Customer Reviews

Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery

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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.

"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.

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.

A lucid example of politicians and bureaucrats who never visit the outcome zone before making decisions is the border separating Northern Ireland and Ireland drawn in 1920 without regard to geography or property rights. The imaginary line cuts through farms. When a corpse is found on both sides of the demarcation, the Garda Siochana and the Police Service help one another solve the case; juresdiction is based on either which side has more of the body or in dispute which country the deceased belonged to; don't even bother to figure out third country residents.

Thus when the body of fifteen years old Angela Cashell is found lying across the border, jurisdiction is resolved by Garda Police Inspector Benedict Devlin who insists he knows the teen as a citizen of Ireland. No one argues as he leads the investigation into her homicide. At the crime scene, Angela was wearing a gold ring that her family members deny ever seeing before as none recognize it. Local mourners leave flowers where she died honoring the victim, but someone left amongst the foliage an old photograph that seems out of place. Devlin focuses on teenager Whitey McKelvey, a member of the itinerant "Travelers" as the prime suspect until a second murder with that same old photo occurs that exonerates the lad. Devlin knows the case is much deeper than the River Shannon, but not who or why.

The key to this strong Irish police procedural is the background at the BORDERLANDS where an informal cooperation between the cops was forged eight decades ago that remains in effect and a more tenuous peace between the local residents and the "Travelers". Benedict is a solid lead character as he has some personal issues that make him human, but not enough to overwhelm the prime whodunit story line. Brian McGilloway writes a strong opening investigative tale that sub-genre fans will welcome.

Harriet Klausner

Borderlands is the debut of Benedict "Ben" Devlin, a Garda detective inspector in a small border town between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Just before Christmas the body of a teenaged girl is discovered literally on this border and Devlin is assigned his first murder case. As the investigation proceeds Detective Devlin finds himself embroiled deeper and deeper into his small town's current dynamics as well as its "troubled" past.

Once the victim is identified as the daughter of a life-time trouble maker, it appears the apple didn't fall far from the tree. There are drug use implications as well as connections to a local group of Travelers, who are neither stellar citizens nor helpful to the investigation. As Devlin digs deeper a corrupt political scheme comes to light and finally a connection between the current crime and a possible years old IRA murder.

The author does an excellent job in blending these layers of the story together, the only fault I had was with some of the violence sprinkled throughout the book that befalls our hero. It came across as unnecessary. That being said Borderlands is a very good debut. Devlin is a captivating protagonist - he's happily married with two children - and there's also a minor sub-plot with Devlin's neighbor which is somewhat amusing. I look forward to additional books in this series.

Here's a fresh new voice out of Ireland! Excellent!! I'm just waiting for the next offerings...