The Priest
A Novel
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the most riveting writer to come out of Ireland since John Connolly, the first in a series of Dublin-based thrillers introducing Inspector Mike Mulcahy, who is pitched into a deadly battle with a religion-obsessed serial killer.
Gerard O’Donovan puts Dublin on the map with this gripping tale featuring a diabolical serial killer steeped in Ireland’s Catholic history. Struggling to find his feet back in Ireland after a lengthy posting with Europol in Spain, drugs specialist Mike Mulcahy is plunged into unfamiliar territory when the daughter of a politician suffers a horrific sex attack. Dragged into the case against his will, Mulcahy becomes convinced there is more to it than a random frenzied sexual assault, especially when he discovers that the weapon used by the attacker to torture the victim was a crucifix. But know-it-all colleagues and politically motivated bosses, eager for a quick, uncontroversial result, ignore his belief that the attack had religious rather than sexual motivations. Sidelined and overruled, Mulcahy sets about his own investigation, but frustrations abound at every turn—until reporter Siobhan Fallon turns up asking awkward questions. As more young women are attacked and assault turns to murder, Mulcahy and Fallon are drawn into an uneasy alliance, and each step they take hurtles them ever closer to the monstrous killer known only as The Priest and a final showdown that is as explosive as it is unforgettable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A sadist targets young women in O'Donovan's derivative second novel, a step down from his debut, White Lion, shortlisted for the CWA's Debut Dagger. When Insp. Mike Mulcahy returns to Ireland after a prestigious antinarcotics posting in Madrid, the contacts he made in Spain make him valuable to the police detectives assigned to identify the brute that assaulted Jesica Mellado Salazar, the Spanish interior minister's 16-year-old daughter, who was found in a Dublin road early one morning with severe burns on her genitals. Before the inquiry can make much progress, Jesica's father has her spirited away to recover at home. When the object used to burn her is identified as a gold crucifix, the target of the probe becomes known as "the Priest." As the fiend claims more victims, Mulcahy's love interest, reporter Siobhan Fallon, hypes the Priest as a national menace. The police follow all too familiar procedural lines, while Mulcahy needs to be a more distinctive lead if he's to sustain a series.