Published 2nd April 2020 by The Dome Press.
Read April 2020.
Many years ago, when Tony, Hugh and Karen walked away from each other after taking part in a killing, undertaken in the name of revenge, they did not think they would see each other again.
But 30 years later, they have been gathered together to help rest the ghosts of the past and apparently lay the foundations for a more peaceful future for their homeland.
They have spent the intervening years trying to forget what happened that night in a forest near Glasgow, but they have little choice but to agree to the reunion.
As they take the ferry journey from Northern Ireland to Scotland, the past is brought into clear focus and secrets that should have stayed buried are brought to the surface, stirring up uncomfortable truths.
Why have they really been brought back together and what do they each hope to achieve with this journey into the past?
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The blurb for The Last Crossing does not really give much away in terms of where this story goes, so it was a bit of a voyage into the unknown - much like Tony, Hugh and Karen's ferry journey back to the scene of their crime.
The book runs in dual timelines, with chapters alternating between 30 years ago and the here and now - ever so slowly revealing what our characters have done and why they are now being called on to make amends.
In this case, the 30 year old part of the story revolves around the Troubles in Northern Ireland and attempts to get revenge for the killing of Tony's brother, which embroils our characters in a murder plot in Scotland - under the orders of (we assume) the IRA.
The present concerns itself with the reason why our players have been brought back together, and as they speculate about why they are really there and what they have been asked to do, all their little secrets come spilling out.
Brian McGilloway seamlessly works the threads of this story, from the past and present, into the most compelling of storylines, dropping little clues along the way to the shocking truths that will be revealed. But knowing the truths are coming does very little to soften the blows when they eventually hit you full on in the face.
The writing is quite simply superb and the author uses some delicious devices to keep you engrossed from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the way he creates such a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere around the interactions between Tony, Hugh and Karen, especially when aboard the ferry, and the way the characters have such unreliable and conflicting accounts of what happened all those years ago.
In addition, Brian McGilloway skillfully describes how Tony and Karen were manipulated into becoming unwitting co-conspirators through the grief and anger they felt over the loss of their family members - until they found themselves in way too deep to back out - and uses the two timelines to examine the differences between the politics of Northern Ireland pre/ post the peace talks.
One of my favourite little tricks was the use of similar words and phrases at the beginning and ends of consecutive chapters to link them together - this was so subtly done that I was not even aware of it to start with, but then began to look out for them as I went on.
This book completely bowled me over. This is addictive writing that draws you into a complex and character driven cracker of a novel that leaves you with plenty to think about when you are done.
Mr McGilloway, you are a class act and I will be searching out more of your books in the future!
Thank you to Brian McGilloway and to Emily Glenister at The Dome Press for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
From the cover of the book:
Tony, Hugh and Karen thought they’d seen the last of each other thirty years ago.
Half a lifetime has passed and memories have been buried.
But when they are asked to reunite - to lay ghosts to rest for the good of the future
- they all have their own reasons to agree.
As they take the ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland
the past is brought in to terrible focus
- some things are impossible to leave behind.
In The Last Crossing memory is unreliable, truth shifts
and slips and the lingering legacy of the Troubles
threatens the present once again.
About the author:
Brian McGilloway is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Inspector Benedict Devlin and DS Lucy Black series.
He was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. After studying English at Queen's University, Belfast, he took up a teaching position in St Colomb's College in Derry, where he was Head of Eglish until 2013. He currently teaches in Holy Cross College, Strabane.
In 2014, Brian won BBC NI’s Tony Doyle Award for his screenplay, Little Emperors, an award which saw him become Writer In Residence with BBC NI.
Brian lives near the Irish Borderlands with his wife, daughter and three sons.
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