Footwear described as boots, and then as heels. A sex scene in which all the buttons were torn from her blouse, but then she had to rush to several other places -- without having the time or opportunity to change her clothing. Things like that. The investigation. The protagonist was amazingly cavalier about bleeding all over crime scenes or grabbing stuff from scenes without letting anyone know. She conducted searches alone, leaving people living in the house to wander around destroying evidence. She refused to get vital information in person, saying she was too busy, and then went and worked out, directly after eating an extra-large burrito.
    • 3/5
      Mystery fans will enjoy this thriller set in Buffalo NY. It is gritty and full of twists to keep the reader guessing.
    • 4/5
      This is the first thriller from Stephen Talty, who has written a number of acclaimed and bestselling historical books. It's a promising start to his fiction career, featuring a strongly conflicted female police detective and a setting in Buffalo, New York, that takes on a life of its own.Absalom Kearney grew up in "the County", the Irish neighborhood in Buffalo. To call the County somewhat insular is like calling rain a little wet. The people who live there, largely working class people at various removes from the Auld Sod, close ranks against outsiders even if it means protecting criminals. Abbie herself is considered an outsider there, even though she grew up in the neighborhood, attended the local Catholic schools, and is the daughter of a respected police detective. The problem is she's the adopted daughter, and her origins are shrouded in mystery.As Abbie investigates the brutal killing of a County resident whose mutilated body is left in the basement of the local Catholic church, she finds herself fighting not only the killer but her old neighbors, who have nothing to tell her or any of the police. She's also fighting against her fellow cops, men who with the exception of her partner (tellingly, a Buffalo native but not from the County), treat her with ridicule or outright contempt. Abbie doggedly pursues what quickly turns into a serial murder case, even as she begins to suspect that in order to find the identity of the killer she will have to learn once and for all the truth about her own past.The publisher's blurb for this book compared Talty's writing to Tana French, which sounded promising as I have read and thoroughly enjoyed French's books. But the connection seems tenuous to me; Talty's style did not seem particularly similar to French's, and I'm not sure he quite has her grasp of weaving together an intricate plot without dropping a few stitches along the way. Leaving comparisons aside, though, I found this thriller to be quite entertaining to read. The characters are well-drawn and engaging, and as mentioned earlier the city of Buffalo is drawn in meticulous if not altogether flattering detail.I would recommend Black Irish to anyone who likes psychological thrillers. I don't know if Talty intends to make this into a series featuring Absolom Kearney, but if he does I would happily read the next installment.
    • 3/5
      Black Irish is a thriller involving detective Absalom "Abbie" Kearney. The mystery begins with the murder of Jimmy Ryan who is found in the basement of a church. Abbie cannot find answers in this community ruled by a code of silence. She keeps plugging away and the murders keep happening. Then things hit really close to home...This story just never grabbed me and I struggled to finish the book. I didn't particularly care for most of the characters and Abbie was about the only one I did like. The plot is confusing and even towards the end I really didn't understand what the point of the whole thing was. Instead of madly reading to get to the end, I was forcing myself to finish the book...not because I wanted to, but because I had to write a review!