First line in the book: It was not beyond reason that Angela Cashell's final resting place should straddle the border.
Hardback blurb: Winter, 2002.
The corpse of local teenager Angela Cashell is found on the Tyrone-Donegal border, between the North and South of Ireland, in an area known as the Borderlands.
Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin heads the investigation.
The only clues are a gold ring placed on the girl's finger and an old photograph, left where she died.
While Devlin searches for the girl's killer, her father has his own ideas about who is responsible - and his own ideas about how to make them pay.
Meanwhile, Devlin becomes reacquainted with an old flame eager to rekindle their affair.
Then another teenager is murdered, and Devlin unearths a link between the recent killings and the disappearance of a prostitute, twenty-five years earlier - a case in which he fears one of his own colleagues is implicated.
As a thickening snow-storm blurs the border between North and South, Devlin finds the distinction between right and wrong, vengeance and justice, and even police-officer and criminal becoming equally unclear.
A dazzling and highly lyrical debut crime novel, Borderlands marks the beginning of a compelling new series featuring Inspector Benedict Devlin.
Borderlands was first published in 2007 and was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007.
About the author: Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974, and is currently Head of English at St Columb's College, Derry. Perviously he has written plays and short stories. He lives near the Borderlands, with his wife and their two sons. His other books in the series are Gallows Lane (2008), Bleed A River Deep (2009) and The Rising (2010).
My take: This is a well-written and well-thought-out police procedural novel set very close to home - Ireland - from 2002-2003. I cannot remember the last time I read a book set in Ireland, let alone a crime thriller. An excellent review by Reading Matters brought me to pick up this book from my local library and expand my geographical read to literally next door! I have not been disappointed. I cannot add anymore to what Reading Matters wrote except to say why have I put it off for so long! The setting on the Tyrone-Donegal border interests me and where a reviewer wrote of it, "...no-man's land where nothing flourishes or grows because it claims no one and no one can claim it as home or as refuge. It is the stuff of tragedy when a soul becomes a borderland of its own." How apt.
Rating: 4/5
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