The latest crime fiction column in the Irish Times featured offerings by Pierre LeMaitre, Kim Cooper, James Naughtie and Maurizio de Giovanni. It also included a review of Nicola White’s IN THE ROSARY GARDEN, which ran a lot like this:
Set in Ireland in 1984, Nicola White’s In the Rosary Garden (Cargo Publishing) centres on the discovery of a dead infant in the grounds of a convent. Given the place and particularly the time, Detective Vincent Swan has to proceed carefully as he investigates how the child was killed, and why it was left to be discovered in a convent, and matters are further complicated by the fact that this is not the first time that schoolgirl Ali Hogan has discovered a dead baby. White’s debut – the novel won the Dundee International Book Prize late last year – has haunting echoes of recent Irish history, and White has no compunction in pointing the finger at the patriarchal society that plays a significant part in the tragedies detailed here. The novel is by no means a polemic, however. An unusual but absorbingly twisting narrative is hugely enhanced by White’s creation of Detective Swan, a complex man whose own frustrated paternal instincts ensure that a highly politicised case becomes very personal indeed. ~ Declan Burke
For the rest of the column,
clickety-click here …
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