Review: A step up...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 10, 2014
Book Two in The Point series had a lot to live up to, given the strength of its predecessor. The former book is a tale of brotherly love/hate, crossed with a blossoming love story, crossed with a series of violent actions which change several lives at once. The latter, well, I’ll tell you now.Brian, and his girlfriend Rachel have moved on from ‘The Point’ – Warrenpoint. They work dead end jobs to make ends meet, and are trying to make a life together. The thing is, Brian’s got some demons to work through, and his way of doing it is to smoke and drink as much as he can to lose himself into oblivion. Rachel is doing her level best to keep hold of her man, lest she raise their unborn child alone. In a moment of insomnia, Brian makes his way to tubby kung-fu enthusiast drug dealer Tony’s house, only for the pair to get into a bit of a bind which ends with Tony sleeping on Brian’s couch, much to the chagrin of the loose cannon, Rachel. From here ghosts from the past appear to make trouble in several ways, and Tony’s got a bit of a situation himself.So I preferred this to its impressive prequel. The characters are fleshed out a little more from The Point, as you might expect, and Gerard Brennan seems to have a lot more fun with it this time around, especially with the bonkers dealer, Stony Tony. He gets all the best lines and all the best action. That’s not to say the others don’t have their moments too, but Tony’s up there with my favourites of Brennan’s characters. This is a superb continuation of Brian Morgan’s story, and I would hope that there’s a third book in the series. Boiling Point, maybe? Who knows? All I know is I’m looking forward to the next piece of work that Gerard Brennan drops into his extremely impressive catalogue. The boy can do no wrong. Recommended reading, as usual.