I could read Ian McGuire all day and night. His prose is gentle, and spare. His sentences writhing in colour and place. ( )

When the law hangs three members of the Fenian Brotherhood for killing a policeman in Manchester, England, in 1867, Constable James O’Connor knows the punishment will solve nothing. The Irish revolutionaries will retaliate, and since he’s the copper who has paid informants among them and understands his countrymen better than his English superiors, officialdom should listen.

But they don’t. O’Connor’s place of birth condemns him in their eyes; they consider the Irish bloodthirsty, drunken savages, thieves, and heathens. Besides, O’Connor left the Dublin police under circumstances he won’t talk about, but which have something to do with drink.

Now, however, he abstains, and though his sympathetic, more human approach to law enforcement alternately puzzles and enrages his bosses, he speaks the sober truth no one wants to hear. But he does get them to pay attention when he learns that the New York Fenians have sent an assassin to Manchester to plot revenge for the hangings.

Unfortunately, it will take more than O’Connor’s say-so to persuade his superiors to follow through in the ways he suggests, partly because they can’t believe that the drastic legal penalties they have just meted out will fail to curb the violence.

O’Connor has an inkling of what he’s up against, but not even he can anticipate the determination of his newest enemy. Stephen Doyle, though born in Ireland, fought for the Union in the Civil War, and he believes that he’s been sent to Manchester to fight another war whose rules are much the same. A colder, more ruthless and capable opponent would be hard to find, and he startles even his Fenian brethren in Manchester by his attitude. You know that he will give no quarter and expect none.

You also know that sooner or later, O’Connor and Doyle will meet, because the constable does his best to think along with the assassin. However, O’Connor has two distinct disadvantages. He can’t command, merely suggest, whereas Doyle dictates what he wants, and the Fenian foot soldiers obey.

Secondly, and more important, O’Connor has a heart, and it’s still reeling from the untimely death of his beloved wife in Dublin. Further, a nephew he barely knows shows up from America and demands to play a role in the surveillance operation — a brilliant stroke of McGuire’s that raises the stakes immediately.

Consequently, this thriller has much more to it than the usual cat and mouse. You do want to know whether O’Connor and the police will thwart Doyle or fail to stop him, though it would be fairer to say that the narrative gives you no choice, compelling you to turn the pages. McGuire’s a terrific storyteller, and reversals live in the very soot-infested air of Manchester. For me, the tension even feels too much, at times.

On top of that, The Abstainer explores an aspect of good versus evil that belongs to every conflict in which some believe that violence is the best or only solution, while others don’t. Naturally, that division fits Irish history under British rule, so though this story takes place in 1867, the same issues would apply in 1967 or beyond. Accordingly, McGuire’s really asking who has the upper hand: the side with fewer scruples or the one claiming the moral high ground? And is the upper hand the better hand to have, or not?

As befits this heady theme, McGuire deploys lucid, hard-edged prose that conveys deep feeling and the raw atmosphere. Throughout , you see how thin the line between life and death, good fortune and bad. One false move here, and catastrophe would have resulted; one forgetful lapse there, and it arrives unexpectedly. That’s another theme, what happiness depends on, and how fleeting it can be.

If this story sounds bleak, in many ways, it is. But it’s also quite powerful and rings true; this is a novel to remember. ( )

Mostly set in Manchester England after the American Civil War, this is the story of two men, both Irish, but on different sides of the Irish question. James O'Connor although Irish is a policeman in Manchester; he was moved from Dublin due to drinking problems. He is never quite accepted by the English colleagues. Steve Doyle is an American Irishman who was a soldier in the Civil War. Now he comes to help the Irish in their fight for independence from England. He comes to Manchester with the intent of helping the local Fenians cause terror among the English believing that revolution will never work but making the English so afraid of the Irish that they may eventually be able to break away.

Another young American man, Michael Sullivan, shows up in Manchester who is O'Connor's nephew. O'Connor takes him under wing but somehow Michael in his eagerness to help the Irish becomes involved with a Fenian plot to kill the mayor of Manchester. Things get very complicated as Irish spies are found and hung, a Manchester policeman is killed and O'Connor finds himself as a suspect. He spends time in a terrible prison, eventually is able to be released and swears to hunt down and kill Doyle whom he blames for the death of Sullivan and his own situation. The story moves to Pennsylvania where Doyle has returned and O'Connor travels to find him.

The final two chapters bring the story together as O'Connor eventually does find Doyle. But he abstains! Well written, interesting with totally believable characters. Would read more by this author. ( )

The writing is spare, but descriptive and evokes the time and place. You feel the grit and grime, smell the fetid and coal-choked air, taste greasy surroundings of 19th Century Manchester, which McGuire at one point calls the "city of the future" and which seems very accurate. What starts as something of a police procedural in which British coppers are struggling to deal with Irish laborers and incipient rebellion, turns quickly to a tale of vengeance -- first the Irish hiring an American mercenary/assassin to avenge the hanging of Irish revels, then vengeance upon "traitors" within the rebellion, then the main character's vengeance upon the assassin. The difficulty for the fallen to gain redemption is palpable and frustrating for the reader, but largely honest to the characters. I like McGuire's 'The North Water' slightly better than 'The Abstainer,' but both are good. ( )

Manchester 1867 and the hanging of three Irish rebels needs to be revenged. The Fenian Brotherhood turn to their American supporters and they send an Irish-American killer, Stephen Doyle, to seek revenge. Searching for him is exiled Irish detective, James O'Connor, recently moved from Dublin following a bereavement and descent into drink. When O'Connor's nephew helps to prevent an assassination Doyle kills him and O'Connor is set on a path for vengeance.

This is a very dark and sparely written book, conjuring up both the grimy and unpleasant life in the Manchester of the mid-1800s and also the passion of the Fenians. The plot is fast-paced but feels as though it isn't, carefully put together and beautifully written. The sad story of O'Connor's life and his need for vengeance is completely believable and tale ends up more like an old-school Western morality tale. Absolutely superb. ( )