In the past couple of years there has been a lot of good new crime fiction coming out of Ireland so I was pleased to find even more! Borderlands introduces us to An Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin, working on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

I like police procedurals and this is a good one made even more interesting to me because of its setting. Borders are interesting places and border towns even more so as the people on each side spill over and influence each other. There is a perpetual sense of ambiguity that makes these places transgressive and McGilloway definitely captures that.

Benedict Devlin has the potential to be a recurring police character who will be worth reading about. He carries his own set of ambiguities that will make him interesting to read. I like that he's not a super cop - sometimes he's competent and sometimes the obvious flies by, but he keeps on banging away at the problem until he gets some resolution.

There are interesting secondary characters here, as well, as plenty of twists and turns. All in all a good read and a good first outing. ( )

A well written interesting story. I think that his main character Devlin is well drawn and likeable, but there are just too many characters. When I got to the end I didn't remember anything about one of the characters (a very vital character), so I was left confused. I do like the way McGilloway writes,and will try the next in the series to see if he matures as a writer. ( )

A 4MA discussion book. For some reason, it didn't quite click with me.

Inspector Benedict Devlin heads up the investigation of series of murders that begin with the death of a 16 year-old girl.
The book has a good developing plot but too many characters. It was hard to keep up with who was who. The ending wrapped up in a nice dialogue on 1-2 pages as it was too complex to play out, I guess? ( )

A well written police procedural is one of the reasons I'm so addicted to crime fiction. A good police procedural will introduce you to the police,take you by the land and lead you through their investigation as they unearth clues by interviewing people, sifting the evidence and following leads. There will be a careful balance of detecting and learning about the lives of the detectives. If the author has done the job properly s/he doesn't deliberately hold back clues or have the the detectives catch the culprit in the act, just two pages before the end.

In his first novel, BORDERLANDS, Brian McGilloway has succeeded in all of the above. He has also avoided producing a door stop of a book. At just 227 pages, BORDERLAND doesn't muck about. You're straight into the story with no unnecessary padding. It's something I wish more authors would try to achieve.

If, like me, you enjoy police procedurals, you can't go wrong with BORDERLANDS. I look forward to reading more of McGilloway's writing. ( )

Opening Sentence: '...It was not beyond reason that Angela Cashell's final resting place should straddle the border ...'

I really struggled to read this book. The only reason I finished was because it was for a group discussion. BUT - I don't understand why I had such a problem - as it wasn't a bad story. Inspector Benedict Devlin is placed in charge of investigating the murder of Angela Cashell, who's been murdered and dumped in a field in the borderlands of Ireland just before Christmas. The investigation begins and things become further complicated when Devlin unearths a link between the murder of Angela and the disappearance of a prostitute twenty-five years earlier - a case in which one of his own colleagues is implicated.

Devlin finds the distinction between right and wrong, vengeance and justice, and even police-officer and criminal becoming equally unclear. As he frantically attempts to solve the case.

I like the fact that Devlin is not an alcoholic divorcee. In fact, refreshingly, he is a happily married man, with a family, and able to resist temptation. So many fictional police and PIs seem to me angst ridden nowadays - it is lovely to have one who is not.

However the story moved very slowly for most of the book, only to be contrasted with some amazing twists and turns at the very end - where revelations and solutions are all heaped one after the other in a cresendo of information in the last few chapters. There is a complex array of characters, each with motives. This array became very confusing as I tried to keep track of who was who, and how they fitted into the mosaic.

The book was not balanced enough for me, and some of the resolutions were not set up well enough for me - but it is his first novel and has been nominated for some awards so there must be some talent that I can't see. ( )

Evenly paced mystery I found both interesting and well written. As an introduction to a new series, the main character is Inspector Devlin and takes place in the area between Northern and Southern Ireland named The Borderlands. The book begins with the discovery of a body, that of a teenage girl who appears to have been murdered. Soon to follow are several other obvious murders, seemingly linked.

Inspector Devlin's character is not the sharpest crayon in the box, and this makes him more human or real to the reader, he makes mistakes, ones that change the course of the investigation, leads to more bodies and shifts in the plot, including what happened to a woman who disappeared more than 20 years ago.

The author brings all the pieces together for a satisfying conclusion and solution.

While it didn't get my pulse racing or heart pounding with excitement, the book was an interesting read, and I would buy the next installment in the series. ( )

Irish, crime, and a new series by Brian McGilloway add up to a great novel. " Borderlines" is set in the border between the North and the South of Ireland. A teenage murder gets complicated as it unearths a link between other recent killings and the past.
"Borderlines" presents a flawed detective, which only becomes knows as the reader follows the labyrintine compexity of this new mystery series.
Ireland is the perfect setting for the coping-as-best they can citizens in this complex novel. Right or wrong, vengeance or justice, police officer or criminal..all are here and baffling as it may be at times, the ending came too soon for me. A touch of Alfred Hitchcock, surely.
I will be first in line for the second in this series about Inspector Devlin. ( )

Brian McGilloway's maiden voyage of Borderlands is an auspicious one for us. He places us squarely on the border in the first sentence, where we find a body that lies half in Northern Ireland and half in the Southern part of the country. His protagonist/detective, Ben (Benedict to one superior officer) Devlin is a totally believable man complete with failings and virtues that are totally understandable. This is a different animal of police procedural, mostly due to the rural Irish location. I had not been familiar with the term "Travellers" before reading this ARC and I gather that they resemble Gypsies but not of the Romany tribe. I must do some research on them someday soon. The ending is not one of the "shock" surprise ilk but has some satisfying twists and turns with a generally satisfying end result. I look forward to McGilloway's next in the series. ( )

This title, while not perfect, is a nice addition to Irish procedural crime fiction. The plot is complex, but not too convoluted and the pacing is tight. The characters seemed too roughly sketched; they were interesting and I wanted to know more about them. The author's strength definitely lies in his plot and pacing. Also, the setting of the story is important (as reflected in the title) but that importance was not fully developed. Because the story is set on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, I thought the book would involve more political background and commentary on the troubles between those two countries. It really didn't however. I look forward to more titles about this character to see him more fully developed. ( )

This is a well-written police procedural with the appealing Inspector Devlin at its heart, and it provides interesting insights to life and politics on the border of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The current murder mystery is rooted in the past, which allows for some very complex plot developments. A few too many layers of intrigue for my taste, but I would read a second book in this series.

For his first run at a mystery, McGilloway hit a home run. Inspector Devlin has plenty of faults, but still has the brains and courage to solve the difficult crime. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, will definitely look for the second in the series. ( )