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Critical MickReviews Free of Rules.Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck |
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The Dying Breedhttp://www.declanhughesbooks.com/ |
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TDB Trivia # 1: In America The Dying Breed goes under the alias The Price of Blood: An Irish Novel of Suspense. As with Want to Play?/Monkeewrench it tickles my Ex-Pat heart that some clever marketing punk got paid for insisting the cultures are mutually incomprehensible. What's in it? Rather than a blurbacious book jacket summary that gives too much away, below's a list of ingredients in Hughes's Edgar award-nominated third novel. If they tantalize, give The Dying Breed a try: Editor's Note: Christmastime this far north is extremely dark. |
The unruly review of Ed Loy's Sophmore outing, The Colour of Blood, took readers to a boarding school where the fictional children of all literature's greatest Private Eyes wage schoolyard wars over who's daddy (or uncle) is the toughest. All the lit kids agree, the review's a crime. |
TDB Trivia # 2: The audio recording of The Dying Breed is narrated by Declan Hughes' old Rough Magic mate Stanley Townsend. In 2007 Townsend portrayed a wealthy, scheming horse breeder in a BBC/RTÉ co-production called Rough Diamond. I kept picturing The Dying Breed's reclusive bloodstock baron F.X. Tyrell as Townsend's TV character, Charlie Carrick. Ed Loy did not look like Larry Mullen's brother.
TDB Trivia # 3: Yes Mick has read the book and listened to it on CD.
Is The Dying Breed any good? Judge for yourself:
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[Tyrrellscourt] village is on a slope, and at its top, you can see the Tyrrellscourt gallops stretching out below in two lazy figure of eights for the horses' round and straight work. Driving down along the main street was like one of those posed features in a colour supplement about 'The Subcultures of our Time': there were crusties and tree huggers with multicoloured sweaters and tights and those strange cropped-pate and pigtail haircuts with dogs on strings and petitions to save the whale, and the world; there were older hippies in saris and denim and leather, with moustaches and ponytails and nature shoes and raddled complexions; there were horsey, country types in Barbours and yellow and crimson and lime cords; there were obese white-faced teenage Goths in long leatherette coats and vast black T-shirts and six-inch steel-inlaid wedges; there were the usual complements of cheerful or surly layabouts, faces weather-beaten from standing smoking outside the pub or the betting shop all day; there were clutches of stripe-shirted men with mobile phones and oblong glasses thrusting their entrepreneurial way into the future; there were spiked-fin rugby boys and primped and groomed OMIGOD girls; there were sender, fine-boned blonde women from Poland and Lithuania with their crop-headed sinewy men; there were oul' ones with walking frames and tartan shopping trollies getting the last of the Christmas messages, and oul' fellas with papers rolled tight beneath their arms, transporting their custom from one pub to another. (pg 139) |
That Tyrrellcourt's a town I would love to visit, anyway! I hear there's a magnificent pub there, some place run by a barman named Steno, that's mighty craic.
TDB Trivia # 4: In this John Murray edition, at least, the Irish word craic is spelled incorrectly.
TDB Mick's Fave Bit: There's one line about the band Clannad which is unforgettable. Hughes' observations, and the language that he puts them in, are accurate and magnificent. These insights into the modern reality of this nation will outlast any action of the plot. "Tell no one. Say nothing. The secret history of Irish life." Too right.
TDB Mick's Least Fave: Certain twists were telegraphed a furlong ahead, and Ye Olde Cliche of clerical sex abuse makes its inevitable appearance. In fairness, though: Hughes explores in greater scope than is usual. What happens after the damning documentary has aired, and the viewers change the channel? The Dying Breed reveals all.
TDB Trivia # 5: The Dying Breed, Declan Hughes's third novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award in January 2009. It was also up for a 2009 Spinetingler Award and in June 2009 the world will find out whether it wins a Macavity ‘Best Mystery’ Award.
(Back cover blurbs are marketing crap, and usually give too much away. Mick says: read novels based on recommendations and author who have impressed in the past.)
Critical Mick says: Fingers are crossed for Declan Hughes, and feet are slyly booting Ed Loy's fourth, All the Dead Voices, higher up the TBR stack.
Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2009 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 25 April, 2009.
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