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kcfromaustcrime's review
3.0
THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is the second Ed Loy novel by Declan Hughes, the first being The Wrong Kind of Blood, published in 2006.
Ed Loy is a Private Investigator in current day Dublin, Ireland - a place that's part gritty, poor, desperate and part rich, privileged, twisted. Shane Howard is a Dublin dentist, and the son of Dr John Howard, a pillar of Dublin Irish Society, famous in the local area, with a legacy that is maintained by his family. Shane's 19 year old daughter Emily has gone missing and now he is getting blackmail threats and sexually explicit photographs of her - Shane is not sure if she's being abused or if she's a willing participant.
What starts off as a fairly straight-forward job locating the missing Emily and tracking down the source of the photographs rapidly gets more and more complicated as digging around in the Howard family starts to reveal a lot of skeletons in everyone's closets.
There are a few reasons why you'd wonder if this was a good book or not. There's the tortured, embittered, lost, hard-drinking PI in Ed but for many reasons he may teeter on the edge of the cliché, but he never quite tips over. There's the wealthy, seemingly successful Howard family, rotten to the core with all sorts of secrets and tacky goings on, but stereotypical in many ways, however there's something engaging, human, interesting in many of the members of that family.
There are a lot of subplots in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. As Emily is found and the blackmailers are being tracked down, there are events in and surrounding the family from years ago, leading up to current day, that are rapidly revealed. The book roars along at a rapid pace with revelation and resolution overlapping themselves at every twist.
There's also a great sense of irony, of gentle humour, the cast of characters certainly help with that. The dentist Shane, whose Medical Doctor father never quite "approved" of his choice of career. Sandra, the Irish Princess, sister of Shane, family manipulator, she of the vaguely Gothic look, swooping down from the family estates to rescue Emily and her son Jonathan. Jonathan and his purposely put on private school boy touches. None of these humorous touches are overdone but they balance the brutality of many of the other aspects of the novel.
Finally, there's a great sense of place in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. Current day Dublin with its wealth, opportunity, developers and 21st century values are contrasted brutally against the greed, exploitation, societal manipulation, hypocrisy, criminal gangs, drugs and violence. And ultimately that's the crux of the whole book - if something's rotten at the core, then it doesn't matter a damn where that something is positioned on the social scale - the damage lingers and it will come back to bite you.
Ed Loy is a Private Investigator in current day Dublin, Ireland - a place that's part gritty, poor, desperate and part rich, privileged, twisted. Shane Howard is a Dublin dentist, and the son of Dr John Howard, a pillar of Dublin Irish Society, famous in the local area, with a legacy that is maintained by his family. Shane's 19 year old daughter Emily has gone missing and now he is getting blackmail threats and sexually explicit photographs of her - Shane is not sure if she's being abused or if she's a willing participant.
What starts off as a fairly straight-forward job locating the missing Emily and tracking down the source of the photographs rapidly gets more and more complicated as digging around in the Howard family starts to reveal a lot of skeletons in everyone's closets.
There are a few reasons why you'd wonder if this was a good book or not. There's the tortured, embittered, lost, hard-drinking PI in Ed but for many reasons he may teeter on the edge of the cliché, but he never quite tips over. There's the wealthy, seemingly successful Howard family, rotten to the core with all sorts of secrets and tacky goings on, but stereotypical in many ways, however there's something engaging, human, interesting in many of the members of that family.
There are a lot of subplots in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. As Emily is found and the blackmailers are being tracked down, there are events in and surrounding the family from years ago, leading up to current day, that are rapidly revealed. The book roars along at a rapid pace with revelation and resolution overlapping themselves at every twist.
There's also a great sense of irony, of gentle humour, the cast of characters certainly help with that. The dentist Shane, whose Medical Doctor father never quite "approved" of his choice of career. Sandra, the Irish Princess, sister of Shane, family manipulator, she of the vaguely Gothic look, swooping down from the family estates to rescue Emily and her son Jonathan. Jonathan and his purposely put on private school boy touches. None of these humorous touches are overdone but they balance the brutality of many of the other aspects of the novel.
Finally, there's a great sense of place in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. Current day Dublin with its wealth, opportunity, developers and 21st century values are contrasted brutally against the greed, exploitation, societal manipulation, hypocrisy, criminal gangs, drugs and violence. And ultimately that's the crux of the whole book - if something's rotten at the core, then it doesn't matter a damn where that something is positioned on the social scale - the damage lingers and it will come back to bite you.
liberrydude's review
3.0
Another dark and violent tale from Ireland. In this second book in the series Ed Loy is adjusting to life back in Dublin working as a PI but still without his official license. Just like the first book he is involved with lots of sordid characters with even deeper and darker secrets. This time instead of his family he's dealing with a rich family of doctors that is pretty sexually depraved. Lots of action and a climbing body count as Ed crosses back and forth between what's legal and illegal and perhaps damaging his reputation in the process. It was quite confusing keeping track of the many sordid characters in this one family. You needed a genealogy chart as there were half brothers and then names were changed. Ok, who is this guy again and what's his beef? And just when you think you had it figured out more surprises. Multiple murders and multiple killers. Hoping the next one is somewhat different.
csdaley's review
I decided to give this series another go because I was in Dublin. I still can't find my way to enjoying it. Won't rate it but it isn't for me.
caitlinxmartin's review
1.0
I have struggled through this book as much, if not more so, than I did with The Wrong Kind of Blood. Big disappointment after City of Lost Girls.
Mr. Hughes is working really hard at writing an Irish hardboiled detective novel, but this just doesn't work for me. The book sort of plods along with plenty of grim and depressing happenings and just not much going on that I care about. I don't care whodunit. I don't care why. I just want it to be over.
Mr. Hughes is working really hard at writing an Irish hardboiled detective novel, but this just doesn't work for me. The book sort of plods along with plenty of grim and depressing happenings and just not much going on that I care about. I don't care whodunit. I don't care why. I just want it to be over.
bjerz's review
4.0
Why are most novels about Irish detectives so depressing? It seems, as one of the characters in The Color of Blood says, that the Irish believe what the English, and the Catholic Church, have told them all these years: that they are worthless, stupid and evil. The main characters in The Color of Blood certainly act like they are. Oddly named Ed Loy is the private investigator who has returned to Ireland after many years in LA, and he is trying to figure out who is killing people in the Howard family and why. This is not a book you want to read if you are looking for a sweet little cozy.
wyvernfriend's review
3.0
Complicated and convoluted story of a family who have a lot of skeletons in their closet. Ed Loy gets involved when Emily, the daughter, is reported kidnapped and her father is sent photographs of her, naked.
As Ed uncovers the truth the bodies mount.
It's pretty evocative of the messy, complicated feuds that happen in Dublin these days. The body count is pretty high though and you'd have to wonder at the mess it makes of the lives left over.
As Ed uncovers the truth the bodies mount.
It's pretty evocative of the messy, complicated feuds that happen in Dublin these days. The body count is pretty high though and you'd have to wonder at the mess it makes of the lives left over.
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