Too Close for Comfort (Niamh O' Connor)

This crime novel has an intricate plot, a setting with some of the same unfamiliar bleakness as Larssen's Sweden. We are in Dublin in the recession, a gated estate where most residents are in negative equity and the Wicklow mountains loom nearby. There is none of the jolly 'Oirishness' that we English expect, though there are some quaint characteristic expressions - renters for tenants, swoon for faint, fuck is said freeely in front of children, and the repeated references to 'presses' is nothing to do with the crooked journalists in the plot (they're just cupboards!)
There are possibly too many characters, some with names that are not well differentiated. O'Connor is quite willing to use cliche in her descriptions, and indeed her title. The book could have done with more editing. The Sean Hore character (a real life corrupt journalist) seems somewhat 'bolted on' to a plot that perhaps she had roughed out before the worst of the NoW revelations came to light. Maybe later a real corrupt journalist thriller can be written.

However, the experience of reading the book is gripping and fascinating, as the plot's unpredictable twists are calculated to surprise and draw us in. Rather like driving along the Military Road from the Sallly Gap into Dublin, as above.

There's a boy with autism who is a very well drawn character, ultimately with decisive role to play. And we have a leading lady in Jo Birmingham who is fallible, foul mouthed and forgetful, along with her cleverness and drive. I would have been very happy to have written this - to have kept the many stranded plot together -Enjoyable.