レビュー要約

• ジャンルの流れを見通す視点が評価され、アイルランド犯罪小説の系譜を整理する手引きとして読まれている。個々の作品だけでなく、社会的背景との結びつきを押さえている点が印象的だという反応がある。

レビュー

• The best critical study of popular fiction I've read in decades

  Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction may be the best book I’ve ever read that takes a serious and scholarly approach to contemporary genre fiction, something which Anjili Babbar does with sharp insight, a coherent critical framework and a graceful prose style that never that sacrifices clarity or empathy for her subject matter on the altar of academic jargon. It’s a work of intelligent passion in which, by expertly conveying her convictions (which she supports adroitly), Babbar convinced this reader of the literary skill, artistic ambition and moral seriousness of the eleven Irish crime novelists whose work she examines. I do not say that as one whose choir has just been preached to. I’ve enjoyed and appreciated Tana French’s Into the Woods, Stuart Neville’s The Ghosts of Belfast and Eoin McNamee’s The Sirius Crossing (which McNamee wrote under the very thriller writer pseudonym John Creed), but John Connolly, arguably the popular of the authors Babbar examines, was to me just a name on crime fiction shelves before I read Finders, as were Ken Bruen, Alex Barclay, and Adrian McKinty, and prior to my reading the fascinating things Babbar writes about them (and intriguing quotes from their novels), I’d never heard of Brian McGilloway, Claire McGowan, Gerard Brennan, or Steve Cavanagh (which is an admission of my own ignorance, not a claim that these popular writers are obscure). But now I’m very interested in all of them, and how their protagonists negotiate their way through bleak urban landscapes and metaphorical (or literal) warzones of 70s and 80s (mostly Northern) Ireland. I particularly love the tripartite framing structure, in which Babbar divides her critical narrative with section headings referencing Saint Anthony (Patron Saint of lost things and those that find them); the Archangel Michael trampling Satan (the cover image); and Christopher, the patron saint of travelers but also highly associated with redemption. And if you’re as an ignorant an American as myself, don’t skip Babbar’s two appendices, which give timelines of abuses of power in Ireland’s Church-run institutions and of the Troubles. Both of those histories haunt the physical and spiritual landscapes of these too-long neglected (by scholars if not by readers) fictions

• Outstanding read about Irish history and crime fiction

  After reading a summary of this book in the Irish Times, and as a fan of Ken Bruen, I was intrigued enough to buy it. It’s definitely worth reading for anyone like me who has an interest in Irish history or literature, because there is a lot of attention to historical detail but it never felt pedantic or heavy-handed. The book makes a strong case for the relevance of Irish crime writing, and because most of it covers Northern Ireland, it explains how these writers’ reflections about the Troubles align with current matters of partisanship and nationalism. I appreciate that it gave me more background for reading Ken Bruen; for example, I did not realize how significant it was that the character Jack Taylor doesn’t call himself a PI even though he technically is one. The author Anjili Babbar explains in detail how this relates to Ireland’s policing history and the use of religious metaphors in the books, which is also tied to the country’s mixed feelings about the Catholic church. Each of the chapters gives insights like this for different writers. For me, the most interesting parts were about Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville; I have not read either of them previously but I definitely will now. Bonus points for the interesting chapter titles, which show that the author has a good sense of humor even while taking the subject seriously.

• Excellent work on Irish crime fiction and history

  This is an impressive book, which offers significant historical and cultural context for the works it discusses. It made me appreciate some of my favorite authors even more, but it also gives a fascinating glimpse into the social and political history of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Interviews with the authors are a nice touch—particularly the ones with Adrian McKinty and Colin Dexter, who is included as an influence on some of the Irish writers’ work. This is literary criticism, but also smooth reading and very comprehensive.

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