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‘Irish by blood and English by accident’: Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan

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The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel

Part of the book series: Crime Files ((CF))

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Abstract

Mannion finds distinctions of race, class, and gender are central to each volume in Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series, along with a running commentary on social inequities along these boundaries. This commentary, provided largely by Maeve, reveals her own susceptibility to harm, unifying her with women citywide, including victims of the crimes she investigates. In addition to emphasizing the vulnerability of young women, this calls into question the distinction between revenge and justice, vigilantism and the rule of law. The series stops short of being polemical, but it is a cautionary tale of the price paid for living in a surveillant urban society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    J. Casey (2013) The Reckoning (New York: Minotaur Books; orig. pub. 2012), p. 44.

  2. 2.

    J. Casey (2015) After the Fire (London: Ebury Press), p. 372.

  3. 3.

    J. Casey (2014a) The Kill (London: Ebury Press), p. 203.

  4. 4.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 56.

  5. 5.

    V. O’Loughlin Fox (March 2014) ‘Jane Casey Interview: Waterford Writer’s Weekend’.

  6. 6.

    J. Casey (2012) The Burning (New York: Minotaur Books; orig. pub. 2010), p. 40.

  7. 7.

    J. Casey (2014d) The Stranger You Know (New York: Minotaur Books; orig. pub. 2013), p. 10.

  8. 8.

    J. Casey (2012), p. 200.

  9. 9.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 129.

  10. 10.

    J. Casey (2014d), p. 95.

  11. 11.

    M. Kinsman (2010) ‘Feminist Crime Fiction’ in C.R. Nickerson (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 148.

  12. 12.

    M. Kinsman (2010), p. 152.

  13. 13.

    J. Casey (2014d), p. 40.

  14. 14.

    J. Casey (2014c) Left for Dead: A Maeve Kerrigan Novella (New York: Minotaur e-book), loc. 1356.

  15. 15.

    J. Casey (2012), p. 76.

  16. 16.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 277.

  17. 17.

    J. Casey (2013), p. 180.

  18. 18.

    ‘Jane Says’, an interview with Jane Casey, originally published in the Sunday Business Post, 24 June 2012. From Declan Burke’s Crime Always Pays. http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.ie/2012/06/jane-says.html, date accessed 21 February 2015.

  19. 19.

    J. Casey (2012), p. 18.

  20. 20.

    J. Casey (2012), p. 40.

  21. 21.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 312.

  22. 22.

    J. Casey (2014d), p. 121.

  23. 23.

    J. Casey (2013), p. 353.

  24. 24.

    J. Casey (2014b) The Last Girl (New York: Minotaur Books; orig. pub. 2012), p. 103.

  25. 25.

    J. Casey (2014b), p. 103.

  26. 26.

    J. Casey (2012), p. 97.

  27. 27.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 279.

  28. 28.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 211.

  29. 29.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 225.

  30. 30.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 278.

  31. 31.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 278.

  32. 32.

    Although Irish and London references dominate, Shakespeare (Othello and Cymbeline), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned also make appearances.

  33. 33.

    Qtd. in J. Casey (2013), p. 3.

  34. 34.

    J. Casey (2014a), pp. 352–3.

  35. 35.

    For example, Maeve’s actor neighbor in The Reckoning casts various residents of their apartment building as Vladimir, Estragon, and Godot over drinks; and Savannah’s dog in The Last Girl is named Beckett.

  36. 36.

    ‘Mandrake’ (OED): ‘formerly credited with magical and medicinal properties esp. because of the supposedly human shape of its forked fleshy root, being used to promote conception, and was reputed to shriek when pulled from the ground and to cause the death of whoever uprooted it’, OED online, date accessed 17 July 2015.

  37. 37.

    J. Casey (2013), p. 188.

  38. 38.

    J. Casey (2014b), p. 79.

  39. 39.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 440.

  40. 40.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 440.

  41. 41.

    J. Casey (2015), p. 252.

  42. 42.

    J. Casey (2014a), p. 340.

  43. 43.

    J. Casey (2014c), loc. 1352.

  44. 44.

    J. Casey (2015), p. 29.

  45. 45.

    J. Casey (2015), p. 29.

  46. 46.

    J. Casey (2015), p. 258.

  47. 47.

    J. Casey (2015), p. 339.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin, Ireland

    Elizabeth Mannion

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  1. Elizabeth Mannion
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Mannion .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jacksonville Beach, Florida, USA

    Elizabeth Mannion

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© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

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Mannion, E. (2016). ‘Irish by blood and English by accident’: Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan. In: Mannion, E. (eds) The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel. Crime Files. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53940-3_9

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