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    Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery
    Unavailable
    Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery
    Unavailable
    Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery
    Ebook282 pages4 hours

    Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery

    By Brian McGilloway

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The snow ceased as the assistant state pathologist arrived, black medical bag in hand. I stood by the river as she worked, and watched the sun exploding low over the horizon.

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Girl Lost comes a new voice in Irish crime fiction.

    Winter 2002. The corpse of local teenager Angela Cashell is found on the Tyrone-Donegal border, between the North and South of Ireland, in an area known as the Borderlands. Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin heads the investigation. The only clues are a gold ring placed on the girl's finger and an old photograph, left where she died.

    While Devlin searches for the girl's killer, her father has his own ideas about who is responsible—and his own ideas about how to make them pay. Meanwhile, Devlin becomes reacquainted with an old flame eager to rekindle their affair.

    Then another teenager is murdered, and Devlin unearths a link between the recent killings and the disappearance of a prostitute twenty-five years earlier—a case in which he fears one of his own colleagues is implicated. As a thickening snow storm blurs the border between North and South, Devlin finds the distinction between right and wrong, vengeance and justice, and even police officer and criminal becoming equally unclear.
    A dazzling and highly lyrical debut crime novel, Borderlands marks the beginning of a compelling new series featuring Inspector Benedict Devlin.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 18, 2009
    ISBN9781429947428
    Unavailable
    Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery
    Author

    Brian McGilloway

    Brian McGilloway is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Inspector Benedict Devlin and DS Lucy Black series. He lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife, daughter, and three sons.

    Read more from Brian Mc Gilloway

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    Reviews for Borderlands

    3.5/5

    122 ratings19 reviews

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    • 3/5
      "Borderlands" is a competent mystery and a promising beginning to Brian McGilloway's 'Inspector Devlin' series. However, there's room for improvement. The plot is well-constructed, the pace is fine, but character development is lacking and the writing is, well, boring. The story, as we often see, is more complex than initially thought. The body of a young lady is found in the borderland area between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and the police force begins the job of solving the mystery of her death. It's complicated by a number of factors: the proximity to the border and the fact that police forces from 2 countries are interested in the investigation, local crime figures, drugs, Irish politics, and, seemingly at the middle of it all, a ring found on the young lady's finger. Again, the plot is nicely done, maintaining and building interest throughout. The conclusion wouldn't have been suspected early in the book, but solid police work and some luck led to it. Lots of violence and murder along the way, maybe a little too much?Devlin, seemingly the 'star' of the series, is a caricature in that he's a blend of nearly every detective in modern crime writing: competent, heart of gold, doesn't always follow procedures, personal flaws, physically capable, somewhat irresistible to the ladies. His 'spin' is that he's Irish, Catholic, and a little more family oriented than most. It's a short book clocking in a a bit over 200 pages- I'd normally consider that a good thing, but it didn't provide much opportunity to do deeper into the characters of the main players. The writing was competent, but almost too unadorned and uninteresting. I liked the 'Irishness' of the conversations and names, but the descriptions of the terrain and so forth were bland. I just felt the writing took too much of a back seat to the intricacies of the story.Brian McGilloway is definitely a writer to watch and Borderlands was a good start for his series. I hope that further installations show growth in matching the excitement of his stories to his writing style.
    • 3/5
      I rate this one at 3.5 stars, as it's well written and had interesting, realistic characters. Looking forward to reading more from this author.
    • 4/5
      well plotted but tests the limits of believability on its outcome
    • 4/5
      I read the second in the Inspector Devlin series, Gallows Lane, first. This is the first in the series, and it would be extremely difficult to summarize the book without giving away huge spoilers. I’ll just say that it involves the investigation into the deaths of several young people, all connected by a ring, a woman who disappeared many years before, financial misdeeds by a politician, possibly the IRA, and some policemen.Then there’s also something that’s been ripping up Devlin’s neighbor’s sheep. The neighbor is sure it’s Frank, Devlin’s daughter’s dog. A really good police procedural with so many twists and blind alleys it’s difficult to keep up. My only complaint is that, unlike Adrian McKinty, McGilloway isn’t as skillful in delivering a sense of place which I especially like in stories that take place in Ireland. Nevertheless, I look forward to the third in the series. I’ll buy all of them. I will also have to sample his other series with DS Lucy Black as the protagonist.
    • 4/5
      Set on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Borderlands is a solid police procedure introducing Inspector Devlin of the An Garda. I found the book to be both well written and interesting with a complex plot revolving around past misdeeds and the seeking of revenge. What at first appears to be a case of a young girl being murdered soon evolves into a gritty tale where the past plays an important role . When a second murder takes place, it becomes apparent that there may be a connection between these cases and a much earlier disappearance. The investigation moves forward slowly due to some carelessness and miscalculation by the police, as well as their having to trace and acquire old records. The author’s use of some interesting red herrings and a few side stories, keep the reader engaged and wanting to read on.I particularly enjoyed the setting and the characters, a mix of police, petty criminals, local politicians and travellers, and found the give and take between both the police forces of the two countries interesting. I liked the twists and turns the story took and I will be continuing on with more books in this series.
    • 5/5
      First in a series set along the borderlands of Northern Ireland and the Republic. The setting has all kinds of intriguing fodder for a crime novel, and McGilloway deploys them aptly. His use of language is first-rate.
    • 4/5
      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, Borderlands 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.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely excellent, with that extra savour of serendipity! I knew nothing about this novel and picked it up entirely by chance.Set in the grey area along the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, this novel starts with the seemingly inexplicable murder of Angela Cashell, eldest daughter of a local low-life. As the police of both jurisdictions work together to try to unravel the mystery another youngster is murdered, again without apparent motive.Inspector Benedict Devlin, of the Garda, leads the investigation, coming up against a local traveller community as well as the shadows cast by "The Troubles" by which this area had been so dreadfully disfigured.The novel is written with a great lucidity, and while there are numerous twists and complications, the plot is always utterly plausible.Definitely a great find!
    • 4/5
      Borderlands is rated 4.0 and completed 7/7/11. At 50% point good story and characters and wanted to read more 15 year old girl dies from poisoned "e" pill and a guy is shot in the head. Prime suspect dies in custody. Supervisor appears suspicious to our cop hero. Bodies start to fall like shamrocks, bit of a stretch. Tidy conclusion, but a very disconcerting "thanks" from the cleared supv at the end.... Read more in series? Maybe.
    • 4/5
      Another author I was not familiar with prior to a brief check. I was again pleasantly surprised. McGilloway ascribes such a rare humanity to the lead character, Devlin. A much younger and Irish version of Connelly's Bosch would be accurate and if you added a wee bit tamer, Sandford's Davenport. McGilloway thankfully doesn't go into too great a detail with the differences between North and South, just enough that you appreciate how frustrating the area known as Borderlands can be to both and how far things politic have progressed and how far they still have to go. No, the story here does have politics involved, but it's much more a human story. Another example of how one act, years ago, can wreck such havoc to so many innocent lives so many years later. I am looking forward to reading what's up next for Devlin.
    • 5/5
      Fifteen-year-old Angela Cashell's nearly nude body lay in the brambles by a secluded lane in an area known as “the borderlands” where an invisible line separates the Irish Republic in the south from Northern Ireland. An autopsy reveals she died from a seizure after taking Ecstasy laced with poison. Inspector Benedict Devlin, stationed in Lifford on the southern side of the border where Angela lived, finds himself leading an increasingly complex investigation into the teenager's death. Angela's family, having a long tradition of poverty and distrust of the police, close ranks against the detectives. Whitey McKelvey, the prime suspect, is one of a band of “travelers” encamped outside a nearby town, and they quickly become targets of vigilante justice delivered by Angela's father and uncles. When a second murder occurs—this time a young man home on holiday from college—the two cases at first appear unrelated but certain clues later suggest otherwise. And to complicate Devlin's life even more, an old flame from his youth who married into a wealthy and politically powerful family begins making advances which does not set well with Debbie, Devlin's wife. Then there's the neighbor who threatens to shoot the family's dog for killing his sheep. And what should the Inspector do when the investigation suggests that his own Superintendent might somehow be implicated in at least one of the deaths he's charged with solving?Author Brian McGilloway brings his setting and story alive with vivid descriptions of the natural landscape that surrounds the unfolding events of his narrative. His characters, with all their fallibilities, practically walk off the pages and sustain the plot through all its twists and turns. As the first shot fired in the Inspector Devlin series, Borderlands is a gritty tale where police, petty criminals, and aspiring politicians find the past is always present and will come back to haunt them as surely as that nebulous devide between the two Irelands.
    • 4/5
      An engaging debut that I've had in my TBR list for awhile and I'm glad I finally got round to reading it. I'm usually reluctant to read mysteries set in Ireland (my home country) as I never really manage to bypass the sense that the bodycount in these books would never actually happen in reality so while the murder statistics actually peaked in 2007 at 77 for the whole year for the whole country the fact that the author manages to squeeze in so many (relatively speaking) in such a short period of time in a sparsely populated part of the country should jar but somehow doesn't so congratulations on achieving that feat. If I were to compare to another Irish author it would probably be to Declan Hughes (this is based solely on reading the first book in each of their respective series) I would have to side with McGilloway as being the more convincing so on to the next in line for each and we shall see who prevails.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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?
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.