Kerrigan, Gene

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dublin, Ireland.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Journalist of the Year, 1985, 1990.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Derek Dunne) Round up the Usual Suspects: Nicky Kelly & the Cosgrave Coalition, Magill (Dublin, Ireland), 1984.

Goodbye to All That: A Souvenir of the Haughey Era, with photographs by Derek Speirs, Blackwater Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1992.

Police Interrogation Endangers the Innocent: Including, Anatomy of an Interrogation by Gene Kerrigan, Irish Council for Civil Liberties (Dublin, Ireland), 1993.

Hard Cases: True Stories of Irish Crime, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 1996.

Another Country: Growing Up in 50's Ireland, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 1998.

(With Pat Brennan) This Great Little Nation: The A-Z of Irish Scandals & Controversies, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 1999.

Never Make a Promise You Can't Break: How to Succeed in Irish Politics, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 2002.

NOVELS

Little Criminals, Vintage (London, England), 2005, Europa Editions (New York, NY), 2008.

The Midnight Choir, Harvill Secker (London, England), 2006, Europa Editions (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to multiauthor novel Yeats Is Dead!, Jonathan Cape, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gene Kerrigan, a longtime Irish journalist with several nonfiction books to his credit, began writing crime novels with Little Criminals and The Midnight Choir. With these, he has won some critical praise for the intricacy of his stories, the realism of his characters, and veracity of his Irish setting, showing a nation where economic growth has created prosperity for some but left others behind.

Little Criminals deals with a kidnapping scheme and its consequences. Frankie Crowe, a petty thief from a small Irish village, enlists several associates to help him abduct a wealthy businessman's wife, expecting that her husband will be eager to pay the ransom. John Grace, a police officer who has experience with Frankie and also has more integrity than most of his fellow members of Ireland's force, the Gard, works to track down the kidnappers and their hostage, and various complications ensue for Frankie's gang.

Some critics found the novel a complex, nonstereotypical crime story that would reward readers. Despite its "seemingly careless plot," Little Criminals "has a tight overall structure so that at the end of the book, everything seems both inevitable and aesthetic," related Glenn Harper on the International Noir Fiction Web log. Harper noted that Kerrigan's storytelling holds numerous surprises and that its depiction of Ireland is decidedly "un-quaint." Maxine Clarke, writing for the Web site Euro Crime, described Little Criminals as an "apparently simple yet multilayered and tragic book." The characters, she remarked, are "instantly real," so that "our interest in everyone is maintained, nothing is one-sided or easy to judge."

The Midnight Choir weaves together several stories. In Dublin, members of the Gard investigate a rape with a high-profile suspect, an assault on a tourist, and a jewelry-store heist that left a man dead. In Galway, police rescue a mysterious man who is attempting suicide. One of the officers on the Dublin cases is Harry Synnott, who is trying to wrap up his investigations so he can start a new job with Europol. Like John Grace, who appears again in this novel, Harry is a basically honest cop with many corrupt colleagues. Over the course of the story, developments in Harry's Dublin cases as well as the events in Galway create difficulties for him.

As with Little Criminals, some reviewers praised Kerrigan's multifaceted story and his three-dimensional portrait of setting and character. "The way in which the plots overlap and sometimes merge in a horridly inevitable cause and effect is masterly," observed Clarke, again contributing to the Euro Crime Web site. Mary Whipple, critiquing for the Mostly Fiction Web site, reported that "Kerrigan keeps the action crisp and fast-paced, with plenty of complications to keep the reader busy." In Booklist, David Pitt dubbed the novel "gripping crime fiction in which the setting is unequivocally the protagonist." Similarly, the author of the Critical Mick Web log remarked: "In character, crime and conflict, this setting is resoundingly Modern Ireland." Against this backdrop, the book's people show themselves as deeply flawed yet sympathetic as they make both moral and immoral choices. Whipple commented that while the novel is "dark and sad in its vision of humanity, even with the bleak humor that is scattered throughout," Kerrigan is "outstanding at creating characters with whom the reader develops empathy."

These elements add up to "a ripping crime tale, impressive in scope and crackling with energy, as well as a fascinating portrait of contemporary Ireland," according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. A Publishers Weekly reviewer, meanwhile, called Kerrigan a "master" of police-procedural stories who can also provide a "breathtaking twist." Clarke summed up The Midnight Choir as "a wonderful book, superbly well written."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2007, David Pitt, review of The Midnight Choir, p. 68.

Entertainment Weekly, March 30, 2007, Adam B. Vary, review of The Midnight Choir, p. 79.

Guardian (London, England), June 12, 2001, Emma Brockes, "Character Assassins."

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2007, review of The Midnight Choir.

Library Journal, March 15, 2007, Bob Lunn, review of The Midnight Choir, p. 63.

Publishers Weekly, January 22, 2007, review of The Midnight Choir, p. 156.

ONLINE

Critical Mick,http://www.criticalmick.com/ (December 7, 2006), review of The Midnight Choir.

Emigrant Online,http://www.emigrant.ie/ (November 28, 2007), review of Hard Cases: True Stories of Irish Crime.

Euro Crime,http://www.eurocrime.co.uk/ (December 12, 2007), Maxine Clarke, review of Little Criminals; (December 12, 2007), Maxine Clarke, review of The Midnight Choir

International Noir Fiction,http://internationalnoir.blogspot.com/ (February 12, 2007), Glenn Harper, review of Little Criminals.

Mostly Fiction,http://www.mostlyfiction.com/ (June 16, 2007), Mary Whipple, review of The Midnight Choir.