Author Jay Stringer's
Old Gold is a new look at an old theme: the likable anti-hero who finds himself caught in the middle between the sides of the law and the illegal, and of course there's a woman involved. But this one takes a few interesting twists and turns along the way, and there are a few surprises that will keep the reader guessing. It's a hard-boiled mystery that this reader enjoyed from a number of perspectives.
We begin by meeting Eoin Miller, a half-Romani former cop, and when he visits his favorite pub where he meets a beautiful but hard-drinking Mary, a woman who reminds him of Lauren Bacall. As they drink and talk, she tells him that someone is trying to kill her, which alerts him. They talk, and over a bottle Eoin explains that he finds people and things, following his blood:
"My dad is Romani. You know"--I paused before saying it--"a Gypsy?"
They leave the pub and head to his place. Out comes the inevitable bottle of wine and they make small talk, and then head upstairs to his bedroom. But Mary passes out, and Eoin heads back downstairs to sleep on his couch. When he wakes in the morning with a hangover, he goes back upstairs and finds still in his bed... except that she's dead, strangled by one of his own old work ties and with needle tracks in her arm.
Instead of going to his former colleagues with the police, he flees the scene of the murder, hiding out in a flat owned by the Mann brothers, but then he decides to find out who killed Mary. He knows that if he doesn't, he'll be the one framed for her murder. This is a rather crooked pair, and he's worked for them, but the Mann Brothers control part of the local drugs trade.
Eoin tries to walk a line between these and other local underworld characters and his own former police colleagues, yet some of them are not on the up and up, either. Add to this, a good friend from the local police force is pushing him hard to find the missing son of one of their brass.
Then there's his estranged wife Laura, who is also a member of the police force to which he used to belong. But saying anything more would be to add spoilers, so I'll leave that to the reader to see where she fits into the picture in this fast-paced tale.
Should note here that I bought this Kindle edition in a slightly indirect fashion. Had read the author's
Faithless Street - The Old Gold Prequel, and my review of the same explains why. This one is a 59-page offering with four short stories that dovetail into his full novel here quite well. It's a fascinating and creative way to create a good lead-in for a novel, and kudos to the author for using such an innovative way to get readers to want to take a further step.
Eoin Miller is a believable and agreeable character, yet we find that he's also quick-witted and quite intelligent. His first person narratives make Jay Stringer's
Old Gold into a good and fast paced tale that left this reader with hopes that the author will use this one as a nucleus for more. There's a subtle sense of humor woven throughout this book, and this reader can only hope that Eoin will be back in the author's forthcoming offerings.
10/7/2012
