Review of A Stone of the Heart by John Brady (Penguin, 1988)

Jarlath Walsh is a naive and idealistic student at Trinity College Dublin who dreams of becoming a journalist. His ambition is cut short when his head is bashed in with a cobble whilst walking across the college grounds. Inspector Kilmartin decides it is just the case to bring Sergeant Matt Minogue back into the fold of the murder squad. Minogue has been convalescing after surviving the bomb blast that killed the British Ambassador over a year previously. Even before the incident that nearly ended his life Minogue seemed to exist somewhat apart from his colleagues; thoughtful, perceptive, unflappable, thorough. As he starts his investigation it’s immediately clear that something doesn’t sit right. The evidence suggests that Walsh’s death might be drug related, but Minogue’s instinct says otherwise. As he picks away at the case, the Troubles from the North visit the city, and policemen start to lose their lives. Then someone tries to kill Minogue.

A Stone of the Heart is the first book in the Matt Minogue series. It’s a credit to Brady that it feels mid-series. Minogue is a well developed character that has depth and resonance. Brady provides sufficient back story and family context without dwelling on it and slowing the story. The social interaction between characters is keenly observed and the dialogue is spot on, capturing the colloquialisms and banter of Irish brogue. Brady does an excellent job of capturing the political atmosphere in the South and the tensions between a somewhat political ambivalence and benign republicanism and an active support for the IRA. Well written with a nice pace, the story is carefully constructed, although the end tailed off a little. Whilst I didn’t have a problem with the ambiguous and unresolved nature of a couple of elements of the case, I was left with some questions concerning motivations and back story of three of the principle characters, which are dealt with in a cursory way. That said, A Stone of the Heart is very fine police procedural and I’m looking forward to catching up with Matt Minogue again.

Hucksters and bogmen

I've just finished reading A Stone of the Heart by John Brady. It's a very fine police procedural set in Dublin and published in 1988. I was struck by the following passage in which a couple in their fifties bemoan the changes in the city in the late 1980s. Little did they know what was coming once the 'hucksters and bogmen' really got going in the 1990s and the city became one big building site.

Dublin had gone to pot in Mary's estimation. Where was the polite and decent society she had grown up in? You'd be run over by cars and you on the footpath even, she had concluded. The clerks in the shops didn't so much as look at you these days. People eating in restaurants and houses being knocked down for shops and offices.

"It's them Johnny-Jump-Ups from outside of Dublin has the place gone to hell. What do you call them, entrepreneurs and the like. Hucksters and bogmen. They take the money and run," Mick said.

The thing was, it was happening all over the world. Like Father O'Brien said in the pulpit; things were changing too quickly. We didn't have our priorities right, he said. That's it, Mary thought, we don't have our house in order, we don't have our priorities right.

We didn't have a priorities right indeed.

Ireland entertained a lot of people with lunatic ideas. Some were even elected to promote those ideas.

Difficult to argue with that given the evidence. I also liked this description:

A face on her like a plate of mortal sins, Minogue thought.