The Color of Blood (Ed Loy Novels, 2)

by Declan Hughes

Book Overview

Still adjusting to being back on Irish soil, PI Ed Loy finds himself caught up in a deadly web of lies, betrayals and shrouded histories. Shane Howard, a respected dentist from the venerable Howard... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060825502
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.9" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

justice

This book has a lot of action, twists, surprises to keep you reading, but what stays with me is the way it got me thinking about justice. Suppose everyone sets laws aside. If police serve mostly as records keepers, and lawyers mainly look for other points of view, and investigators support individual ideas of truth, justice can still be a goal. Hughes has created characters who show how that works, and why.

Great Detective Series Set In Dublin, Ireland

Declan Hughes is an Irish playwright turned novelist. His latest book, THE COLOR OF BLOOD, is the second novel to feature private eye Ed Loy. Loy debuted in Hughes's first novel, THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD when he returned to Dublin, Ireland to bury his mother. At that point, Loy had lived in Los Angeles for twenty years. That bit of business led to an investigation that was covered in the first novel. Loy is still rediscovering his roots in the town where he grew up. In the new novel, Loy is hired by Doctor Shane Howard, a well-to-do dentist that runs a very successful practice. From the onset, Loy - and the reader - are treated to mysterious happenings. Although he's been retained by Doctor Howard, Loy is questioned and treated suspiciously by the family lawyer. When he does meet with Doctor Howard, Loy is hired to find the dentist's nineteen year old daughter, Emily. Someone is blackmailing Howard. He's been sent an envelope containing pictures of Emily engaged in various sex acts. Doctor Howard is convinced she was held against her will and forced to participate in the acts of degradation. On the other hand, the dentist appears way too calm to Loy. Howard hires the private detective almost too casually, and seems to brush the whole thing off as a nuisance. The whole setup of this novel reminded me immediately of Raymond Chandler's first novel about his signature private investigator, Phillip Marlowe. Like Loy, Marlowe was brought into a highly dysfunctional family filled with sexual secrets and substance abuse problems. In no time at all, Loy finds himself lied to and treated like hired help. But, like Marlowe, he's deeply drawn into the investigation and the layers of lies that are woven around the Howard family. Hughes's riding also reminded me a lot of another great private eye writer. Ross MacDonald also covered the crime beat with his perennial shamus, Lew Archer. Although Ross McDonald's novels started off as imitations of Chandler and Hammett, the writing deepened and tended to reflect more of the sociological problems going on in the world at that time. At least the problems as they were presented in southern California. Hughes seems bent on doing the same thing for Dublin that Ross MacDonald did for southern California. The city comes alive through Loy's eyes. We get a chance to learn the history and see the sights that Loy does. Not only that, but we get two sets of values: the way things are now in Dublin, and the way they were twenty years ago when Loy last lived there. The pacing in the novel is quite good. Hughes is a master storyteller and dense plotter. Although Loy finds Emily quickly in the beginning, that only leads to bigger problems and higher stakes. Despite the family's tendency to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that money can make any problem go away, Loy knows he has to take a hand and continue his investigation in order to save those that he can. Ed Loy's history is painted across the pages of the

Hughes improves with each book

PI Ed Loy is back in Ireland after twenty years of living in Los Angeles. He returned to bury his mother (The Wrong Kind of Blood). Dr. Shane Howard's daughter Emily, age nineteen, is missing. Loy is hired to find her. His only clue is a series of sexual photographs. Loy locates Emily, but not before her mother and ex-boyfriend are murdered. As Loy digs deeper into the murders, he learns that the Howard family has secrets they'd like to keep under wraps. Their long-established family reputation and much more is at stake. I enjoyed the earlier book, The Wrong Kind of Blood, and believed that Irish playwright Declan Hughes would improve as a novelist with each new book. I was correct in that assumption. The Color of Blood is compelling. It's dark and gritty, the characters are complex and well-developed, the plot is smooth and the setting of Ireland is rich and lush. Waiting for the next Loy novel is glorious anticipation. Hughes is quickly claiming his place in the field of exciting writing. Armchair Interviews says: The Color of Blood is a must read.

I liked this one even better than the first one

I expected this one to be a bit less enthralling than the first, but I liked it even more. Some reasons why: 1) the relationship between Ed Loy and his "sidekick" Tommy is developed a bit more, and one of the things I liked about it is that Tommy becomes far more than the genial liar he mostly was in the first book (The Wrong Kind of Blood); 2) Ed's character remains consistent, and while I wanted to box his ears sometimes (who says it's women who fall fast and hard for all the wrong people? guys can fall deeply in lust in a nanosecond, too, and Ed is a perfect example of that), mostly I liked that Declan Hughes knows who Ed is at his core and is faithful to that characterization; 3) I once more got a lot of background on Ireland, possibly more than I've gotten in about 50 previous books with Irish protagonists; 4) the dialogue seems, at least to this non-Irish reader, authentic and sometimes hilarious because of all the colloquialisms used throughout the book; 5) the plot is fairly complex and kept me guessing throughout much of the book (and even when I knew who the "bad guy" was, I still found an element of surprise in the details; and 6) I just plain like Ed Loy and his circle of acquaintances. (Ed's not always easy to like: he boozes it up more than he ought, and he's really a bit. . .well, stupid about relationships, but he's intellectually quick, drolly funny, and willing enough to delve into his own psyche. I'd definitely read the first novel in this series before picking this one up, but you won't suffer much if you don't. It'll just be a smoother and more fulfilling ride if you do.

terrific Irish noir

After spending twenty years in Los Angeles, private investigator Ed Loy returned to his hometown of Dublin to bury his mother (see THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD). He has stayed in the Irish capital although he finds it quite different from the seedy neighborhood he grew up in as the city has given way to an affluent gentrification. Dentist Shane Howard of the highly regarded medical family hires Ed to find his missing teenage daughter, Emily. The only apparent clues are a series of photos starring Emily in various sexual positions that to the sleuth are not poses. Ed barely blinks as he quickly locates the nineteen years old runaway. She is enjoying a tryst with her cousin. However, the case takes a bizarre lethal spin as someone bludgeons to death Emily's mother and her former boyfriend. Someone wants to insure the family reputation remains intact even if homicides are the only way to keep scandals interred. Unable to accept that the case is done, Loy investigates who the killer is. The sequel to THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD is a gritty dark look at the new money that has brought a revival to Dublin through the eyes of a former resident who only recently retuned to the city. The whodunit is cleverly designed to enable Ed to peel back the outer layer of the veneer of the Howards to the rotting core in the center. Though the climax is too simple of a clean sweep, THE COLOR OF BLOOD is a terrific Irish noir. Harriet Klausner