The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin) - Softcover

Brian McGilloway is the author of Bleed a River Deep, Borderlands, Gallows Lane, and Little Girl Lost.

The novel’s first words let readers know they’re not in for a romp: “The cadaver dog . . . .” Sadness hangs over the book, and not just because everybody’s Irish. The dog is seeking the remains of suspected traitors to the IRA, gunned down and tossed underground in obscure places; but something more heartbreaking is unearthed: an infant’s corpse. Deformed. Murdered. Enter Inspector Devlin of the Irish police, who’s only partly a noir hero. His wife doesn’t betray him, his children adore him, and he doesn’t drink too much, but he does have his own sod-the-law code, and when his superior forbids him to seek justice for the child, he’s off. No razzle-dazzle. He wears out shoe leather tracking down names that lead to other names. He exposes a real-estate scam, a black-market baby mill, and secret experiments that killed children. The writing is subdued, maybe too much—the action scenes feel distant. The profusion of names makes start-and-stop reading a challenge. But the revelations are worth it, especially the fact-based ones: those drugmakers did kill babies. --Don Crinklaw