Black Irish

Absalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn’t keep Abbie’s troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective’s badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she’s sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts.

When Jimmy Ryan’s mangled corpse is found in a local church basement, this sadistic sacrilege sends a bone-deep chill through the winter-whipped city. It also seems to send a message—one that Abbie believes only the fiercely secretive citizens of the neighborhood known as “the County” understand. But in a town ruled by an old-world code of silence and secrecy, her search for answers is stonewalled at every turn, even by fellow cops. Only when Abbie finds a lead at the Gaelic Club, where war stories, gossip, and confidences flow as freely as the drink, do tongues begin to wag—with desperate warnings and dire threats. And when the killer’s mysterious calling card appears on her own doorstep, the hunt takes a shocking twist into her own family’s past. As the grisly murders and grim revelations multiply, Abbie wages a chilling battle of wits with a maniac who sees into her soul, and she swears to expose the County’s hidden history—one bloody body at a time.
I chose this book for the Ireland challenge because of the name, I didn't see what it was about. It's not just a book about Irish characters, or a whole Irish county in the US but it was a crime book. I like crime books, especially if we're investigating along with them. I've talked about my dream of being a Crime Investigator.

This was a great book, I hadn't heard of the author before but it seems like this is his first fiction novel. (I read this somewhere, I'm not sure) It was well written and very interesting. It was a little gory, very graphic but it is a book for adults, so the language and gruesome details are understandable, especially for a plot like this one.

The story keeps you turning pages dreading what will be revealed next, filled with twists you don't see coming. You get a glimpse of the killer but you don't find out who he is until the right time. Surprises all the way to the very end.
The details of the story are a little depressing, but you know they are real in our world and probably not as far as we think. We sometimes want to believe that this kind of thing doesn't happen in our first world countries but we're very wrong. I think even though is fiction, it draws a disturbing picture of our world, what men do for different causes I just can't believe.

This is not just a crime story, you get to know the main character and see how everything connects. The idea is very well organized throughout the whole book. Very realistic, there are tons of crazy people out there but that is not all you get here. Betrayal, romance, loyalty and love. All very real in our lives.

So I liked that I got to read another book for adults. I do like YA and I think I'm starting to like dystopian novels with a touch of paranormal but it's a nice change to read something more my age and realistic. I'd definitely recommend this but not to younger kids.

Favorite parts:
"'Man,' they said there, 'is wolf to man.'" As bad as this sounds, this can be quite true sometimes. It's sad that we destroy ourselves.