Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Borderlands
by Brian McGilloway
Macmillan New Writing, 2007

Just Finished

Full review soon.

(yeah yeah yeah, I know you've heard that one before)

Borderlands (in case the title has not dropped a big enough hint) explores what dark deeds take place far from the usual Irish Crime capital of Dublin. Garda Inspector Ben Devlin's beat is a town in Donegal, Republic of Ireland, called Lifford. Lifford stands directly across the River Foyle from Strabane in Northern Ireland. It's far closer to Belfast, Derry and Omagh than to Dublin, and the memories of the decades of The Troubles are nearer to hand than the gangland reasons for Dublin crime.

Big city eejit that I am, I had to check an old road atlas to see if Lifford was a real place or a fictionalized representation (as, for instance, Declan Hughes' pseudononymous version of Dun Laoghaire). It's the real thing.

And as with Declan Burke's Eightball Boogie, set an hour and a half south-west in Sligo, Borderland opens the eyes to what modern day reality is like off the beaten track.

 

 

 

Critical Mick says: Apologies for the delay in reviewing, letting the novel digest.

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2008 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 6 September, 2008.