The good people at Macmillan New Writing were kind enough to send us on an early copy of Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE, and needless to say the elves were all (ahem) stretching their necks for a sneaky peek. Forty pages in and the jury is still out – they’re all down at Ad Lib Bookshop in Strabane, apparently, queuing up for a signed copy. Quoth the blurb elves: Taking its title from the name of the road down which condemned Donegal criminals were once led, GALLOWS LANE follows Inspector Benedict Devlin as he investigates a series of gruesome murders in and around the Irish borderlands. When a young woman is found beaten to death on a building site, in what appears to be a sexually-motivated killing, Devlin’s enquiries soon point to a local body-builder and steroid addict. But days later, born-again ex-con James Kerr is found nailed to a tree – crucified – having been released from prison and returned to his hometown to spread the word of God. Increasingly torn between his young family and his job, Devlin is determined to apprehend those responsible for the murders before they strike again, even as the carnage begins to jeopardise those he cares about most. GALLOWS LANE is the heart-stopping follow-up to Brian McGilloway’s acclaimed debut BORDERLANDS.Insert your own “hang ’em and flog ’em” punchline here at your leisure, people …
Can't do a punchline as brain dead at the mo, but Gallows Lane is GOOD, very bloody GOOD. A thrilling read and a stab to the heart as was Borderlands, perhaps even more so with Gallows Lane. No sign of second novel nerves: indeed Gallows Lane suggests that "second novel nerves" went out with the plague.
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"A stab to the heart ..." indeed. Dark stuff, very dark, about how compromised Ben Devlin - and by extension An Garda Siochana - have become in recent times, particularly in Donegal. It'll be interesting to see where McGilloway goes from here ...
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