All the Dead Voices

Make no mistake. This is an Irish crime novel written by a very Irish author. It's set in contemporary Dublin about the time the Celtic Tiger bears its fangs. It takes place over a couple weeks around Easter when all good Dubliners remember the heroes of the Easter uprising of 1916, the violent confrontation at the General Post Office when Irish Republicans fought to oust the British from the land. But the dead voices in Hughes' book are not heroes, they are victims. Ed Loy, Hughes' private investigator, has appeared in three other novels. He returned to Ireland after twenty years in America to bury his mother and stayed around. In ALL THE DEAD VOICES he is hired to find the murderer of Anne Fogarty's father, a revenue inspector, fifteen years ago and also to investigate the death of a rising soccer star. Several ex-IRA men and an Irish mobster are suspects in both murders. But in the background of the story is another incident that occurred in 1980, other brutal unnecessary murders. After you finish the book, you'll remember the dead voices of these victims. They will haunt you!

Ed Loy, a private investigator in Dublin, is at an Irish League soccer game keeping an eye on Paul Delaney, a rising young star, as a favor to old friend Des Delaney who has heard that brother Paul may also deal drugs for Jack Cullen, a former IRA killer now a drug king. The game is disrupted by a masked gunman who flees after harmlessly emptying a submachine gun clip into the air. A day later Loy has been savagely attacked and Paul Delaney murdered. Now it's personal for Loy, and there may be connections to the former IRA or one of its radical splinter groups. But Loy also has a paying case. Anne Fogarty hires him to look into the murder of her revenue inspector father fifteen years earlier. The man convicted of the crime was released after appeal. Anne thinks her father's death was connected to one of the three men whom he accused of not paying taxes on criminal profits. Two of the men are former IRA fighters, Jack Cullen and Bobby Doyle (now a property developer). The third is George Halligan, a career criminal. Like many modern fictional PI's, Loy is a tough and sometimes violent guy. He pushes his investigations despite attempted blackmail and threats from crooks and cops alike, risks both his life and career, absorbs a couple of severe beatings, wonders if what he does has any value and, despite everything, starts a relationship with Fogarty. The difference here is the Irish context. In this society life today is deeply intertwined with the long term violence of the IRA and similar organizations. Many active fighters remained involved in violence and crime after the truce that finally came in Ireland. Many others became respectable citizens, concealing their pasts for obvious reasons but never fully severing the old ties and networks, leaving violence always a possibility. The whole society is complicit in this semi-fictional past, making it almost impossible to know what is real beneath appearances. No wonder Loy is depressed. He lives in an ocean of doubt and mistrust and is near burn out. The story is exciting and moves well, but it is very noir in approach.

The Troubles. At the heart of much Irish history is the violence committed by the Irish Republican Army. And The Troubles plays a very important role in this latest Ed Loy novel of crime and the contemporary Irish scene. Actually there are two parallel stories unfolding amid the history of the fight for Irish independence. One is a simple case of murder, for which a man served five years before his appeal earned him a release from prison on a technicality. Unsure of the man's guilt or innocence, the victim's daughter retains Loy to find the real murderer, and suggests as the possible perpetrator any one of three persons who the murdered man, a government auditor, had suspected of tax evasion. As it turns out, the three men were active in the IRA. In addition, Loy suspects one of them to be responsible for the murder of a friend's brother who Loy was supposed to "keep an eye on." The investigation, together with the entry of the IRA into the drug business, leads to a dark tale in this author's fourth Dublin thriller. Rich in Irish history, and written with an insider's knowledge, Mr. Hughes writes with passion, and the novel is recommended.

This well told tale casting light on the dark side of Dublin both startles and intrigues. All the Dead Voices rings with tough authenticity; it is Irish crime fiction at its best. After some 20 years in the theater as both director and playwright Hughes turned to fiction and created Dublin based thrillers, which brought him not only a host of readers but a Shamus Award as well. Private investigator Ed Loy is one of his most absorbing creations. Loy is, as he sees himself in All The Dead Voices, a man with "dead eyes telling me that my race was run, that there was nothing new under the sun except the next job of work, the next faithless woman, the next empty glass." Well, his next job of work is rife with complexities and challenges. He's approached by a woman, Anne Fogarty, to find her father's real killer - a murder that was committed 15 years ago. She believes the police found the wrong man guilty. Steve Owen who was having an affair with Anne's mother was sent to prison and then released following an appeal. Anne has her own trio of suspects. At the same time Loy is investigating the death of a soccer star, Paul Delaney, who may or may not have been selling heroin. As it turns out Delaney may also have been connected to one of the men Anne suspects of killing her father. It's quite one thing to solve a recent killing but another when one must dig into the past for answers. Once again Declan Hughes has penned a compelling, plot and character driven narrative that's hard to put down. - Gail Cooke

In Dublin, Anne Fogarty hires private investigator Ed Loy to investigate the cold case brutal beating death of her father in 1991 though the Garda has a suspect. Her mother's boyfriend was convicted of the crime, but freed when his lawyer's appealed the conviction. Though Ed is already busy looking into the murder of rising Sherbourne football star Paul Delaney whose death appears tied to drugs, he accepts Fogarty's case. Loy finds out Anne's father was a tax inspector who was investigating three men (Bobby Doyle, Jack Cullen, and Georges Halligan) on potential income tax evasion. Each was IRA; thus they had means and opportunity besides the obvious motive. However, Loy is caught unaware when his two cases seem to converge as Delaney apparently had ties to Cullen. The latest Ed Loy Ireland investigative thriller (see THE PRICE OF BLOOD, THE COLOR OF BLOOD, and THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD) is a fast-paced violent tale that may have left blood out of the title, but not the narrative. The inquiry is top rate providing an insight into the Troubles and its aftermath. Ed is his usual self - getting beaten, battered and bruised while working both cases. ALL THE DEAD VOICES is a terrific Irish whodunit. Harriet Klausner