The Point [Kindle Edition]

You know you're in a shed load of trouble when Mad Mickey wants a wee word, and that's the predicament scallywag Paul Morgan finds himself in at the start of The Point. Given a week to get out of Belfast by the 'hippy-gangster,' Morgan gets his brother Brian to flit with him to a place called Warrenpoint, hence the book's title.

He makes one wee mistake: pinching Mad Mickey's van and setting it alight. After he does that you know the Morgan boys are in for some bother.

The Point rattles along a good pace. The characters are well drawn, especially Mad Mickey the 'hippie-gangster' who sits cross legged on a beanbag in the back of a carpeted van, menacing folk under the glow from some lava lamps. And there's ballsy Rachel who's under 'court ordered' counselling for turning a mugger's Stanley Knife on him. Thank ye gods for a kick ass woman in a book who isn't cast in the victim role or as the eye candle.

The dialogue is crisp and realistic and at times you're chortling away to yourself like an eejit. Like when beleaguered Morgan asks what kind of mood Mickey is in. Go on, you know you want to say it.

Hats off to the writer too for not trying to anglicise/poncify his dialogue. His characters are from Northern Ireland, so why should they sound like they're presenting the news on the BBC?

The Point was an enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more from Mr Brennan.

Note -with its short chapters, The Point is perfect for reading on your Kindle.

A couple of months ago I read a fabulous short by Gerard Brennan called Nothing But Time, set in HMP Maghaberry, it's the story of a marked man waiting for the inevitable shiv to the ribs. There're no laughs, no comfort, just Brennan telling you how it is in a voice as cold and hard as concrete.
His new novella, The Point, is a different beast entirely.
This is a breakneck rush of a book - a page-turner in a non-schlocky way - full of humour and unexpected warmth.
Paul Morgan is your classic silver-tongued bastard; all mouth and trousers as my nan used to say, a career criminal dead set on drawing his brother Brian down with him. The plot is simple, what happens when you piss of an insane drug dealer? You run. Grab your wee bro and take off to some quiet backwater where you'll lay low until it blows over.
Paul Morgan won't lay low though, he can't. While he's inveigling his way into Warrenpoint's seething underbelly brother Brian is falling in love with one of the most kick-ass femme fatales you'll have seen in awhile.
Rachel Malone is a fantastic creation and a credit to Brennan's skills. Strong, gobby and prone to acts of extreme violence, she's the kind of girl we can all look up to.
With characters like this on the page Brennan can't go wrong. The story rips along, there're guns and cleavers and some poor guy gets strapped to chair so bad things can be done to him, all the usual ingredients for a cracking crime novel. The writing is evocative, full of nifty touches and sharp observation, and the dialogue is right on the money. It also has a cute retro-pulp front cover, if that sort of thing interests you.
The Point has cemented Brennan's must-watch status for me. It might be slim but this novella, with its Bateman-esque humour and solid writing, promises great things in the future.

Gerard Brennan's 'The Point' may be compact and bijou but, to be honest, that is the only 'negative' (and it isn't really even that) that I have with it - as a novella ... even a longish one ... it left me wanting more!

The characters were all interesting and different, very easy to distinguish from each other with their own little ticks. The self-acknowledged charmer Paul's dialogue never clashed/mashed with the sardonic Rachel; the pace started off fast and never let up but, at the same time, never felt rushed; the plot was relatively simple but that simply let Gerard tell a great yarn, with his characters, without having to resort to any literary (or genre) tricks.

For the majority of the book there was a very obvious undertone of Norn Irish humour (dark and mischievous) that softened the edges of violence and violent people and then, right near the end, the humour stopped and the dark took over completely. Again, this is not a criticism as, from the moment where a character was ended with a simple twist of the neck, the tone simply lifted up a visceral notch to bring you, breathless, to the end.

I don't think that Gerard was out to prove anything with this book but, for me, he has simply solidified himself as up there with the best of the new crop of Irish (and especially Norn Irish, of course) crime writers.