Monday 7 December 2009

Winterland by Alan Glynn

DATE PUBLISHED: 2009 DATE READ: December 2009 NOTES: Within a space of twenty-four hours two men die in Dublin. One, a known criminal, is gunned down. The other, a respected building engineer is found dead in his crashed car. They are uncle and nephew and have the same name. The family is overwhelmed with grief and confusion but the youngest sister Gina refuses to believe that the two deaths are just an unhappy coincidence and sets about asking questions and probing into what may have happened. She soon finds herself in a murky world of crooked politics, bribery, corruption and murder. But she is tenacious in her search for the truth and refuses to give in to the threats she receives. Winterland is a splendid piece of crime writing. Glynn give us a great sense of place and the characters are alive on the page. The first part of the book requires a lot of concentration as numerous characters are introduced but their role not entirely explained until later. One character pops us several times and seems to be unrelated to the plot until about page 179. The plotting is logical and gripping – you will find yourself making excuses to neglect other calls on your time in order to reach the last page! And it was great to have a young woman as the lead character!

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