Sa Pholl Báite|Anna Heussaff|Cló Iar-Chonnacht
A lively and intriguing who-done-it from start to finish—Sa Pholl Báite, by Anna Heussaff
by Cathal Póirtéir
Since childhood I have often found myself following a series of books featuring the further adventures of a character or characters as a single book builds to a series. It’s a successful formula for writers and publishers alike if they can manage to get a reader (like me) hooked. In my case that has brought me from Enid Blyton‘s Secret Seven to Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation, Len Deighton‘s ten book Bernard Samson series and the seven intriguing Shardlake novels of C.J. Sanson. Recently I finished the nine or ten spy stories in Mick Herron‘s Slow Horses and, at the time of writing, I’m seven books into Louise Penny‘s Inspector Gramache murder mysteries, with at least ten more to go.
So, if I like a series, I like a series.
I don’t think the series has been exploited much in Irish since the heyday of the Réics Carló private detective stories but I remember getting great enjoyment a few years ago from Liam Mac Cóil‘s swashbuckling Jacobite trilogy An Litir, I dTír Stráinséara and Bealach na Spáinne. Recently I was delighted to lay hands on the latest book of contemporary crime novels that Anna Heussaff has been treating her readers to since Bás Tobann in 2004. She followed that with Buille Marfach in 2010 and Scáil an Phríosúin in 2015 and she now moves forward to present day Ireland with Sa Pholl Báite.
Lively and intriguing
The central characters in this series are amateur Beara-based investigator Aoife Nic Diarmada and the Kilmainham-based Garda Réamonn Seoighe who we met for the first time almost twenty years ago when they joined forces to solve their first murder case, and have joined forces twice since to achieve further success. The investigation in Sa Pholl Báite gets underway with a woman’s body being found half-submerged on the banks of the river Liffey near Kilmainham. Réamonn and his colleagues are called on to preserve the scene, to find out who the woman was and to establish what happened to her. Was it an accident, a suicide or a murder?
It’s a lively and intriguing story that switches between Réamonn’s legwork in Dublin and Aoife’s dubious snooping in west Cork, where the victim’s estranged husband still lives. Much of the story revolves around the already troubled life of their son Dan who is devastated by his mother’s murder but is nevertheless numbered among the suspects for the murder. His behaviour is erratic, as is that of his uncommunicative and also suspect boyfriend, a Polish boy, living in a tent on the riverbank since his parents refused to accept that he was gay.
Page-turning suspense with interwoven themes
Questions of sexual identity are addressed not only in Dan’s relationship with his boyfriend but in the tensions that arise between Réamonn and his boyfriend, a garda in another station, who feels that Réamonn allows his investigative work to come before their life together. There’s wonderful local detail included in the scenes set in Kilmainham and surrounding area that lends an air of reality to the proceeding and allows the writer to highlight the real problem of homelessness and rough sleeping that can be witnessed daily along the riverbank and streets of Dublin.
There’s an interesting cast of characters that supply us with a number of suspects and another amateur investigator, an English probation officer on her holidays in the area, who feels obliged to lend Réamonn a hand even though he is initially dubious about her motives. The victim’s mother is a very assertive and somewhat controlling character who casts light on some of her daughter’s decisions and actions. It is always difficult to write about a murder mystery without giving too much away but the ubiquitous problem of coercive control and violence against women within relationships is highlighted more than once. Bullying, intolerance, and unacceptable behaviour within the Garda Síochána and how Réamonn deals with them are recurring themes too. Circumstances force him to address questions of self-awareness and agency, as is the case with a number of other characters in the story.
While these and other themes are woven through the story, it remains a page-turning who-done-it from start to finish, leading readers to believe and disbelieve one suspect after another until the killer is finally unmasked.
Cathal Póirtéir is a prolific writer and broadcaster focusing on Irish-language literature, folklore, and history. His latest publication, An Tiarna George Hill agus Pobal Ghaoth Dobhair, is out now with Cló Iar-Chonnacht.
