The Ruin, Dervla McTiernan
Twenty years ago Cormac Reilly was a fresh faced, rookie cop, who thought he had been sent to a standard domestic problem. In a rundown old house that took forever to find, what he ended up discovering comes back to haunt him all these years later. Fifteen-year-old Maud Blake and her five-year-old brother Jack are in the house with the body of their alcoholic mother, dead from an apparent overdose. After taking the children straight to hospital Reilly discovers that Jack has been the victim of abuse, while Maud vanishes into the night. Twenty years on, Reilly's moved to Galway from Dublin, put on cold cases for his sins, and handed the re-investigation of Hilaria Blake's supposed overdose when Jack seemingly suicides and Maud reappears.
Complicated story then, handled with considerable aplomb. The narrative switches between Reilly and Jack's girlfriend Aisling. Maud's unannounced return to Ireland after many years living in Australia gives Aisling a difficult but necessary ally in doubting the police's all too rapid conclusion, but Maud's presence is also the catalyst for the re-investigation of her mother's own overdose. All these layers and wheels within wheels work well, each of these characters are seamlessly and cleverly worked into the present and the past; into their shared positions of catalyst, questioner, cause and outcome. Even Reilly is provided with traces of a back-story, his return to Galway, complications in his personal life, and reasons for his colleagues to mistrust him. Done as hints and pointers, Reilly's story is part of THE RUIN but it's not everything. The balance between his story, and the story of a family of 3, now 1, and the reasons why is, rightly, the focus.
Obviously there is plenty of social history here and THE RUIN does not pull back from addressing the history of child sex abuse, the role of churches and authorities, under-resourced social workers, and good and not so good policing. This isn't a novel that goes into detail about the actual abuse, but it doesn't leave anything to the imagination when it comes to the causes, complicity, or even consequences. There are scars aplenty and not everything ends with justice being served.
THE RUIN is set in McTiernan's original country of Ireland and it's one stonkingly good debut novel. Populated by excellent characters, dripping with intrigue and menace, and heralding heaps of long and very enjoyable series potential.
It's been twenty years since Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling Georgian home. But he's never forgotten the two children she left behind...
When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget - until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.
DI Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of an 'accidental' overdose twenty years ago - of Jack and Maude's drug- and alcohol-addled mother. Cormac is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder when his colleague Danny uncovers a piece of evidence that will change everything...