Ready to discover another great book for this 2020? Take a look…

Turncoat by Anthony J Quinn

Genre: Historical Thriller
Source: Random Things Tours
Rating: 5/5
Publisher: No Exit Press
Amazon, Hive

About The Book

The sole survivor of a murderous ambush, a Belfast police detective is forced into a desperate search for a mysterious informer that takes him to a holy island on Lough Derg, a place shrouded in strange mists and hazy rain, where nothing is as it first appears to be.
A keeper of secrets and a purveyor of lies, the detective finds himself surrounded by enemies disguised as pilgrims, and is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the purgatorial island, where he is forced to confront a series of disturbing secrets and ghosts in his own life.

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My Thoughts

Turncoat:

A person who deserts one party or cause in order to join an opposing one.

This is a complex and difficult read, full of shadows and reality, once you’ll start reading you’ll never be the same. Ready?
I live in Ireland, I am not Irish and I don’t know much about the IRA conflict, but I am Catalan and I know a lot about ETA, the Basque country terrorist group. So, even if this is not the same story or landscape, I think I could understand the political tension that the author tried to convey to the reader, it’s a pressure that you can feel in the atmosphere, nothing tangible but always there.
I really don’t want to talk much about the plot; it’s based in 1994 and we have a detective, Desmond Maguire, who has been involved in a gunfire in a remote farm, he is the sole survivor and the one that led all the detectives to that spot, because his informant Ruby told them. Now, everyone wants to talk and question him; did he plan everything to kill his co-workers or was it a trap from IRA and Ruby? Why did they leave him alive? The only way he thinks he can answer the questions is by visiting the pilgrimage island Lough Derg, where he will make the traditional Three Day Pilgrimage: 24 hour vigil, the three day fast, and the nine Station Prayers performed in bare feet. As you can imagine, the days there will be full of paranoia, tension and half truths.
The real doubt in this story is if Desmond is a double agent or was used, the reader doesn’t really trust him or the “supposed” confident that helps him, because at the same time, Desmond doesn’t really believe it. So, what is really the truth?
Don’t expect a big revelation in the end, the possibilities are always there, playing with the reader’s mind, not knowing who to trust or what to believe. This book will remind you that in a terrorist group there are two parts, the arms and the political section, the part that you never see but is more dangerous than guns.
I would like to see this book in a movie, to get all the facts I had in my mind with a real version of it, but I wouldn’t change the ending, it’s not a perfect ending, but the one that fits with this story, dark and hunting.
Turncoat is possibly one of the best books I’ve read this year, try it, it will not disappoint you. 

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About The Author

Anthony J Quinn’s nine novels have received critical acclaim from The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Express, The Sunday Herald, The Literary Review, The Good Book Guide, The Sydney Morning Herald, Books Ireland, Der Spiegel, The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and other newspapers.
His debut Disappeared was picked as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Sunday Times and was a Daily Mail Crime Novel of the Year. It was shortlisted by the book critics of the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle for a Strand Literary Award in the US. It was also selected as one of the top ten thrillers of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews and long listed for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. He teaches creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast and is currently writer-in-residence for County Cavan in Ireland.