Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Criminal Minds, 16 Aug 2008
"Once in a while you come across a book that delivers a blow to the guts, and very occasionally a kick to the arse as well. Gene Kerrigan's LITTLE CRIMINALS is such a book." WR Burnett
Harte's Cross, a small town outside of Dublin, is the home to a small time hoodlum, Frankie Crowe. Frankie has always wanted the easy way, it seems. He left home after his family reported him to the local Garda, Ireland's National Police Service. Ever since he has been on the lam or loosely involved in someone else's capers. Now, he has decided that he wants to commit a large enough crime to set him up for life. He sets his sights on kidnapping a prosperous lawyer, Justin Kennedy. Frankie has old friends who join his 'crew' and the plans are set. Frankie, who has a short fuse, settles differences with Jo Jo, a criminal mentor, when JOJO disagrees with Frankie's plans. This sets in motion a plan and plot that interests the garda. As all plans go awry when not well thought out, Frankie discovers that the better plan is to kidnap Kennedy's wife Angela. One thing leads to another and one of the most exciting and well written crime novels moves ahead.
Gene Kerrigan gives close attention to his characters. They are brought to life with exacting detail and we get to know them. To like them, is another matter, but we care. Besides his crew, we learn about Frankie's ex-wife and child, some of the towns people and, most of all the police. The upper echelons and the lower ranks. Caught in the middle is John Grace, an honest detective. "He had mastered the methodical routine of detective work and was sure of his abilities as a supervisor of those beneath him on the ladder. Those talents got him to a respectable level, at which he lingered." Because Grace knows Frankie, he is brought into assist the police in an in-depth analysis of Frankie and his crew.
The rest of the book plays out the story of the kidnap from the viewpoint of all the gang members and those affected by the crime. It is a mesmerizing glimpse into modern day Ireland, where the Church has little say and the young 'want what they want' as quickly as possible, paying little attention to the customs of yore. Past tragedies and dreams collide, and we have a glimpse into the world of the criminals and those lives that they shatter.
Highly, Highly Recommended. prisrob 08-16-08
The Midnight Choir
Another Country: Growing Up in 50's Ireland
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"There were people who took shortcuts through other people's lives, [ignored] what harm they did..acted with reckless contempt.", 28 April 2008
Frankie Crowe is a man who takes shortcuts. A "little" criminal with a small mind and grand ideas, he is also among the most dangerous of criminals, a young man who is totally self-centered. Recently released from two years in prison, Frankie believes that the dead time in jail is better than working a dead end job. Life in Dublin--at least the kind of life Frankie wants--is expensive, and his current scheme is to kidnap one of Ireland's wealthiest men and hold him for ransom. Collecting a crew of petty criminals, Frankie and his associates conspire to make the snatch, then change plans and kidnap the young wife of their former target. Taking her to the remote countryside, they keep her terrified while they sadistically play with her husband's emotions by failing to contact him as promised. His attempts to obtain the ransom put his own business practices under the microscope.
Filling the novel with the local color of life in and around Dublin, author Gene Kerrigan plots an involving mystery, showing the dark side of Irish life and creating characters the reader comes to know and understand. Not typically noir, this novel is far more interested in showing why characters like Frankie are so unapologetically anti-social, if not sociopathic. As Frankie himself says, "Sometimes you have to do something you know is just plain wrong...It's that or be a loser." Absolutely nothing, including murder, will deter Frankie from his goals.
As author Kerrigan shows, the economic "progress" in the "new" Ireland has changed the fabric of the country for its young people, a number of whom have put their entrepreneurial skills to use in unsavory ways. The old values have waned, and the power of the Church has declined. "It's all about money now, and grabbing your share and a bit of the other fella's." For Inspector John Grace, "The crime just kept on coming, and would keep on coming." Everyone now feels entitled to fulfill his personal vision of the good life, Grace believes, and no one in power cares.
The sociological underpinnings of this novel add depth and complexity to what might otherwise have been a shoot-'em-up in a Dublin setting. Smooth at the same time that it is gritty, and darkly ironic at the same time that it is brutally realistic, Kerrigan's novel often conveys real sentiment, seen even in the lives of criminals like Frankie Crowe. Frankie's callous, asocial behavior, in turn, often enhances the book's emotional impact through its shock value, and the desperate resolution lingers long after the book is closed. Beautifully plotted, sometimes violent, and very involving, Kerrigan has developed a novel which goes beyond thrills and into the realm of literature. Mary Whipple
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