To The Last Page

In Jo Spain’s fifth DCI Tom Reynolds book the Irish police detective may have bitten off more than he can chew, taken a decision on something that there’s no going back on, will have to face the consequences of that choice and live with it. He has agreed to take on the responsibility of the role of Chief Superintendent of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. That might not seem as big an issue as some of the deeper problems and attitudes ingrained in Irish society that Spain has had him come up against in previous cases, but the rigid inflexibility and old-boy’s network of the upper echelons of the police service who look after friends and influential people in corrupt institutions means he will have his work cut out for him in the future. In fact, the only reason Tom has taken on the promotion is that it gives him a chance to correct that perception and rid the force of its self-serving network of conservatism and bureaucracy. As if to give Tom (and the reader) some indicati...

Jo Spain used to work as a party advisor for the Irish Parliament, and she clearly brings her awareness of Irish social issues to bear on her crime writing. In her Tom Reynolds novels much of the criminal activity in Ireland tends to have its roots in the country’s social background where the Roman Catholic Church has had a major influence on morals, attitudes and behaviours. There’s a sense of moral outrage in the series at the impact that this has had on ordinary people, on young people, on anyone who doesn’t ‘fit in’. This has resulted in abuse, in hiding away problems, the sins compounded by cover-ups that only allow other abuses and crimes to be committed. As the title indicates, The Darkest Place refers to another national scandal that is gradually being brought to light, but this time I’m not entirely convinced that Jo Spain’s writing really does the subject justice. The subject of historical scandal and abuse alluded to in The Darkest Place is similar to the one of the Magdal...

In some respects Sleeping Beauties is a fairly run-of-the-mill serial-killer case that doesn’t have anything new or imaginative to add to the text-book psychology and psychopathology of the killer or to the police investigation methods used to track him down. There is however one crucial difference that sets Jo Spain’s book apart from the rest and it’s a feature that is really the dominant theme in a her DI Tom Reynolds books; it’s another means of exploring deeper, hidden aspects of Irish society that many would prefer remained unacknowledged and forgotten. In Sleeping Beauties , Spain’s third DI Tom Reynolds book, five bodies have been discovered buried in the beauty spot of Glendalough in Co. Wicklow. It’s soon apparent that the bodies are of young single women who have been abducted as year apart, kept alive for some time and then strangled. That in itself makes the killer quite dangerous, but what is even more disturbing is that he appears to be targeting vulnerable women of a c...

" If there's one thing I've learned with age, it's that if you scratch hard enough, nobody is good all the way through. Given the right, or wrong, circumstances, most people are capable of bad deeds ". The above quote from a character in her new novel summarises very well what looks like it is going to be Jo Spain's main area of interest and intrigue in her Inspector Tom Reynolds mystery series.  Reynolds' first investigation, With Our Blessing , lifted the lid on aspects of the infamous Magdalene laundries and her second novel in the series, Beneath the Surface , suggests that there are many other bad deeds to be uncovered beneath the seemingly respectable surface of Irish society, history and politics. Politics would seem to be at the forefront of the investigation into the killing of a Minister's PA in Leinster House, but inevitably, there are deeper secrets and other motivations at play here. Ryan Finnegan has been shot dead in a corridor of Leinst...