Customer Reviews

The Wrong Kind of Blood (Ed Loy PI)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book primarily because one of my favorite authors, John Connolly, indicated in his blog that he had read a novel by this author. I looked up the information on Amazon and ordered the book. I love to read mysteries whose protagonists are situated in foreign countries because I like to get a feel for those locations.

This novel, the first in a series that so far numbers two books, is absolutely superb.

Tom Loy is back in Ireland after a 20 year absence, back to handle affairs after his mother's death. His return is not without all sorts of challenges, the main ones being his buried resentment and bewilderment over his father's disappearance and his mother's sexual relationship with another man shortly after that disappearance.

He is asked to look for the spouse of a woman he becomes involved with, and as a result of that search, he encounters people from his past, people who connect him once more to the country he left behind in order to disappear and reinvent himself in Los Angeles.

The strength of the novel lie in the excellent dialogue, complete with Irish-isms that bring that country to life through language; the solid development of the main characters (not just Loy, but his friend David, and various other characters who are extremely necessary to Loy's personal development and to the movement of the plot), and the strong narrative.

Excellent! I plan to buy the second installment as soon as payday rolls around!

Private Investigator Ed Loy left his native Ireland 20 years ago. Now he is back to bury his mother and still wonders what happened to his father, who had disappeared many years before. Ed is asked by one former classmate to find her missing husband and another childhood friend turns up on Ed's doorstep with a recently fired gun, given into his care by a local mobster, he asks Ed to hide it. Soon Ed is immersed in bodies and a determination to unravel the secrets which started many years ago.

Definitely noir with lots of brutality and a few too many threads, but a very good debut nonetheless. I appreciated that Hughes tied up all the threads in a very satisfying way. Ed is an interesting character who was fleshed out quite well. The story was well paced but what stuck me most was the underlying that sometimes family is more than blood. It's not a perfect book, but good enough that I am looking forward to Hughes' next book.

Having left his hometown of Dublin for Los Angeles twenty years ago, P.I. Edward Loy has returned for his mother's funeral. The trip's brought back painful memories, including his father's disappearance before Ed left Dublin. It's also brought back a former schoolmate who wants Ed to find her missing husband, and an old friend who wants Ed to hide a gun for him. As Ed peels back layer after layer of lies and deception, he battles gangsters, lots of people with secrets, and his own past.

With a strong theme about things and people gone lost, in a variety of ways, THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD is a compelling, somewhat melancholy story about coming to terms with what can't be changed. Entwined with Ed's story are the changes Dublin has undergone over two decades. Author, Declan Hughes, does a wonderful job of describing the Dublin that Ed remembers and the sanitized mall-fest he sees now. I almost felt as sorry for Dublin sites as I did for Ed.

For a while, the increasing body count seemed a little far-fetched. But the more I learned about the area Ed grew up in, the more believable it was to read about folks solving problems through bloodshed. The gangsters are fairly run-of-the-mill thugs, yet other characters are well-rounded. Hughes takes his time tying up the novel's many threads to create a satisfying ending. THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD is one heck of an absorbing read. Enjoy.

In fact, Ed Loy, the "detective" in this tome is a troubled man and not much of a sleuth. However I would still recommend this book. Declan Hughes is a good writer, the sort like Larry McMurtry that can write a lot of words about mostly nothing but you still want to read it. Less gifted writers have to fill their books with fantastic plots to keep the reader from surrendering. I found the 1st 50 or so pages really interesting with the Irish expressions I was not familiar with and the development of the characters. As I went on the author made the common mistake of having Loy do dumb things even though based on his school work many years before one would assume he is quite brilliant. That is the problem, a young man with grades good enough to get into Trinity College medical school wouldn't be stupid later in life. And he wouldn't be broke either. I'm hoping his future books will be better, the writing talent is there, the good ideas are there.

Private Investigator Ed Loy has returned home to Dublin after twenty years. The purpose of his trip is not to visit. He's there to bury his mother, and then he intends to return to the United States where he left a former wife and the little girl they buried together.

At the height of Loy's grief, Linda Dawson, an old classmate, pleads (while tongue kissing him) with him to find her four-day missing husband, Peter. Loy agrees to investigate Peter's disappearance, and it leads him to secrets better left secret, organized crime, the IRA, numerous corpses (including one in the town hall's foundation) and drug deals.

The Wrong Kind of Blood is Irish theater director and playwright, Declan Hughes' debut novel. A number of subplots contribute to the feeling that Hughes had a lot of ideas and wanted to include them all in his first novel. That said, it is a fast-paced, exciting and suspenseful first novel with richly flawed characters, believable dialogue and a touch of Dublin thrown in for good measure.

Armchair Interviews recommends The Wrong Kind of Blood. Declan Hughes is worth watching as we suspect he will only mature as a writer. His next thriller is due out in 2007, so watch for it.

I like reading P.I. novels, old and new, and this debut title delivers the goods, as well as bodes good things for future entries in the series. P.I. Ed Loy returns to Ireland from a hiatus in L.A. (harboring its own problems) and attends his mother's funeral. An affluent lady hires Ed to track down her missing husband, and bad events unravel from there, including dark family secrets. The evocative Irish setting adds immensely to the storyline as does the lyrical, exuberant prose. Ed is a likeable P.I. protagonist who helps out his clients while searching for his own personal answers. Winner of the 2007 Shamus Award for Best First Novel.

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.

Ed Loy returns to his hometown of Dublin, Ireland for his mother's funeral. Loy left home over 20 years ago, following the disappearance of his father, finally ending up in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator. At the funeral, an old friend asks Loy to find her missing husband, and he discovers another old friend brandishing a gun in this mother's garden. Loy soon finds himself tangled in a web of extortion, drugs, and murder, orchestrated by the notorious Halligan brothers. The present is connected to the past in unexpected ways, and Loy's own personal demons are finally laid to rest as he slowly unravels the mystery. Hughes's distinctive voice shines in this moving thriller.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/H_Authors/Hughes_Declan.html

This is a better than average murder mystery/conspiracy set in Dublin, Ireland. I would have liked to see more Irish culture mixed into the plot. As it is, the criminal element in Dublin dominates the story and leaves the reader to think that Dublin may not be a very safe place to live. I love stories set in Ireland but by changing a few words this story could have happened in any city.

THREE-AND-A-HALF STARS

What is it about the Irish and crime fiction? For some reason, the gray, rain-swept isle seems to produce crime scribes a plenty, writers who pen plots that hit the gut hard as a shot of Jameson and create protagonists as world-weary as a priest after hearing a week's worth of confessions. Talents such as Tana French and Adrian McKinty have shaped this poignant, ferocious literary landscape. Now Declan Hughes makes his mark with The Wrong Kind of Blood, the first entry in his ongoing series about expatriate Irish private investigator Ed Loy.

Ireland slips back around you like an old glove. At least it feels that way to Ed Loy. Sure, he's only been back home for a few days, returning from the sunny anonymity of Los Angeles to bury his mother, but he still feels the familiarity of every contour. The almost-entwining pair of apple trees in his mum's garden. The suave brutality of the local drug dealer. The easy sensuality of old friend Linda Dawson. Linda certainly hasn't changed. Never one for propriety, she begs Loy to find her missing husband mere hours after his mother is in the ground. He decides to try to help her, but he soon learns that, for all the Irish familiarity, something's different. Cranes scrape the big cities' skylines, evidence of a building boom that's reshaping ancient streets. Yet no amount of new construction can cover over crimes. Blood will always cry out from the ground.

One could best describe Hughes' debut book as a hardboiled mystery, emphasis on "mystery." Every time Loy cuts close to the novel's central conundrum, it splits off and forms an entirely new dilemma of its own. The story gets so twisty that you almost feel like you need a flow chart for the final chapter, a complicated denouement that tries to tie up each and every loose end. But the liberally sprinkled action sequences and tongue-in-cheek commentary on modern Ireland keeps Blood flowing on through the overly complex parts. An enjoyable if not revolutionary read.