Cannon Law — Vincent Banville

Dublin private detective John Blaine feels he has enough on his hands, what with looking after his baby daughter, keeping tabs on the errant wife of a wealthy scrap metal dealer, and endeavoring to persuade a wandering man of the cloth to give up his dirty habits. Then a double murder takes place, a bishop passes away in a bizarre manner, and the nymphet Angel Rose enters his life-and all in the week that Wexford has yet again been beaten in the All-Ireland hurling final. Blaine is forced to duck and dive through the mean streets of a heat wave-gripped Dublin, trying to preserve life and limb. In a violent climax in a junk- yard, Blaine is forced to rely on unlikely allies to save him from a bloody end, and to reflect upon the true nature and meaning of his life's calling.