Vendor
	Authors Rights Agency Svetlana Pironko
Original language
English
Categories
Fiction: general & literary Crime & mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction

Killarney Blues

Colin O'Sullivan

Picturesque Killarney might seem the perfect place to enjoy the rare gift of sun but the town has got the blues. Bernard Dunphy, eccentric jarvey and, secretly, a terrific blues guitarist, is pining for Miriam Yates, his unrequited love and has to contend with an ailing mother and an ailing horse.

His friend Jack, a philandering egotist, spins out of control as the novel progresses and savagely murders a man in a raging frenzy. A trio of girlfriends becomes entangled in the terrible webs of their own making.

As the novel swings back and forth from thorny past to tumultuous present, it swings, too, from darkness to light. Darkness: shadow of Bernard’s father’s tragic past, suicide, abuse, murder. Light: comedic banter, friendship, romance, and the joy and redemptive powers of music.

Killarney Blues offers a glimpse of a very modern Irish town in an economic and moral crisis, as well as the trials and torments of its struggling inhabitants.

Comments

“Killarney Blues is a Noir novel – but not only – at the farthest reaches of love, desire and loss.”

“Colin O’Sullivan writes with a style and a swagger all his own. His voice – unique, strong, startlingly expressive – both comes from and adds to Ireland’s long and lovely literary lineage. Only a soul of stone could resist joining in.”

“His words swagger with purpose, never meandering too long on a scene, always moving the story forward, even when it goes back in time, like a faded photograph coming into view. Lyrical to a point, one word flowing to the next, hardly stopping.”

"A hard, poignant novel of great humanity... remarkably well written..."

"Carried by a genuine writing talent, Killarney Blues is a Noir novel full of melancholy and unfulfilled dreams with a surprising glimmer of hope at the end. Without the slightest naivety. A revelation."

“In a style that is sometimes luminous, sometimes direct, sometimes poetic, Colin O’Sullivan traces his narrative path, creates incredibly vivid and appealing characters and brings the reader, to the 12-bar beat of the blues, towards a heart-breaking denouement.”