Customer Reviews

The Color of Blood: An Irish Novel of Suspense

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I expected this one to be a bit less enthralling than the first, but I liked it even more.

Some reasons why:
1) the relationship between Ed Loy and his "sidekick" Tommy is developed a bit more, and one of the things I liked about it is that Tommy becomes far more than the genial liar he mostly was in the first book (The Wrong Kind of Blood);
2) Ed's character remains consistent, and while I wanted to box his ears sometimes (who says it's women who fall fast and hard for all the wrong people? guys can fall deeply in lust in a nanosecond, too, and Ed is a perfect example of that), mostly I liked that Declan Hughes knows who Ed is at his core and is faithful to that characterization;
3) I once more got a lot of background on Ireland, possibly more than I've gotten in about 50 previous books with Irish protagonists;
4) the dialogue seems, at least to this non-Irish reader, authentic and sometimes hilarious because of all the colloquialisms used throughout the book;
5) the plot is fairly complex and kept me guessing throughout much of the book (and even when I knew who the "bad guy" was, I still found an element of surprise in the details; and
6) I just plain like Ed Loy and his circle of acquaintances. (Ed's not always easy to like: he boozes it up more than he ought, and he's really a bit. . .well, stupid about relationships, but he's intellectually quick, drolly funny, and willing enough to delve into his own psyche.

I'd definitely read the first novel in this series before picking this one up, but you won't suffer much if you don't. It'll just be a smoother and more fulfilling ride if you do.

This is the second installment of the Ed Loy series - Ed is a Dublin PI, transplanted to LA and now back in Ireland. He's hired to find the daughter - who may or may not be involved in the world of pornography - of a somewhat reputable family and very quickly finds himself thrashing around in a family closet full of skeletons. The Color of Blood is a roller coaster ride from start to finish - murders, fires, sex, kidnappings - poor Ed doesn't sleep, rarely eats and is fueled by alcohol. A lot of spaghetti is thrown at the wall and though some of it sticks this reads like a Raymond Chandler meets Hunter S. Thompson meets Emeril hybrid - Plot development is accomplished by simply "Kicking it up a notch" with one spectacular event/revelation after another. So although this book is entertaining, at times it borders on incoherent with far too many twists and turns, red herrings, shootings, beatings and characters, leaving this reader sometimes confused and often incredulous.

Too to fair to author Declan Hughes, in writing Irish crime fiction, he's chosen to run with a tough - and accomplished - crowd. The Irish penchant for melancholy and despair, captured in a tradition of poetic prose, arguably defines modern noir crime. But lacking the stripped-down, chainsaw-jagged beauty of Ken Bruen's bleak tales of Galway, or the visceral violence and gritty character development of Adrian McKinty's journeys into Hell, or John Connolly's atmospherically creepy tales of a "honeycomb world", Hughes' well-written "The Color of Blood" comes off surprisingly flat and mildly pedestrian by comparison.

More Gothic romance - at least perverted romance - than hard-boiled suspense, "Blood" tells the story of the Howards, a venerable Dublin family being blackmailed with sexually explicit pictures of their rebellious teenage daughter Emily. When private detective Ed Loy is summoned by former rugby God and family patriarch Shane Howard to identify the culprits, find Emily, and generally restore the peace, he finds a family so dysfunctional that Ozzy Osbourne and clan seem like the Ozzie and Harriet Nelson by comparison - a family with more skeletons in the closet than Westminster Abbey. Turns out that Emily's apparent ransom is not much of a mystery after all, at least compared to trying to keep track of the sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, former wives, lovers and ex-lovers, murdered kin, service staff - well, you get my point - of this complicated and pretty much despicable cast of characters. Which is at the core of the novel's weakness - there are simply too many story threads to unwind, involving too many shallow people that we have little reason to care that much about. Even protagonist Ed Loy is a bit cardboard cutout - the standard street-hardened private eye from central casting with little to distinguish him from an all-too-crowded field. Nonetheless, the canny and unstoppable Loy manages to get to the bottom of multiple murders and dastardly deeds that have stumped the Guard for two and three decades, winding to a fiery end that was less surprising given a liberal - but effective - dose of foreshadowing.

Setting the negatives aside, Hughes definitely can write, and given some focus and a ruthless editors pen, "The Color of Blood" could have been a contender. But at the end of the day, if you're like me, it may leave you feeling unredeemed and unfulfilled - not unlike the Howards.

OPENING LINE: The last case I worked, I found a sixteen-year-old girl for her father; when she told me what he had done to her, I let her stay lost.


Well, I've just finished the second Declan Hughes Ed Loy crime novel and have to disagree with another reviewer--it's not as good as THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, the debut novel. Sure, there's that intriguing and clever opening line that ropes you into the book. And there's that shocking conclusion that's really shocking. I was intrigued by the first sentence and shocked by the conclusion in both books!

I titled my review of the first Ed Loy "An Irish Ross MacDonald" and compared the book to MacDonald's "The Drowning Pool," the second Lew Archer crime novel. Family blood and betrayal in both, I declared.
After I finished THE COLOR OF BLOOD, I added another word - secrets. COLOR is about a hunt for a prominent Dublin dentist's daughter. Secrets are revealed. Hughes writes about family blood, betrayal and secrets.

Tim Ruttan of the Los Angeles Times quoted an interview with Declan Hughes in his review April 14, 2010 of Ed Loy #5 just published. Hughes talks about the Holy Trinity of hard-boiled crime novelists:

"I think it's Ross Macdonald I'm most influenced by. If Hammett took murder out of the rose garden and put it back in the alley where it belongs, Macdonald told you about the kid who'd been dumped in the alley, found out that he was from a family with more than a little loot, and then took you into their house to leaf through the family album... That `family gothic' spoke to me, because Irish society is still pretty tribal, and because, despite the impression Irish people give that we're open and friendly and candid, there's a lot we don't want to tell you -- a lot of skeletons in our closets."

But don't miss this second Ed Loy! It is a fascinating crime novel amid a Irish "family gothic" tale.

First Sentence: The last case I worked, I found a sixteen-year-old girl for her father; when she told me what he had done to her, I let her stay lost.

PI Ed Loy has been hired to find a dentist's teenaged daughter. The girl's porn filmmaker ex-boyfriend turns up dead and the family seems to no longer care what has happened to the girl. With plenty of suspects from whom to chose, Ed is on his own in sorting this case.

I tried three times to get into this book and just couldn't get past the portents and the stereotypical characters. There were too many characters, none of them likeable or well developed.

The plot was hackneyed and bordered on silly. It just was not interesting to me. I found it a trial to get as far into it as I did.

Mr. Hughes and I are just not made for each other.

This book has a lot of action, twists, surprises to keep you reading, but what stays with me is the way it got me thinking about justice. Suppose everyone sets laws aside. If police serve mostly as records keepers, and lawyers mainly look for other points of view, and investigators support individual ideas of truth, justice can still be a goal. Hughes has created characters who show how that works, and why.

Declan Hughes is an Irish playwright turned novelist. His latest book, THE COLOR OF BLOOD, is the second novel to feature private eye Ed Loy. Loy debuted in Hughes's first novel, THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD when he returned to Dublin, Ireland to bury his mother. At that point, Loy had lived in Los Angeles for twenty years. That bit of business led to an investigation that was covered in the first novel. Loy is still rediscovering his roots in the town where he grew up.

In the new novel, Loy is hired by Doctor Shane Howard, a well-to-do dentist that runs a very successful practice. From the onset, Loy - and the reader - are treated to mysterious happenings. Although he's been retained by Doctor Howard, Loy is questioned and treated suspiciously by the family lawyer.

When he does meet with Doctor Howard, Loy is hired to find the dentist's nineteen year old daughter, Emily. Someone is blackmailing Howard. He's been sent an envelope containing pictures of Emily engaged in various sex acts. Doctor Howard is convinced she was held against her will and forced to participate in the acts of degradation.

On the other hand, the dentist appears way too calm to Loy. Howard hires the private detective almost too casually, and seems to brush the whole thing off as a nuisance.

The whole setup of this novel reminded me immediately of Raymond Chandler's first novel about his signature private investigator, Phillip Marlowe. Like Loy, Marlowe was brought into a highly dysfunctional family filled with sexual secrets and substance abuse problems.

In no time at all, Loy finds himself lied to and treated like hired help. But, like Marlowe, he's deeply drawn into the investigation and the layers of lies that are woven around the Howard family.

Hughes's riding also reminded me a lot of another great private eye writer. Ross MacDonald also covered the crime beat with his perennial shamus, Lew Archer. Although Ross McDonald's novels started off as imitations of Chandler and Hammett, the writing deepened and tended to reflect more of the sociological problems going on in the world at that time. At least the problems as they were presented in southern California.

Hughes seems bent on doing the same thing for Dublin that Ross MacDonald did for southern California. The city comes alive through Loy's eyes. We get a chance to learn the history and see the sights that Loy does. Not only that, but we get two sets of values: the way things are now in Dublin, and the way they were twenty years ago when Loy last lived there.

The pacing in the novel is quite good. Hughes is a master storyteller and dense plotter. Although Loy finds Emily quickly in the beginning, that only leads to bigger problems and higher stakes. Despite the family's tendency to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that money can make any problem go away, Loy knows he has to take a hand and continue his investigation in order to save those that he can.

Ed Loy's history is painted across the pages of the book. His friend Tommy carries a lot of weight in the story, and has direct bearing on how Loy handles things. Despite the fact that Tommy is helping him, Ed can't totally trust his friend either because Tommy has his own agenda and is involved in a lot of what is going on.

Although Hughes prefers not to be a violent person, he doesn't have a problem going there once there's no other recourse. He's a physical man as well as a cerebral and emotional one. He's not exactly Robert B. Parker's Spenser, but both men travel the same dark alleys and know how to take care of themselves.

On the surface, the plot seems simple enough. But Hughes twists and turns characters and events so much that even a close reader has to stay on his toes in order to keep that. And the writing is packed with detail, emotion, and history. This is a gifted storyteller at work.

THE COLOR OF BLOOD is the first book I've read by Declan Hughes. Thankfully I caught him early in his career. When I read his first book, I'll be caught up with him - and anxiously awaiting his next Ed Loy novel.

This book had the feel of a good read at first. But when I couldn't keep track of the characters, I realized that they were poorly-drawn and cliched. And speaking of cliches, the plot twists are out of a bad soap opera. "His REAL father is...", and characters shooting each other as they die. Phew!

Read this, the first in the series, and promptly ordered all the others. Felt the same way I did the summer I discovered Ross McDonald. Sometimes the hero's pain is pretty brutal to bear. I like a detective on the edge, one not entirely convinced he wants to go on living, or that anyone is worth saving-- makes for the least predicable outcomes.

PI Ed Loy is back in Ireland after twenty years of living in Los Angeles. He returned to bury his mother (The Wrong Kind of Blood).

Dr. Shane Howard's daughter Emily, age nineteen, is missing. Loy is hired to find her. His only clue is a series of sexual photographs. Loy locates Emily, but not before her mother and ex-boyfriend are murdered.

As Loy digs deeper into the murders, he learns that the Howard family has secrets they'd like to keep under wraps. Their long-established family reputation and much more is at stake.

I enjoyed the earlier book, The Wrong Kind of Blood, and believed that Irish playwright Declan Hughes would improve as a novelist with each new book. I was correct in that assumption. The Color of Blood is compelling. It's dark and gritty, the characters are complex and well-developed, the plot is smooth and the setting of Ireland is rich and lush.

Waiting for the next Loy novel is glorious anticipation. Hughes is quickly claiming his place in the field of exciting writing.

Armchair Interviews says: The Color of Blood is a must read.