Customer Reviews

The Death of an Irish Sinner: A Peter McGarr Mystery (Peter McGarr Mysteries)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Those readers who have followed Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr Of the Dublin police and his fascinating wife Noreen will find this book to be another good read - lovely Irish settings, familiar characters from the police force and incredibly evil killers, determined to keep their secrets at all costs. The ending of this book is a real shocker! This series is just wonderful, you can't stop until you have read them all.

With the untimely death of Mark McGarrity (pen name, Bartholomew Gill) this is, unfortunately, the last McGarr.

Fortunately, it was one of his best.

This is certainly the darkest of the McGarr series. The characters are ageing, and all not gracefully; their foibles and weaknesses laid bare in sharp focus. McGarr wonders if he has held on too long, if the price he has paid now too dear.

The murder of a wealthy religious biographer, and member of the Catholic secret society Opus Dei, begins a whirlwind plot that embroils all of the characters. Not much of a "who-dun-it", why and how the more fascinating questions.

The end of the book is a shock for all long-time followers of the head of Dublin's "Murder Squad."

The book has a nearly palpable sense of mortality that resonates even more given McGarrity/Gill's accidental death...

Ah, lad, we'll miss ya!

The author hits on Opus Dei. He hits so hard that one might think that he wants to settle a score. After all, Opus Dei is the major order in today's Roman Catholic church, having supplanted the Jesuits. And its founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, will be pronounced to be a saint of the church any day now. While I am familiar with some of the tenets Mr. Gill mentions, others have to be taken on faith or as exaggerations.

The book, as a mystery, has a tendency to move slowly and in convoluted ways. Every one of the main characters could be the culprit, and the process of elimination is none too swift. But, if you are interested in learning about Opus Dei, then this book is an easy to read introduction.

I was almost late leaving for work, because I just couldn't put the book down. I had a little time left before I had to leave my house, and thought I'd read a few pages more -- I was half-way through the book -- well, a few pages more turned into many chapters more, and I had to scramble.

I've read all the McGarr books, and loved them all, but this one was by far the best. The only slightly annoying thing in this outstanding mystery series, is that the characterizations change very abruptly. Bresnahan started out as cow-like, and now is a sex goddess. Hughie shouldn't be in his early forties. After all his eldest son is about 14 and he was conceived when Hughie was a college student. And wasn't Sinclair an important member of the squad? He now seems like a bit player.

Anyway, that's minor stuff. The book is a terrific, fast-paced, exciting read. Go for it.

Haven't read the book yet, but since "mpawlus" gives away the ending in his/her review, I may not bother. BEWARE the spoiler in this review!

First and last time I read a mystery by this author. One dimensional characters, poor plot. Main purpose of this book seems to be a prolonged attack on Catholicism and Opus Dei.

Late Bartholomew Gill was a remarkable author. His skillful books were'nt your run of the mill mysteries. As an erudite man with strong but thoughtful opinions , he wrote complex, often dark and distressing novels. In this book he goes after Opus Dei, fundamentalist, fanatical religious order known for murky misdeeds all over the world. And how strange that after writing such a a book, perfectly healthy man manages somehow to fall through the window in his house and die. Makes you wonder.
" The Death of an Irish Sinner" is a gloomy and bloody book that shatters both, the world of the main character and of the not so humble reader. Mr. Gill will be sorely missed for courage and originality, two traits so rare in the wreck of the world we live in.

Father Fred Duggan informs Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr of the Dublin police that his benefactor Mary-Jo Stanton died under suspicious circumstances. Peter visits the Catholic compound owned by the deceased, who, on first observation, seems to have peacefully died while tending her garden. However, around the victim's neck is a cilicio, a medieval device that as it is tightens chokes a person.

Peter immediately suspects Fred. However, he reconsiders his first opinion when local newspaper publisher Dery Parmalee claims that Mary-Jo was about to reveal a scandalous secret that would have destroyed the order. Dery does not seem sincere and hides something involving the case. Peter and his staff dig deeper into the life and death of Mary-Jo. They find powerful obstacles with even more powerful connections trying to end their inquiries because a conspiracy stretching back a decade to behind the Iron Curtain must never be revealed.

Peter McGarr seems to have been around forever, but in his fifteenth appearance, the Dublin law enforcement official remains as fresh as he was over two decades ago. THE DEATH OF AN IRISH SINNER is an entertaining police procedural starring a fabulous lead character, an intriguing victim, and several viable suspects. As usual Bartholomew Gill provides readers with a wonderful Irish police procedural that will entice newcomers to search for McGarr's previous novels.

Harriet Klausner

As an avid fan of Bartholomew Gill, I eagerly awaited the new Peter McGarr novel. I was not disappointed; this is Gill's best work. As a librarian, I read extensively--this is one of the top novels I have read this year. Not to be missed.

This no-holds-barred police procedural features unusually well-developed characters, so firmly rooted in their Irish heritage that this exciting mystery also provides insights into modern Ireland and the forces which shape it. Peter McGarr, the police superintendent, is a good man who has rejected the traditional church in favor of enforcing justice on earth; his wife Noreen, though not devout, is a true believer in the church. Peter is investigating the murder of Mary-Jo Stanton, an extremely religious writer who has intended to leave her estate to Opus Dei, a zealous order of ultra-conservative Catholics who believe it is their mission to do anything necessary, including murder, to protect the "true" Church. Peter's close investigation of Opus Dei brings him into contact with manipulative priests, and with their various contacts in the outside world, including an extremely successful, muckraking journalist, who panders to the public's love of good gossip, an influence-peddling politician said to "control the country through his contacts with the movers and shakers in commerce and industry," a host of pub patrons, and a gardener on the lam after ratting out his co-conspirators in crime in exchange for lesser jail time.

As the investigation widens, the reader sees that although many in the church live completely in a world of their own, so, too, do many on the police force, a group of fiercely independent and passionate people. "Procedure" is, at times, a very flexible concept--whatever works, as long as you don't get caught, seems to be the motto. Planting evidence, beating up suspects, closing one's eyes to one crime if the suspect can be "turned" to help solve another crime, and shooting to kill and asking questions later are all methods employed here to solve Mary-Jo's murder.

With dialogue that perfectly captures both the lilt and the gruffness of the dialect, a setting which is totally integrated into the action (no long, lyrical descriptions here), believable characters, an exciting and intricate plot, insights into social psychology, and scenes of touching sentiment and pathos, this is a mystery which has everything! Mary Whipple