The Ruin
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4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Top Ten fiction bestseller and critically acclaimed crime debut featuring everyone's favourite new detective, Cormac Reilly
'The Ruin is spectacularly good. So CONFIDENT ... excellently written and, at times, heartachingly sad' Marian Keyes
'Corruption, clandestine cover-ups and criminal conspiracy ... as moving as it is fast-paced' Val McDermid
'Dervla McTiernan's first novel outclasses some of the genre's stalwarts making her a crime writer to watch ... fans of Ian Rankin and Tana French will feel right at home' Bookseller + Publisher (4.5 stars)
Galway 1993: Young Garda Cormac Reilly is called to a scene he will never forget. Two silent, neglected children - fifteen-year-old Maude and five-year-old Jack - are waiting for him at a crumbling country house. Upstairs, their mother lies dead.
Twenty years later, a body surfaces in the icy black waters of the River Corrib. At first it looks like an open-and-shut case, but then doubt is cast on the investigation's findings - and the integrity of the police. Cormac is thrown back into the cold case that has haunted him his entire career - what links the two deaths, two decades apart? As he navigates his way through police politics and the ghosts of the past, Detective Reilly uncovers shocking secrets and finds himself questioning who among his colleagues he can trust.
What really did happen in that house where he first met Maude and Jack? The Ruin draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Ruin can mean destruction, or in Irish, rúin is a secret. There’s plenty of both in Dervla McTiernan’s assured debut. After leaving a distinguished career in Dublin, Detective Sergeant Cormac Reilly has to navigate police politics and corruption in Galway. Things get worse when he finds a link between a recent murder and his very first case, one that has haunted him for 20 years. With its fast-paced plot and bundles of twists, The Rúin makes us excited to see where McTiernan takes her crime series next. This is a must-read for fans of Tana French.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McTiernan's powerful first novel has the authentic feel of its Irish setting. In 1993, police detective Cormac Reilly is called to a house in Kilmore, County Mayo, where he finds 15-year-old Maude Blake and her five-year-old brother, Jack, alive; in an upstairs bedroom lies the body of their alcoholic mother, dead of a drug overdose. In 2013, Jack's body turns up in a Galway river after an anonymous caller claims he saw Jack jump in. Jack's girlfriend, Aisling Conroy, is sadly willing to accept the obvious conclusion that it was suicide. But Maude, newly back from Australia, is convinced it was murder. Based on new information, Cormac investigates the now 20-year-old death of the mother, while Maude and Aisling try to figure out what actually happened to Jack, since the police seem unwilling to. Various other threads in the tightly woven plot lead to rape, child molestation, drug dealing, police corruption, and more murders. McTiernan neatly ties them all together in the suspenseful conclusion. McTiernan, born in Ireland but now living in Australia, is a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews
The Ruin
I felt the cold and wet as if I were right there. So the action felt real and the atmosphere was real and palpable. The storytelling had another whole dimension to it as a result of this aspect. I was totally in the story.
Stories of the past are reflected in the future.
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan
It’s 2013 in Ireland, where a man commits suicide - but it’s not as it seems. Detective Cormac gets assigned and realises it’s the boy from his first assignment two decades ago. And from there, it gets complicated!
It’s a long thriller, full of detail and conversations that sound ‘about right’. The actions of the local police also sound about right. Either the author’s part of the system or they’ve done some great research. It’s got a number of sub-threads which add to the story keeping the reader involved.
A great story 4/5.
Didn’t catch the twist!!
A great read… especially as the twist was a real surprise