Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Undertow
by Arlene Hunt
Hachette Books Ireland, 2009

Salt Wearing Down to the Bone

In America, QuicK is a powdered chocolate substance used to con kids into drinking milk. In 21st Century Dublin, QuicK is the detective agency in Arlene Hunt's popular series about PI's John Quigley and Sarah Kenny. I know which I fly through quicker, and it doesn't have a rabbit on the label.

Undertow is the fourth Quigley/Kenny mystery, and its references to the sea follow with the certainty of waves. Misdeeds in the painful past- presumably in the previous installment, Missing Presumed Dead- take hold of Sarah Kenny, of reformed burglar Darren Wallace, of pregnant teenager Stacy Power- and drag them back into treacherous deep water.

Stacy Power visits QuicK's offices (in the same run-down Georgian house as a pirate radio station and a hospitalized lawyer) because her Slovak boyfriend, Orie Kavlar, has gone missing. It's only a few weeks until the baby arrives, and Orie would not have left her side unless something terrible had happened to him. In hopes that all will soon be sunny days again, she hands over the pension money her grandma had provided for a pram. As readers already know from the novel's gripping opening scenes, her Orie is not a friendly dolphin but a shark.

When not lying to Stacy about his nation of origin, Orie Kavlar serves as muscle for local gangster Anthony "Mink" Dunlop's human trafficking operation. Undertow, like Bleed a River Deep, explores the hidden laborers beneath Celtic Tiger Ireland's recently-popped prosperity. Without a passport or a friend, those who have been smuggled across the water in the backs of furniture vans find themselves shipwrecked on this island of Ireland- stranded, helpless, and watched over by strange native predators.

i'm on the beach, oh yeah, to rest my feet, oh yeah, those poets grin, oh yeah

Critical Mick says: There's some sand in this sandwich, and a crab's nabbed the last bite. Still, if seeking a book to stuff in a beachbag, Arlene Hunt's Undertow is just the fast-paced entertainment you need.

Gerard Brennan of CSNI had a Q & A with Arlene Hunt in September 2008.

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2009 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 3 November, 2009.