Bloodland [Paperback]

This book is a smashing read. It had me hooked from the first page to the last. A thriller in which the different strands of intrigue are deftly woven together. On finishing it, I wanted more.

The "conspiracy thriller" is a genre with very few excellent examples and very many substandard ones. Bloodland is of the best. Its momentum is provided by the connectivity of some very small and apparently random dots, to the point where a US presidency and global corporate "imperialism" are directly affected. Although clearly written with an eye on the movie, it is none the worse for that.

The main novel opens in Ireland with Jimmy Gilroy, an inexperienced, young and unemployed journalist agreeing to write a book about a "celebrity" (by the modern definition), Susie Monaghan, simply because the advance will allow him to pay the rent for a few more months. He's unhappy about his assignment because his father was a fine journalist and Jimmy wants to follow in his footsteps. Nevertheless, he begins by researching the final chapter, about Susie's death in a helicopter accident.

On the day that Jimmy has an appointment with the dead woman's sister, he receives a call from Phil Sweeney, an old PR contact of his father's, who asks him not to write the book, but won't tell him why. Puzzled, Jimmy meets the sister as arranged - he assumes she will be against the idea of the book, but to his surprise she is very much in favour of it, mainly because she feels that the accident was not properly investigated at the time and she thinks Jimmy's research will reveal the cause. Keen to continue with this line, Jimmy is then offered a much better deal via Sweeney: to write a ghosted autobiography of the recently retired Taioseach, Larry Bolgar.

Despite his liking for the sister, Jimmy does not waste much time ditching the Susie book and going to see Bolgar, who is a man fighting his own demons -- all of Glynn's male characters have traumatic interior lives, fighting insecurity, fathers (or father-figures) and addiction of one sort or another. What a drunk Bolgar reveals to Jimmy during their first interview makes Jimmy's head reel, and makes the reader realise that the book is about something else completely than its ostensible subject.

Another plotline involves Dave Conway, who knew Susie and most of those with her on her final weekend. His company owns Tara Meadows, a massive new development of hotels, shops and apartments that is now abandoned, a home for tramps. Conway is desperately trying to find new investors amid a crashed Irish economy, as his family life disintegrates. He sees a brief item on the TV news about a body that has been found in a wood by a man walking his dog, a report that causes Conway to panic.

The geographical scope of the book expands, leading to Italy, London, the Congo and finally to the United States for the dramatic climax. Jimmy only sees part of the picture, of course: from the start the reader has known about a visit by a US senator to the Congo which ends in tragedy, and witnesses the damage-limitation exercise that follows - with its inevitable weaknesses.

The full extent of the connection between these events, partially but not completely known to the reader, depends on Jimmy. Will he be tenacious and bright enough to follow all his leads through, as they point to ever-more amazing implications? I did doubt it at first, when he, a journalist, is researching an Italian UN official and does not know how easy it is to translate documents instantly on the web, going to various lengths to find someone who can tell him what they mean - but this is the only stumble I came across in a very assured plot-build-up.

Most conspiracy thrillers fail by over-reaching themselves, hence lurching into incredibility. This is certainly not the case here. Much of what is revealed depends on coincidence - certain people cracking up at convenient times, or someone deciding to spill some beans at the exact time the right person is there to hear them, and so on. But this element is not overdone, and indeed is a clever analysis of how apparently small decisions made by low-level people in an organisation for what seem at the time to be perfectly good reasons, in fact come back in spades later on down the line.

Bloodland is an immensely exciting book, which works because the author never forgets the human condition. His portrayal of a mine in the Congo is truly upsetting, not in a gratuitous sense but in the sense of providing a snapshot for the reader to understand how children's lives are completely ruined by the inevitable combination of corruption, greed and exploitation in these sad countries and by those who do business with their leaders.

The novel is told mostly via the device of sharing with the reader the thoughts of the main characters (all male) as their inner worlds, and gradually their outer ones, disintegrate. Will it all come out, or will Jimmy allow himself to be diverted? How will he overcome his lack of resources and his unemployed status to convince anyone of what he knows but cannot prove? Will someone stop him before he can deliver? I can only urge you to read this book to find out.

When I was reading this book several things stood out. The first was texture. As with Limitless, on which the movie of the same name is based, Glynn's writerly craft shines. In a market populated by novels that desperately try to rush you over the stylistic dullness of the writer by copying Dan Brown's turn-the-page-slot-machine-pay-off-promise to keep you from chucking the book in the bin, Glynn is a really good writer. His paragraphing is sharp and lean, and dialogue, both inner and spoken, rolls and flicks with a perfection that has surely come from years of dedication to his craft.

The second thing that resonated with me was his insight into the hubris, lust and greed that both fuelled the rise of recent Irish economic glory and poetically brought about the ugly and graceless collapse the followed. Bloodland, as with its predecessor Winterland, is darkly insightful into this chapter of Ireland's story, and Glynn's contribution to our collective understanding of what we did to ourselves is as good as it gets.

Thirdly, this is a just great read. You know when you start a book, and after a few pages you smile to yourself and nod because you know this is a good one? Well, this is it. The characters, especially ex-Irish prime minister Larry Bolger, are terrific. The plot is conspiracy-theory writing at its best; layered, international, gripping. There is obviously a dept of research behind this story and as with all great writers in this genre, Glynn has an obvious passion and respect for what he does.

So, if you want an intelligent, well written and insightful thriller, this is it. Enjoy.