Under the Bridge

 

2004 - The discovery of a skeleton in the Liverpool docklands unearths long buried secrets. Reporter, Anne McCarthy, is keen to prove herself and dives into the case with abandon where she finds Michael, an old Irish caretaker who knows far more than he’s letting on and may have a connection to the body.

Meanwhile, Vinny Doyle, is starting a postgrad degree, researching Liverpool’s immigrant history and a burgeoning Scouse identity. But Vinny has been neglecting his own family history and stranger Michael might know about his father's disappearance in the 70s.

1955 - Escaping violence in Ireland and fresh off the boat, Michael falls in with Wicklow boys Jack Power and Paddy Doyle, who smuggle contraband through the docks putting them at odds with unions while they rally the dock workers against the rackets and the strikebreakers. A story of corruption, secret police, and sectarianism slowly unravels. But will the truth out?

As the conflict heightens, Michael questions the life sprawling out ahead of him. In the present, Anne races to solve the mystery, but is she prepared for what she’ll find?

Book source ~ Tour

Under the Bridge

The Liverpool Mystery Series, #1

Jack Byrne

18 February 2021

Mystery

362 Pages

My Rating ~ 3 bites

Amazon

In the year 2004, a skeleton is discovered by a construction crew in Liverpool. Anne McCarthy is sent my her newspaper to cover the story, but she and her friend Vinny Doyle find themselves digging up something much more than an old murder mystery. And it all revolves around an old caretaker named Michael.

In 1955 and 1975, Michael’s life is told in pieces, showing what life was like back in the day and how he ended up finding a skeleton with ties to his past. But sometimes, things are best left buried.

There’s a lot of history to be told about Liverpool. None of which I was even aware of. With so much old turmoil in the city it’s no wonder some of it is coming home to roost. I find a lot of the history interesting even though it’s not really my thing. I’ll have to recommend this story to my husband. He loves history. 

The story itself moves along at a fast clip and the changing timelines fill it out quite nicely. The characters are decently developed, but I find the writing very sparse and choppy. The slang is also something that I struggled with. Overall this is a great mystery where I was compelled to find out what was going on.

I was born and raised in Speke Liverpool, (Paul McCartney lived in the street behind us for a while) although my parents first lived ‘Under The Bridge’ in Garston, and all my family goes back to Wicklow in Ireland.

The Liverpool Mystery Series will be four novels. Under The Bridge is the first. I am writing Fire Next time now, and The Wicklow Boys will follow next year. You can find The One Road prequel a collection of short stories on Amazon.

Website | Twitter

The Write Reads