The ceasefire has begun in 1995 between the Republicans and the Loyalists. Dan Delaney and his family are in Ireland seeking ancestral roots but are drawn into helter-skelter pursuit of and by IRA terrorists and Protestant and Catholic policemen from County Cork to Dublin, Belfast, and Derry. As Gerry Adams and the Reverend Paisley look for a better deal, the Delaney family fight to survive the sectarian violence their ancestors escaped.
Ex-policeman and ex-national security operative Dan Delaney is 79, his bones are protesting, his hearing aids are not always reliable and the progressive lens are a work in progress. He regrets bending to family pressure to travel around Ireland to track down ancestors. Instead of finding his grandfather’s origins in County Cork, he finds his own troubles with car theft and a clumsy horse but likes the Clonakilty black pudding and an IRA song about Derry. The trouble ramps up in Dublin, where his daughter is almost killed in a grenade attack outside the Abbey Theatre. In Belfast he is caught up in violent clashes between Protestants and Catholics. His mother’s wrong-side-of-the-blanket relations in Derry have left him disinheritance hassle and an old foe aims to make them terminal.
Unlike the song, Dan did not wish he was back home in Derry, or anywhere else in this turbulent island of his ancestors. Can the trip trigger change all his long life he has resisted?
After six Dan Delaney mysteries following a Kiwi family through the 20th century, the story comes full circle. In the final outing for Dan Delaney, Republican and Loyalist enmities are the historical backdrop, but it is the ad hoc Kiwi approach to problem solving which helped Dan and his family survive national security threats in Sydney, Israel, his native West Auckland and Wellington that has never been more required. The final solution to both his origins and his family’s survival is a win/lose scenario — and the loser dies.
David McGill draws on his diaries of travel around Ireland and a journalistic assignment in the Falls Road, Belfast, at the 1970 flashpoint of the Troubles. He throws in his abiding love for Irish folk music and literature, and Guinness.
Review by Dr Michael O’Leary, author of ‘The Irish Annals of New Zealand’, described as a ‘Joycean tour-de-force through 150 years of New Zealand history from an Irish point of view’:
The beginning of McGill’s latest Dan Delaney book is one of the most exhilarating or disturbing start to a story a reader could imagine, depending on whose side you are on. The time is 1970 and the scene is infamous Falls Road, Belfast, at the time of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, one of the many times of trouble in the history of the Emerald Isle. A young British soldier is out with his Irish girlfriend, Clare, a situation frowned upon by both sides. Having been at her family home to meet her Ma, Clare is walking him to his bus when they are suddenly ambushed by IRA people, who know her – was she setting a trap or was it more personal? Everything goes black as he is made unconscious.
Forward to late 1990’s and Dan Delaney is visiting Ireland to find his Irish roots spurred on by his wife and their two daughters, who seem far more enthusiastic about the venture than the aging ex-SIS agent. Venture turns to adventure when the news that one of their daughters is nearly killed by a hand grenade thrown as she leaves the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, thus beginning a rollicking tale through both Irish history, Irish politics and Irish towns and cities. As is the case with such stories you don’t know who are the goodies or baddies, who are the Catholics or the Protestants, and why is Delaney’s old nemesis involved in his life yet again, having appeared in previous incarnations, including the time Delaney was in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two?
Sadly, as the author states on the impressive and haunting front cover of ‘Back Home in Derry’, this is the last of the Dan Delaney mysteries. One of the defining and endearing aspects of the series is the involvement of Delaney’s family. His wife, Jas (from Dubrovnik), and their daughters, Maria, and Ali, all play prominent roles, particularly in the present tome. This is unusual because most detective stories have ‘lone wolf’ protagonists who often involve a series of uncommitted lovers who they change with each story, a la James Bond.
‘Back Home in Derry’ is also the author’s most personal book since he travelled through Ireland in the early 1970s and he has also found out later in his life that he has much more personal Irish whakapapa than he ever realized. ‘Back Home in Derry’ is a poem by Irish poet, Bobby Sands, who died in 1981 whilst on hunger strike in the Maze Prison, Southwest of Belfast. We held all-night vigils outside the British Consulate to protest against internment as part of the Auckland H-Block Committee, organized by artist Miriam Cameron and author Dean Parker and others.
The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser 1945 ‘Twists, turns and lots of action … New Zealand plonk in the middle of international political history.’ Alyson Baker, Crime Watch
The Manger, the Mikdash and the Mosque 1975 ‘A vivid inside view of Israel as well as a fast-paced crime story.’ Fiona Kidman
The Convict Stain 1985 ‘High stakes nuclear topic key part of David McGill’s novel The Convict Stain.’ NZ Herald
$29.95 plus $7 postage and packaging from www.davidmcgill.co.nz or macdcat@live.com or contact your nearest bookshop.
The e-book is available from Books 2 Read.
