Review: Disturbingly deep and satisfying
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 19, 2013
A disturbingly deep and satisfying Irish novel that pretends to be just an intriguing murder mystery set in Belfast. The setting is modern but with the often evoked backdrop of "the troubles" and  the resultant daily hazards of being a cop in a shuttered, rebellious city, that world becomes timeless.Despite its dark topic and the gruesome series of almost medieval killings that form its backbone, The Doom Murders surprises the reader with its wonderfully warm yet constricted microcosm of police and crime scenes, victims and suspects. Everything is drawn with an acerbic pen - whether it's the city, its institutions, or the gaggle of fascinating characters that populate the novel - all are at once engaging and, at the same time, flawed. All have conflicted pasts and hidden sides but everything is authentic and thoroughly Irish. The Chief Inspector, Jim Sheehan, is drawn so deftly and with such genuineness, you can feel him breathing. The way he works a crime scene is much more human than the highly clinical approach so often portrayed in the American media. The give-and-take at the macabre crime scenes between himself, his investigators, and the quirky state forensic pathologist are off-beat and refreshing - not to mention, oddly funny.There is much of humor and insight as the plot unfolds, and much more to make you sad, and just enough to give you hope before the end. There are moments in the book that ring so perfectly true that you simply have to stop and admire Mr. O'Hare's craft or, as in my case, you have to interrupt your wife's activities in order to read a bit out loud to her.I would be remiss not to mention that there are a few technical problems in the book.  For one, there are a few too many typos and word repetitions. For another, there are sections that suffer from intermittent formatting problems. For example, at some points the text indentations get out of hand and at a few other points the text suddenly becomes grey in color instead of black. Neither issue lasts for long and neither renders the book unreadable, but they are nuisances that need to be remedied.In summary, I suggest that this is a well thought out book designed to be savored and not rushed through. The internal struggles of the main character are the heart of the novel. Chief Inspector Sheehan's personal journey is what sets this murder mystery apart and, in my opinion, sets it above its genre. Yes, the serial crimes are thought-provoking and the clues make sense and the motivations ring true and all is resolved in a very satisfying manner, but in the end, that's not what this book is about. At its core it is a surprising journey into the war for souls and the high cost of true faith in our secular age.