The Abstainer

March 1, 2020
The Irish Republican Brotherhood battles the British in Victorian England. Like McGuire's second novel, The North Water (2016, etc.), longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this violent, noirish tale focuses on two men: policeman James O'Connor and Irish rebel Stephen Doyle. It's Nov. 22, 1867, in Manchester, and "the sky is the color of wet mortar." Three Fenians--members of a secret society working for Irish independence--are about to be hung for killing an English policeman. (McGuire based this on a true story but made up everything that came after.) A group of policemen are discussing the hangings, and there's talk of reprisals; later, an informant says he's heard about a man coming from America "to wreak some havoc, that's what they say." The man is Doyle, a Union soldier from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A "strange bastard," he meets with some Fenians and is told about O'Connor, a Head Constable who was brought over from Dublin a few months ago to assist the Manchester police in spying on the Fenians. O'Connor's wife, Catherine, recently died and he turned to drink. Now an abstainer, he's a "man maligned, a victim of ignorance and English prejudice." O'Connor is beaten at night and key pages from his police notebook, stolen. Complicating matters, another transplant, O'Connor's nephew Michael Sullivan, has come to Manchester from New York. Against O'Connor's wishes, he infiltrates the Fenians to become an informer. O'Connor becomes infatuated with Rose Flanagan, whose brother Tommy is one of his informants. There's talk of an audacious Fenian revenge plot, but they'll need handguns. Reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, McGuire's taut, intricately woven novel captures the aura of a dark, violent world riddled with terrorism and revenge, where a "man's life on its own is nothing much to talk about." This well-told, suspenseful tale will appeal to fans of Deadwood and Cormac McCarthy.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 1, 2020
After his wife's death, Head Constable James O'Connor undertook a career-tanking drinking spell that earned him banishment from Dublin to Manchester. Now, in 1867, he abstains from drinking and is determined to redeem himself by rooting out members of the Fenian Brotherhood, the rebel organization fighting for an end to British rule in Ireland, who are hiding among Manchester's working-class Irish. He's managed to turn a few informants, and he's relying on them to ensure that the upcoming hanging of a trio of Fenians doesn't erupt into violence. Meanwhile, when Stephen Doyle, a committed Fenian and a sharp-witted veteran of the American Civil War, arrives in Manchester and manages to get his hands on O'Connor's list of informants, the constable's winning streak comes to a bloody end. O'Connor's nephew, fresh off the boat from Dublin, offers to infiltrate the brotherhood, and O'Connor's blunder with his informants' identities leaves him no other choice. Thus begins a hunt for Doyle that will take O'Connor from Manchester to Pennsylvania, chasing revenge but finding redemption. O'Connor's showdown with Stephen Doyle delivers a gut-wrenching finale that will leave readers hoping desperately that McGuire (The North Water, 2016) has an O'Connor prequel in the works. O'Connor's palpable alienation and the subtly drawn comparisons between the Irish insurgency and America's then-recent civil war create layers of depth in this exceptional period thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 27, 2020
McGuire (The North Water) imagines the early years of the Fenian Brotherhood in this taut, atmospheric tale of an Irish American freedom fighter and an Irish detective squaring off on the rainy streets of Manchester, England, in 1867. James O’Connell accepted a transfer from the Dublin police department to Manchester after exhausting the goodwill of his superiors, who initially tolerated his drunkenness out of sympathy for O’Connell being a widower. In Manchester, he’s tasked with gathering intelligence from the local Fenians, who are in a rabble over the hanging of three men. After O’Connell’s main source, Thomas Flanagan, gets a message to O’Connell that the Fenians have sent American Civil War veteran Stephen Doyle to Manchester to orchestrate a retaliation for the hangings, Flanagan is found out and murdered. The episode tugs on O’Connell’s conscience, especially after he meets Flanagan’s grieving sister, Rose. The arrival of another American, O’Connell’s nephew Michael Sullivan, complicates things further, as Michael is determined to infiltrate the Fenians to catch Doyle in exchange for a reward. McGuire demonstrates a mastery of classic realism, building the characters through their reactions to unflinching scenes of brutality, from a Manchester rat-baiting pit to memories of Civil War combat and a botched public hanging. Manchester in particular is evoked with keen impressionistic detail (“Outside, the rain repeats itself, low and constant, like the hum of a machine or the words of a prayer”). Plot threads of romance and revenge emerge from O’Connell’s dogged impulsiveness, as he pursues Rose and then Doyle through Manchester and beyond. McGuire’s crackling work is one to savor.

August 28, 2020

It's 1867, and the American Civil War is over and the Fenian uprising in Ireland is straining for freedom from England. Stephen Doyle, an Irish American veteran of the Civil War, fuels his appetite for adventure by joining the Fenian Brotherhood as a spy in Manchester, England. James O'Connell, an Irish head constable bearing a load of grief, heads to Manchester as well to start a fresh life and assist the local police in their hunt for Fenians. When O'Connell's American nephew shows up begging for a bed and a job, he sets off a chain of events that link all three within the intense bloody construct of rebellion at a time when war is a running street fight, spies are lurking everywhere, and public hangings are commonplace. VERDICT This tightly wound historical tale is full of the grit and grime of industrial England that is bleeding Ireland dry and setting the stage for the rebellion of the next century. More a noir thriller than historical fiction, it is driven by a thirst for retribution and freedom. Highly recommended. [star worthy?]--Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2019

In the late 1800s, Head Constable James O'Connor has left sorrow and the bottle behind in Dublin to start over in Manchester, England, and he uses his Irish connections to commence spying on Fenians working to free Ireland from Britain. Meanwhile, long-lost nephew Stephen Doyle arrives on his doorstep from America, in search of work. But Stephen's dedication to the underground Fenian cause will crack open James's life. McGuire's The North Water was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and named a New York Times Best Book, and the BBC is turning it into a miniseries.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.