ROBERT WELCH's first novel, Tearrnann, is in Irish; a surprising enough fact given that Welch is professor of English in the University of Ulster and is better known for his academic work in the field of English literature in Ireland. Most recently, he edited the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature.
Tearmann is the name of the city to which Toirealach Mac Liam (a familiar anti-hero) and Seamas Mac an Ghabha, his assistant from the Dept of Arts and Culture (I kid you not) are sent to investigate the disappearance of Maoileachlainn O Cathain, an official from Mac Liam's department.
Gradually Mac Liam realises that the name of the city (Tearmann is Irish for sanctuary) is misleading. Ear from being a place of refuge, it is in fact a much darker environment than Mac Liam had originally bargained for.
Welch has little difficulty in populating Tearmann with shady characters. Giolla thrown to Tearmann's authorities by his un-Deacair has all the menace one would expect of a "bovver buachaill". Not surprisingly, the locals do not welcome Mac Liam's investigations. They have a constant wariness about them and a thinly-concealed hostility towards Mac Liam and his companion.
Mac Liam is a well-drawn character in the early part of the novel, a man sure of his own status and power within his department. Added to that is a certain frigidity and arrogance which will not be unfamiliar to readers of Satre's fiction. Naturally, it is these very characteristics which eventually threaten both his career and his life when this "outsider" (and, indeed, "outlander") is sympathetic minister.
Welch's city of Tearmann is a great imaginative venture. Peopled with shady characters and rotten to the core, it is a place which vigorously and "scrupulously" maintains the veneer and fiction of its own, respectablity. Yes, you can drink and whore, to your heart's delight in Tearmann, but there are rules to be followed - even while indulging the flesh.
Mac Liam is enticed into an even more shadowy, ugly side of Tearmann's existence. There are powerful individuals in the city - grouped around the Arts Academy and the mayor - who have another set of rules and standards which are never publicly spoken of. It is these people who wield real power, and it is they who hide the darkest of secrets.
Occasionally it can all be a little melodramatic, but not overpoweringly so. While Welch has few problems in his characterisation, there is a certain stodginess in the actual writing; his language, while solid, lacks a certain fluency and ease.
Welch aims to write a novel noir and, for the greater part, succeeds. Unfortunately, he neglects to inject the work with the necessary urgency to move it along and draw the reader into his dark web quickly and whole-heartedly.
MOST startling of all is his decision to wilfully abandon his gritty detective plot and replace it by a horrorfest finale involving devil worship human bondage, snuff videos and angels. Indeed, was it necessary (or even wise) to change the tone of the work by turning Mac Liam from a character in a novel into a scribe recounting its events? I'm all in favour of originality (and Welch can't be faulted for that) but did the author lose the thread of his own story?