To be honest, for most of the time I found this novel hard going. I empathised with David Hughes who has Alzheimer's and is extremely frustrated because his memory is rather like a patchwork quilt with large holes. I understood young Dermot Jordan's desire to know where his father is buried, and perhaps even to clear his name.

But I struggled to remember which side was which, and who had done what.

Someone who has a better understanding of The Troubles would obviously enjoy the book far more. Thank you Anthony Quinn for trying to educate me! ( )

A new series set in Ulster, after the troubles, but with all the history, the prejudices and the resentments still in place. The protagonist, Inspector Celsius Daly, is not tarred with the brush of the troubles, but finds it very difficult to investigate a murder and a disappearance which have their roots in history. He is a interesting character who I look forward to following in further cases. Many of the supporting characters are intriguing, especially the man in the early stages of dementia who disappears. A very enjoyable stat to a series. ( )

Celcius Daly is the detective in this novel. Although he is from Northern Ireland, he had been working in Glasgow until some time before Disappeared starts. He is an outsider to all the events in recent History, as he doesn’t seem to have been involved in any, although we later learn that he was involved during his childhood. He just wants to solve the crime and is not scared of reopening older cases. This doesn’t get him many friends because there are many people who want to leave the investigation unfinished.

The book was good, but at some points I found it a bit confusing. I wasn’t really sure on which side some characters were. This is probably the idea; to confuse the reader because some people are not who they seem to be. I think my main problem was that although I had some basic knowledge of the History of Northern Ireland, there were some things that I had to look up to fully understand everything the characters were saying, so I may have missed or misunderstood something important at the beginning that would have made the reading much easier. Once some things start to clear up, everything is easier to understand.

The plot is very interesting and well thought. The disappearance of the Special Branch agent and the murder are linked in a way I hadn’t predicted to things that had happened years earlier and everything is more complicated than political ideas. Saying much about it would be revealing too many spoilers though. ( )

Inspector Celcius Daly becomes embroiled in a case involving former IRA members, Special Branch informers and spymasters as he tries to help one family find the body and killers of a victim of the "Troubles". Complex plot and interesting characters written by someone with deep experience of that period of N Ireland's history and the legacy it has left. ( )

When the blurb says "In Northern Ireland's darkest corner" it means it. It's winter, it's wet, dark, cold and black. A landscape full of old houses, swamps and fast running streams, there's an overwhelming sense of dark, deep, close-held, life-long, simmering secrets in the world that Inspector Celcius Daly now lives.

A Catholic Irishman, he's returned to his father's house after a stint in Scotland. His father's recent death, his own marriage breakdown - it's exactly what you'd expect of somebody living in this place, although Daly's a bit of a dark horse himself. He's also stubborn and a decent man who does not easily let go of a case when he believes something is wrong.

There is something very apt about the setting for DISAPPEARED. For a non-Irish reader it feels so right that this dark and slightly obsessive cop would be exiled to this place, full of people with the same personality traits. There's also something very apt about the intertwining of generations of families with the IRA, Special Branch, and a whole heap of secrets.

Everything about the setting, the scenario and the characters felt spot on when reading DISAPPEARED. Even the character of David Hughes, in the early stages of dementia, still with enough awareness of his own situation to know what's happening, know what he knows and more importantly, be able to identify the things he should know but can no longer recall. The dogged way that Daly pursues his investigation, despite the blatant interference of Special Branch matches the dogged manner in which Hughes sets out to right some wrongs, and the way that Oliver Jordan's young son pursues his own aims. The other element of this book that feels exactly right is the way that the Troubles inflicted damage on these generations of families, on the communities they live in, and even on the place itself.

Everything about DISAPPEARED worked. It's dark and uncomfortable reading at times, and for something that travels through as much human misery and cruelty as it does, it moves with a gentleness, a respect for the experiences of all the characters.

By way of confession - this book has been sitting on my to be read list for way too long. On the upside, DISAPPEARED has now been followed by BORDER ANGELS which was released this year and is now on the same list - marked with a much heavier handed reminder.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-disappeared-anthony-quinn ( )