Friday, July 19, 2013

In Case Of Emergency, Unleash Spies

‘A quiet master of the genre,’ is how the Philadelphia Inquirer describes Joe Joyce, and I’m certainly looking forward to his next title, ECHOLAND (Liberties Press), which is set in Dublin during WWII – or ‘the Emergency’, as we Irish rather quaintly liked to call it. Gorgeous cover, by the way. Quoth the blurb elves:
  June, 1940.
  France is teetering on the brink of collapse. British troops are desperately fleeing Dunkirk. Germany is clearly winning the war. Its next target is Britain . . . and Ireland.
  In neutral Dublin opinions are divided. Some want Germany to win, others favour Britain, most want to stay out of the war altogether. In this atmosphere of edgy uncertainty, young lieutenant Paul Duggan is drafted into G2, the army’s intelligence division, and put on the German desk.
  He’s given a suspected German spy to investigate, one who doesn’t appear to do anything other than write ambiguous letters to a German intelligence post box in Copenhagen. As Duggan begins to investigate, however, he is diverted by a request from his politician uncle to try and find his daughter, who’s gone missing, possibly kidnapped.
  Enlisting the help of witty Special Branch detective Peter Gifford, the two lines of inquiry take Duggan into the double-dealing worlds of spies and politics, and lead him back to a shocking secret that will challenge everything he has grown up believing.
  An addictive thriller that will keep you glued to the page to its heart-pounding finale.

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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.