Wonderland

Booming Celtic Tiger ireland is a magnet for the world - and for ruthless crime syndicates. In the seventh in the Minogue series, Dublin is roaring, spinning and racing full throttle to the future. The tiger economy sends seismic shocks through every level of society. The din of construction rings out over the crush of traffic, while crowds spill into streets, alight with the glitter of high-end restaurants and the glare of night clubs. But Dublin's gangland bares its teeth. There is the brazen, vicious double murder of two Albanians. A Dublin crime boss is feuding with the Belfast politicos who helped put him at the top of Ireland's drug smuggling industry. Now a teenager lies dead of an overdose in a park in a swanky Dublin suburb. Enter Matt Minogue and the Murder Squad. Minogue is distracted however, wrestling with his conscience over a suspect he was interviewing who has just killed herself. Surveying the transformations around him, he can't shake a feeling that everything is coming apart. His adopted city is also a place of wealth and runaway heroin addiction, of movie and rock idols and gangster chic. We're not in Dublin or even Ireland now: we're in Wonderland. 'If there are authors better at chronicling the events of modern Ireland, I haven't yet read them.' - Globe and Mail (Canada)