cart
an old-style potboiler of intrigue, shadowy characters and murky situations.
When a big, boisterous Irish American-Canadian clan gathers for a reunion in New York, things cruise along at high tempo, until the patriarch is shot at a family wedding.
It's not just any old family feud; the attempt on the life of Declan Burke is an assassination-style takeout. That leads his five grown sons, along with family friend and lawyer Monty Collins of Halifax, to grow suspicious of dear old dad's mysterious past.
Declan survives the attempt on his life, but is strangely closed-mouthed about who might be taking potshots at him.
Collins and lifelong friend Brennan Burke, one of the sons and a Catholic priest stationed in Halifax, start peeling back the onion on Declan's life. They discover he was an old IRA soldier on the Emerald Isle, before the family came to America 40 years earlier.
Everybody has a past, and it seems that Declan Burke's has come back to haunt him in a way his family never knew or imagined.
They seem an unlikely pair, as Collins and Father Burke do some sleuthing into the old man's past.
Collins, travelling with his estranged wife and children to the Burke wedding, has a hole in his heart, trying to patch things up with his ex-spouse. He also has a few shortcomings of character, but nothing beyond redemption.
Brennan Burke is another story. He has issues of his own as a flawed saver of souls, with a hearty appetite for liquor and women, both of which sometimes get in the way of the priest's higher calling.
The solitary clue to the shooting seems to be a newspaper obituary about an Irishman named Cathal Murphy.
But the strangely worded passage is a coded indictment about Declan's former life, one he thought he left behind decades ago. It seems that crafty old Declan fled to the States after double-crossing his IRA buddies.
Collins and Father Burke probe further, but have a hard time believing that an old grudge could be responsible for the attempt on Declan's life.
Halifax author Anne Emery has fashioned an old-style potboiler of intrigue, shadowy characters and murky situations. Things beg more questions than answers, the harder Collins and members of the Burke family try to uncover the real reasons behind papa Burke's shooting.
This is not a violent action novel. Aside from the initial incident, there is no gunplay, bloody fisticuffs or staccato car chases. Instead, Emery probes beyond the veneer of easy explanation and examines an array of complex characters who have a deep and pitted history.
The tale of Monty Collins and the Burkes, in this second outing of the colourful characters populating Obit, is a finely crafted mystery about flawed characters, vengeance, unpaid debts and mournful memories.
Paul Marck is a Journal staff writer
 |
