Black Irish: A Novel [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

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.

It's not often that you come across a crime thriller that doesn't have some kind of formula basis (flawed protagonist, police corruption, etc)., but Stephen Talty's "Black Irish" struck me as one of the exceptions. This first novel from Talty (he is a bestselling non-fiction writer) is original, intelligent and smacks of real people and a real place (Buffalo). The language and writing style are clean and clear and the plot and characters are dynamic and credible. It is one of those rare books that you don't want to put down, even for food, drink or the bathroom.

The novel's protagonist is a South Buffalo detective--an anomaly in that city in that she's a woman on a force that is the poster group for traditional Irish cops. The story opens with a really, really chilling murder that will be followed by several others. The killer has a very personal agenda that appears to target members of an IRA-affiliated social group who are harboring a nasty secret. Her own father is somehow connected to the group and is therefore a potential murder victim. The plot takes some very satisfying twists and turns and concludes (several times) in ways that the reader just doesn't see coming.

Author Talty has drawn wonderful, meaty characters and given them smart, credible dialogue. He evokes the town and and its economic and climatic conditions equally skillfully. The book's pacing is snappy and often close to breathtaking as the number and ferocity of the murders increases. You couldn't ask for better in the crime genre and I'm willing to bet that the book and author will be up for some kind of award in the coming year. Highly recommended.

I am a hopeless fool for fiction and the genre matters not as long as the prose sings to me.

I was drawn to BLACK IRISH, the debut novel of non-fiction author Stephan Talty, not for its genre but because the cover blurb compares Talty with critically acclaimed author of the literary thriller, Tana French, a writer much loved and respected by me. Unfortunately I saw immediately that I was deceived by such a promising comparison.

BLACK IRISH is a gruesome psychological police procedural which should be pegged strictly as a crime thriller and not a literary thriller. For those readers hoping to find literature in BLACK IRISH, they will only be disappointed. But for those readers who love thrillers and don't care about the literary merits of style and nuance, then this dark and rather formulaic novel is for them.

BLACK IRISH is not really a bad story; it is just the storytelling that is weak. A lot of the book I considered enthralling, even compelling, but the narrative is uneven and clumsy. I really liked the idea of a Rust Belt crime story being placed in South Buffalo and married to authentic Irish American history and in that regard the book is quite believable. Yet the narrative's blunt edginess is rusted over and dull, lacking any true literary glimmer. I'm sure that Talty did plenty of research to support his use of the Irish Republican Army, the Gaelic Club and the Clan na Gael in his plotting. Talty is competent if unpolished in his prose and the historical facts he bases his story upon are solid and strong. But unfortunately he ultimately grinds down all plausibility - with this reader anyway - by the vulgar excesses in his action scenes and the over the top perfection of his main character.

For my taste the narrative sorely lacks style and nuance, like trying to jig with two left feet. There is no music in the language and the storyline is practically crippled by its clumsiness. The uninspired dialogue, the synthetic and clichéd characters, the unbelievable feats by a too perfect, altruistic heroine, the over-managed plot, the too neatly tied-up plot resolution - all had me switching off my willing suspension of disbelief button.

Yet for every passage that had me rolling my eyes or wanting to throw the book against the wall, there is a suspenseful passage that had me on the edge of my seat. I was often reminded of the literary terror so well done by Thomas Harris in his The Silence of the Lambs. In fact the heroine of BLACK IRISH, Buffalo police detective Absalom Kearney, is not unlike FBI agent Clarice Starling. And if there is no character in BLACK IRISH like Dr. Hannibal Lecter, there sure is a maniacally menacing, psychotic serial killer whom the detective Kearney is determined to bring down single handedly.

Although I cannot evaluate BLACK IRISH as literature - and if I did I would have to rate it with two stars - I would give it four stars for its entertainment value as a pot boiler. Averaging the two ratings, I come up with a final score of three stars...good as a psychological crime thriller but not good enough to be considered anything more literary.