The Ruin, by Dervla McTiernan

TITLE: The Ruin
AUTHOR: Dervla McTiernan

COPYRIGHT: 2018
PAGES: 380
PUBLISHER: Penguin

SETTING: Contemporary Ireland
TYPE: Mystery
SERIES: Cormac Reilly #1

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...

This unsettling crime debut draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't. Perfect for fans of Tana French and Jane Casey.

The Ruin starts a new mystery series set in Galway, Ireland. DI Cormac Reilly has just moved back there after many years working in Dublin, and for the last few weeks he's been stuck working cold cases. It's clear that his new bosses aren't welcoming him with open arms, and there are some difficult dynamics going on amongst his fellow officers.

One of the cases he's given is one from his past. When Cormac was just starting out, he was sent to check on a report of a domestic disturbance. But in an isolated house in the country, rather than what he expected, he finds the corpse of a woman who's died of a heroin overdose. Her death was reported by her teenaged daughter, Maude, and also in the house is a young boy, Jack, clearly neglected, possibly abused. And right after the two kids are taken to the hospital, Maude disappears. Now, in the present day, Cormac is being asked to look into the accidental overdose, since information has come up that it may not have been accidental after all, and Maude may have been responsible.

This all seems to be happening at a very coincidental time, since not long before Cormac was assigned the case, Jack died. The police consider it to have been a suicide and are refusing to look into it further, no matter how much evidence Jack's sister Maude, just returned after decades abroad, presents showing his dead was not suicide or accidental.

The Ruin was a really good, promising start to this series. McTiernan has an engaging writing style, and the action flows well. She also creates a very interesting case. It was one I was genuinely interested in, and I wanted to know what had happened. I couldn't wait to find out how the older case connected with Jack's death in the present-day, and spent a good couple of evenings wondering about it. The solution was a good one, and one that made complete sense. McTiernan had very successfully led me in completely the wrong direction, but in a way that felt perfectly fair. I had felt the actual culprit's behaviour was suspicious, but I had guessed a completely wrong reason for it.

I was also very intrigued by Cormac's relationship with his girlfriend, Emma. He's moved back to Galway mainly due to her job (even though he has some very credible rationalisations regarding why it makes sense from a career point of view for him to do this anyway), and there seems to be a bit of difficulty in them settling in. Emma is super busy setting up her team at the lab where she works, and their attempts to spend some time together seem to fail every time. Additionally, there are hints about them having got together in an unorthodox way, one that may cast some negative lights onto Cormac's behaviour as a police officer, but no real details are given. I wanted to know more, but I'm content to wait, because it seems the next book will provide that.

The only thing I wasn't crazy about was that the police in this book are not great. There seems to be a good deal of unprofessional behaviour, verging (if not going right over the verge) into corruption, and it wasn't really resolved. I always find that frustrating to read, as I prefer my detective main characters to be able to concentrate on the case, not to have to fight against the authorities to be able to do their job. I did find it frustrating here, but it was not too bad. I'll definitely keep reading.

MY GRADE: A B.