An engaging debut police procedural crime novel by Irish author Dervla McTiernan. Dervla grew up in Ireland and worked there as a solicitor before moving to Australia and beginning a career as an author.

This story features detective Cormac Reilly who moves to Galway to support his partner Emma’s career opportunity as a medical researcher there. Galway feels like a demotion after his high profile job in Dublin, and Reilly is forced to contend with the small town politics of his new station as he is consigned to dealing with cold cases. He finds himself investigating the death of alcoholic single-mother Hilaria Blake, who 20 years earlier was found in her house dead with a needle in her arm, leaving behind her teenage daughter Maud and a much beaten and neglected 5 year old son Jack. Ironically, Reilly himself was the investigating officer twenty years prior, as a newbie cop, out of his depth, and uncertain what to do with the two children the welfare system had so clearly failed. Suddenly he is looking at the case with fresh eyes and trying to work out how the adult Jack has wound up dead in an apparent suicide in which not all the ends tie up. The story shifts between Cormac’s somewhat bumbling attempts to solve the crimes and Jack’s grieving girlfriend, trainee surgeon Aishling Conway. Aishling has just met Jack’s long lost sister Maude who is convinced his death is not a suicide and is determined to either provoke the police into action or solve the crime herself, until she suddenly becomes a suspect. There is also the added angle of trying to work out what is going on at the cop shop between undercover narcotics Garde Danny McIntyre, domestic violence officer Carrie Ryan and the team of largely chauvinistic work-avoidant superiors. An interesting story. There may have been a little too much going on, with another cold case being worked on simultaneously which seemed to me just an unnecessary distraction. The audiobook narration by Aoife McMahon was lovely, with the usual exception that non-Australians can never get an Aussie accent right. An engaging read. ( )

Very Good Start

An engaging mystery where the criminals are evil and the victims are human and their pain and loss is felt. I’ll be interested to read more of the series. The audiobook was beautifully read by Aoife McMahon. ( )

What’s an avid reader to do when he’s run out of Tana French novels? Why, pick up another crime novel set in Ireland, of course.

Dervla McTiernan was born and raised in Cork in Ireland, where she practiced for a while as a corporate lawyer. She moved to Australia during the financial crisis of 2008-9 and now lives in Western Australia.

The Rúin is her first novel, and a very worthy one. Not yet quite up to the standard of Tana French, but well on the way. I look forward to her subsequent work.

About the title, she says: “In Irish, Rúin means something hidden, a mystery, or a secret, but the word also has a long history as a term of endearment.” Make of that what you will. ( )

If you’re looking for an excellent mystery with suspense, betrayal, and corruption, I highly recommend The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan. It’s the first installment of the Cormac Reilly Mystery series.

Twenty years ago, Detective Cormac Reilly is new to the squad and called to a home for a domestic disturbance. He finds Hilaria Blake dead in her bed, leaving her two children alone. Present day, Aisling is a 25-year-old medical student with high ambitions to become a surgeon. Her live-in boyfriend, Jack, is found dead in a local river. Jack’s sister, Maude, returns to Ireland after being gone for many years, and is convinced that Jack was murdered.

Detective Reilly, new to the detective squad in Galway, is assigned a cold case from 20 years ago involving the suspicious death of Jack and Maude’s mother. Reilly is having difficulty fitting in with his peers and begins privately questioning the integrity of the squad. Detectives in the squad begin urging Reilly to arrest Maude in connection to the death of their mother. Reilly isn’t sure what’s going on, but he knows to trust his instinct.

I enjoyed how the story slowly unfolded. The back story of Reilly’s character and why he transferred from the detective squad in Dublin to Galway, gradually came into full picture. It’s nice to be left a trail of breadcrumbs by the author. This approach keeps the story interesting and the pages turning. Or the minutes ticking away if you’re listening to the audiobook. There are several threads of the story and learning how characters and events weaved together was awesome. The ending of the book leaves me eager to pick up the next installment, The Scholar.

I purchased the audiobook of The Ruin from Audible. I loved the beautiful narration by Aoife McMahon. I could listen to her all day!

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog ( )