Book Review: The Ruin

Dervla McTiernan's debut novel The Ruin is about the twin deaths of Hilaria Blake and her son, Jack, that occur twenty years apart, the mother dying in what appears to be a case of accidental drug overdose, while Jack's is ruled as suicide. But when Jack's surviving sister Maude suspects something foul at play, it sets in motion a chain of events that forces detective Cormac Reilly to revisit the two crimes in entirely new light. The Irish mystery, although quite admirable in its sympathetic handling of grief, stumbles considerably in its middle portions and stretches itself too thin before finally clicking into place for a ludicrous denouement. It's just a half-baked attempt in what could have been a promising thriller, with McTiernan resorting to clunky and unconvincing plot mechanics to move the story forward. The result is a plodding police procedural that doesn't quite hit the nail on its head.