Little Criminals by
Gene Kerrigan
pbk out May 05
(Vintage)
at £6.99
Though Ireland has a publishing industry proportionately larger than the
UK, books with an Irish location are not all that common over here. This
is a welcome exception, for it is a gritty thriller with a strong 'unput-
downable' attraction. It portrays Ireland as it really is now, not the old
image of donkey-carts, shamrock and IRA. The vibrant country,with its
galloping economy, has its full share of villians, thugs and con-men and
this hard-boiled story is about that reality.
A small-time Dublin crook, Frankie Crowe, gets ambitions beyond his
station when he decides to get together a gang to kidnap a rich
businessman for a two-million ransom. It goes wrong from the start and
he has to take the man's wife instead.
This is a 'straight-through' story, with a beginning and an end,
chronicling the progress and the gradual disintegration of Frankie's
scheme. The Garda are there, one of them corrupt and the climax keeps
you on the edge of the seat as the net closes on this callously violent yob.
Well-written by an award-winning Dublin journalist, the book should be
the first of many novels in the same vein.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Little Criminals by
Gene Kerrigan
