Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery [Paperback]

Brian McGilloway (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur (September 2, 2008)
• ASIN: B001F1B30O
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. After studying English at Queen's University, Belfast, he took up a teaching position in St Columb's College in Derry, where he is currently Head of English.

His first novel, Borderlands, published by Macmillan New Writing, was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007 and was hailed by The Times as 'one of (2007's) most impressive debuts.' The second novel in the series, Gallows Lane, was shortlisted for the 2009 Irish Book Awards/Ireland AM Crime Novel of the Year. The new Devlin novel, The Rising, will be published this Spring in hardback in the UK, alongside the paperback of the third novel, Bleed A River Deep. The US edition of Bleed A River Deep will be available in Sept. 2010, published by Minotaur.

Brian lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife and their three sons

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read Mystery from Ireland, September 2, 2008

By 

Ann Weisgarber - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery (Inspector Devlin Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Finally Borderlands has made its way to the U.S. The first of the Inspector Devlin series, Borderlands has been a big hit in the UK. Set on the border of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and during Christmas, Garda Inspector Devlin is determined to solve the murder of sixteen-year-old Angela Cashell.

Inspector Devlin's borderlands is a complicated landscape. It's not the world that most tourists see when they visit Ireland. This is where travelers, social outcasts, live in caravan camps. It's where secrets are kept and grudges are held for years. It's where people seek revenge in the name of justice.

Inspector Devlin is every bit as complex, confronting his own demons as he investigates the edgy world of the borderlands.

This is a first-class page turner so buy it and clear your schedule. You won't be able to put it down. Nor, after you've finished it, will you forget Devlin and his borderlands. All you'll be able to do is wait impatiently for the next Inspector Devlin book to make its way to the States.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A no man's land, October 23, 2010

By 

E. Crowley (QUINCY, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery (Hardcover)

"Saturday, 21st December 2002

It was not beyond reason that Angela Cashell's final resting place should straddle the border. Presumably, neither those who dumped her corpse, nor, indeed, those who had created the border between the North and South of Ireland in 1920, could understand the vagaries that meant that her body lay half in one country and half in another, in an area known as the borderlands."

Angela is the fifteen year-old daughter of Johnny Cashell, a man well-known on both sides of the border, a thief, a trouble-maker, and a pair of fists for anyone willing to pay the price. It is a few days before Christmas and no man deserves to be told his child has been murdered and left, nearly naked, in a cold, barren no-man's land.

Angela is wearing an unusual and expensive ring engraved with her initials. No one in her family recognizes it; her sisters say Angela didn't wear gold. Near the location of the body is the picture of a woman that no one in the family recognizes either. Angela has not been molested and some dignity has been left to her by whoever placed her in the field since it it obvious that she was killed somewhere else. The police have nothing that gives them a place to start.

Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin becomes the lead investigator in the case because Angela was a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. As the police investigate, they learn that in the days before her body was found, Angela had spent time with Yvonne Coyle, a nurse, at a club in Strabane in the north but Yvonne claims she knows nothing about Angela's friends. And she knows nothing about the ring.

Three days later, the body of Terry Boyle is found in Gallow's Lane, burned beyond recognition. Terry had returned from the university for Christmas and had gone out to meet friends. He had never been in trouble, there is no connection to Angela Cashell, and yet, there is another murdered teenager and no motive for the death. And the same picture found near Angela's body is found near his.

Devlin is convinced that the ring is important and with the help of a jeweler, Devlin learns that the initials AC don't refer to the woman receiving the ring but to the man who ordered it. When the police learn that the woman in the picture was a prostitute who disappeared many years ago, the case begins to move quickly and the situation becomes more desperate.

BORDERLANDS is a story of old hates, of revenge, lives set adrift, and of lives too short and sadly-ended. McGilloway writes of the geographic no-man's land where nothing flourishes or grows because it claims no one and no one can claim it as home or as refuge. It is the stuff of tragedy when a soul becomes a borderland of its own.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good police procedural ..., November 21, 2009

By 

Caitlin Martin "addicted to words" (East Bay, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery (Inspector Devlin Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In the past couple of years there has been a lot of good new crime fiction coming out of Ireland so I was pleased to find even more! Borderlands introduces us to An Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin, working on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

I like police procedurals and this is a good one made even more interesting to me because of its setting. Borders are interesting places and border towns even more so as the people on each side spill over and influence each other. There is a perpetual sense of ambiguity that makes these places transgressive and McGilloway definitely captures that.

Benedict Devlin has the potential to be a recurring police character who will be worth reading about. He carries his own set of ambiguities that will make him interesting to read. I like that he's not a super cop - sometimes he's competent and sometimes the obvious flies by, but he keeps on banging away at the problem until he gets some resolution.

There are interesting secondary characters here, as well, as plenty of twists and turns. All in all a good read and a good first outing.