Detective Chief Inspector Jim Sheehan is faced with a Da-Vinci-Codesque series of killings. The murderer is profiled as someone with trauma in their past: but in post-Troubles Northern Ireland, the problem could turn out to be finding someone without such a history ...
Brian O'Hare's INSPECTOR SHEEHAN MYSTERIES series gets off to a great start with this clever thriller.
About the Author :
Because of a debilitating illness, Dr.Brian O'Hare [B.A., ADCE(Hons.), M.A., Ph.D] took early retirement in 1998 from his post as Assistant Director of a large Regional College in Newry in Northern Ireland. It transpired that he had an irreversible liver disease (a childhood affliction) that required a liver transplant. Married with three children and ten grandchildren, he now enjoys full health, plays golf, and writes from time to time.
Review :
The Doom Murders by Brian O'Hare is a story of a few murders. To begin with, a bishop is killed in a grotesque manner and the only notable clue from the naked body is an alphanumeric word. During the police investigation itself, more deaths of a comparable nature take place. When clues fail to emerge pointing to a plausible theory as to the criminal, the investigators turn to all possible forms of help, one being religious doctrine. With the help of biblical experts, the investigators manage to decode the writings retrieved from the scene of the crime, especially the alphanumeric word and its possible relevance, which leads the police in a totally unexpected direction.
The Doom Murders by Brian O'Hare is mystery at every turn of the page. The painstaking, repetitive and dry nature of detective work in solving a murder is shown in its real depth. To that end, O'Hare writes with a keen eye for detail with his tale evolving at a surprisingly fast pace. The stereotypes that dominate popular crime thrillers, especially these days, are notable by their absence and O'Hare leans toward the human side of his characters, imbuing them with a real world presence that is in turn witty and passionate. This is most evident in his lead, Jim Sheehan, who in his introspection wrestles with the conflicts of faith as his investigations progress. It's a cleverly contrived and highly thought provoking plot. A great crime thriller and an enthralling read.
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The author is a master of the genre. The first sentence - "DCI Jim Sheehan studied the mutilated corpse." - is almost a tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the lovably clichéd parameters of the genre; but our discovery in paragraph 3 that the naked body posed on its back with its tongue pulled three inches out of its mouth and "knife wounds all over the place" belongs to the Bishop of the Diocese of Down and Connor provides an intriguing indication that this is going to give you rather more to think about than your average 'whodunit' by an author whose sole purpose is to challenge/tease his readers with carefully concealed clues and myriad red herrings along the way.
Beliefs deeply and unquestioningly held in childhood may be shed in the hurly-burly of modern life, especially when facing the routine challenges of being a policeman in Belfast; only to return to haunt the erstwhile holder, leaving him or her with a sense of spiritual longing unfulfilled. In other situations, an excess of misdirected zeal may lead a psychologically disturbed adherent to take God's clearly stated Law into what they imagine to be divinely guided hands. This is Belfast after all: no half measures. "This is where I have always stood, and this is where I will continue to stand." I can still hear Ian Paisley saying it.
A compelling murder mystery is played out in this complex setting. I found it an absorbing and thought-provoking read. The occasional textual inaccuracies and layout anomalies referred to by some earlier reviewers have been entirely dealt with and are no longer a minor distraction. This is a well-written and unusually profound example of the genre, which I recommend without reservation.
