We have many things in Ireland, but no famous fictional cops. No Morses or Wexfords. No successful television cop series has ever been set in Ireland with Irish protagonists - although moves are afoot to redress this. Dublin, a city that gave birth to the General, saw Veronica Guerin slain and has recently moved in on a raft of drug dealers - including Tony Felloni, a character no novelist would have dared create - has not managed to come up with even a poor imitation of Cracker.
Successful detectives (as characters in fiction) are easily recognisable characters. Either they wear raincoats on the hottest days, or embody endearing vanity, or wage futile battles against drink, food and cigarettes. (They are rarely promiscuous, since moral shortcomings are not something we care to admit identifying with.) Above all, they are cleverer than we are. They solve crimes, usually murders, where we, over several hundred pages, fail.
It comes as no surprise that, although now retired and living in Howth, Cecil Megarry once worked in Belfast as a Superintendent for the RUC. It was in this role that we first met him, taking on the combined devils of MI5 and the paramilitaries and dosing himself with Bushmills. Megarry embodies the Northern canniness that we in the South have grown to accept. Evidently the Guards, too, appreciate this astuteness since they throw the rule book out of the window and involve Megarry in their investigations with unfettered latitude.
On a May morning in the sea off Howth Head, two fishermen haul their nets and minutes later are puking over the gunwale. Picturesque Howth is suddenly plunged into a full-scale murder hunt. The media go into full cry and soon no woman considers herself safe. The young local detective can't make head or tail of it. He telephones his pal up the hill, Cecil Megarry.
Megarry has had a heart attack, is conscious of cholesterol nowadays, and drinks sparkling mineral water. But sleuths, like writers, rarely retire and so Megarry leaves his gardening and his ever-patient wife and plunges into Dublin's shadowy world of kinkiness and sudden death.
McEldowney has now embraced the pure whodunnit in place of the more murky world of Belfast's spooks and puppet-masters. Megarry can still look after himself in a tight corner, catch the eye of a good-looking woman and keep going without much sleep. He is also relentless in his search for the truth. The result is good, page-turning action that brings Dick Francis to mind. I lost my bet with myself that I had spotted the killer.
Mystery stories make detectives of a reader. This book at times has some wobbles that an editor should have steadied. The action takes place in mid-May, a time when daffodils have ceased to bloom but by which roses have not yet blossomed, yet alone withered into dead heads. During train journeys from Dublin to Galway undertaken in late May between the hours of 5.30 p.m. and 8 p.m., nightfall is unlikely.
Nonetheless, Megarry has an enduring feel about him and could well be the Dublin cop we've all been waiting for. McEldowney has become a dab hand with red herrings, especially those netted in Piper's Gut.
Peter Cunningham is a writer
