Review
A regular feast of Irish gore, says Sean McMahon.
- Requiems for the Departed
- Morrigan Books
Meelya Murder
Morrigan Books asked seventeen Irish crime writers, including Ken Bruen and Stuart Neville, to compose short stories based upon Irish mythology – appropriate since they took their name from the Celtic goddess of slaughter! The result is a feast of gore, that sticks more or less to the theme.
‘Sliabh Bán’, by Arlene Hunt one of the most satisfactory uses An Táin, neatly exchanging stallions for bulls. Diarmuid and Grainne, and Macha both occur twice as themes, the first as the actual title of a chilling story by Adrian McKinty, the other a characteristically hectic romp by Garbhan Downey, with a frenetic souffle of his usual ruthlessly fecund imagination served on a base of Tom Sharpe and Damon Runyon.
The other northwest writer, Brian McGilloway, has his famously troubled Inspector Devlin in a piscatorial setting, in a tale ingeniously based on the Salmon of Knowledge. There is not a dud in the whole bloody company and the final story, ‘The Life Business’ by John Grant based on St Patrick and the snakes, uses Magilligan Point to prove that the saint didn’t do a thorough enough job.
