Abstract
Headrick reads Declan Hughes’s Ed Loy series in the hard-boiled tradition of Chandler and Hammett and considers the benefit of such a complex figure in digging through Ireland’s modern history. As the series opens, the Celtic Tiger is winding down and the property bubble is about to burst. When Loy returns to his hometown of Dublin after two decades in Los Angeles, he barely recognizes the city. On the surface, this Dublin is completely foreign to him, but faces from the past are roaming these shiny streets and reacquainting Loy with the city’s darker undercurrents and opening doors to examining the past.
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Notes
- 1.
H. Robinson (13 November 2012) ‘Why We Love Mystery Novels: Murder, Mayhem, and Cultural Mirrors’, The Huffington Post, date accessed 5 June 2015.
- 2.
D. Hughes (2010) All the Dead Voices (New York: Harper), p. 311.
- 3.
D. Hughes (2009) The Price of Blood (New York: Harper), p. 232.
- 4.
D. Hughes (2007b) The Wrong Kind of Blood (New York: Harper; orig. pub. 2006), pp. 31–2.
- 5.
E. Pine (2008) ‘The Homeward Journey: The Returning Emigrant in Recent Irish Theatre’, Irish University Review, 38.2, 319–20.
- 6.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 47.
- 7.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 127.
- 8.
E. Pine (2008), 320–1.
- 9.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 32.
- 10.
B. McGilloway (2009a) ‘Brian McGilloway’s Top 10 Modern Irish Crime Novels’, The Guardian, 22 April 2009, date accessed 3 June 2015.
- 11.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 5.
- 12.
My thanks to Beth for The Big Sleep connections.
- 13.
R. Chandler (1976) The Big Sleep (New York: Vintage; orig. pub. 1939), p. 117.
- 14.
D. Hughes (2010), p. 114.
- 15.
D. Hughes (2010), p. 117.
- 16.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 245; Springsteen’s ‘Adam Raised a Cain’ appears on his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town (Columbia Records).
- 17.
D. Hughes (2007b), p. 129.
- 18.
D. Hughes (2007a) The Colour of Blood (London: John Murray), p. 129.
- 19.
Titled The Dying Breed in European markets, but changed to The Price of Blood in the US.
- 20.
D. Hughes (2009), p. 287.
- 21.
D. Hughes (2009), p. 287.
- 22.
D. Hughes (2009), p. 130.
- 23.
D. Hughes (2009), p. 146.
- 24.
D. Hughes (2010), pp. 99–100.
- 25.
Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Mainstream, 2001) by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, and David McVea.
- 26.
D. Hughes (2010), p. 186.
- 27.
D. Hughes (2011) City of Lost Girls (New York: Harper), p. 88.
- 28.
D. Hughes (2011), p. 136.
- 29.
M. Stasio (22 April 2010) ‘Mind over Murder’, Rev. of City of Lost Girls, New York Times Sunday Book Review Online, par. 7, date accessed 30 May 2015.
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Headrick, C.J. (2016). ‘Where no kindness goes unpunished’: Declan Hughes’s Dublin. In: Mannion, E. (eds) The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel. Crime Files. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53940-3_4
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