Introduction

It's been twenty years since Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling Georgian home. But he's never forgotten the two children she left behind...

When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget--until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.

Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of a seemingly accidental overdose twenty years ago--the overdose of Jack and Maude's drug and alcohol addled mother. Detective Reilly is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder when his colleague Danny uncovers a piece of evidence that will change everything...

This unsettling small-town noir draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland, where corruption, desperation, and crime run rife. A gritty look at trust and betrayal where the written law isn't the only one, The Ruin asks who will protect you when the authorities can't--or won't.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of July 2018: Dervla McTiernan is an author whose star is on the rise. Her debut, The Ruin, reminded me of Tana French’s novels, and I think others will find the comparison apt. The Ruin begins with a young policeman responding to a call at a dilapidated house in Ireland. Two children are living in squalor and he finds their mother dead from an apparent overdose. Twenty years later a reported suicide leads Detective Cormac Reilly back to that same crime scene, and the children he’s never quite been able to forget. The Ruin is filled with questionable recollections, red herrings, and characters that get under your skin. As the case goes on, the mysteries surrounding the two deaths become enmeshed with the claustrophobia of small town history and corruption. There are many threads to McTiernan’s tale, and that can sometimes get in the way of a satisfying conclusion, but in the end, when McTiernan pulls those threads taut, it becomes clear that she had a master plan all along. A gritty, tense, and calculated mystery, The Ruin left me eager for Cormac Reilly’s next case.--Seira Wilson, Amazon Book Review

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