Black Irish

Finished June 22
Black Irish by Stephan Talty

This mystery novel is set in Buffalo, but some of the plot takes place on the Canadian side of the Falls too. Absalom Kearney has come home to Buffalo to look after her father, the legendary cop John Kearney, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She has become a cop too, one every bit as good as her adoptive father. Kearney adopted her when she was just a toddler and even though she has tried to find out more about the mother who gave her up, she hasn't been able to discover anything except for the neighborhood she lived in, the East Side. She grew up in the County, the bastion of Irish Catholicism in the city. But now something is going on in the County, men are being killed, tortured in horrible ways, and no one is talking. Abby learns of a secret Gaelic Clan, the Clan na Gael, that she thinks is running a parallel investigation to her own and warning people against talking to her. But Abby is smart, quick to make connections, and determined to get to the bottom of things in this case. With a trail leading back to the unrest in Ireland, this case has a deep past and lots of twists and turns. This looks to be the first in a continuing series, and I look forward to seeing more of Abby.