Colin Walsh (1) (1986–)

This is a great read for anyone who likes smart, intricate suspense novels, where the puzzle is almost less important than the characters and their relationships. It reminded me a bit of Tana French's books where the setting becomes a secondary character and where secrets and relationships are as tangled as Ireland's history.

Fifteen years ago, a group of six teenagers formed a close friendship. Then one of them disappeared. The circle fractured and the reverberations of the disappearance are still being felt. It was tricky, at first, to keep track of all the characters and their familes (there is a handy list at the front of the book, to which I referred back a lot), but once that was worked out in my head, I settled into this taut narrative, told through multiple points of view. The ending got a bit convoluted but still a worthy read.

4.25 stars

TW/CW for some animal abuse and graphic violence.… (mais)

Sometimes I choose to read a relatively random new book and I can’t remember where the suggestion for this one came from, probably the Guardian, because it’s an Irish novel.
So, a brief shufty from the Guardian review, now that I’ve found it:
It’s set in 2018 in Kinlough, on the west coast of Ireland, where three friends recall the summer they spent together 15 years earlier. Helen, Joe and Mush belonged to a gang of six teenagers with beautiful, intrepid Kala Lanann at their heart. Then Kala disappeared.
So far, so formulaic, but I read and the voices of the three characters move back and forth skilfully unspooling the story between 2018, when Helen and Joe return to Kinlough and a body is discovered, and 2003, slowly revealing the build up to Kala’s disappearance.

Two thirds of the way through and I am thinking that this is slack; well written but the story is only interesting because the author is frustratingly withholding information, drip, drip dripping the events leading up to Kala’s disappearance shortly after Halloween in 2003. And fair enough, mystery stories and thrillers always hold back details, but this feels too calculated and manipulative, and too implausible. This may be because the descriptive writing style with multiple narrators interrupts the flow of the thriller story.

So, I’m frustrated that the book, although well written, isn’t tighter than it is. It’s trying hard to be a thriller, but it’s too predictable… (mais)

When I saw this pop up on Amazon I thought, "Irish literary crime fiction. Yes, please!" In many respects, this gave me what I was looking for. The prose is strong, and the story is smartly structured, with a real central plot, but also with semi-complexly drawn characters (and I should mention that the town itself is a character in the story, and I was a fan of Walsh's work creating a sense of place.

For roughly the first half of the book though I felt no interest in solving the crime at all. The prose was pretty, but it had no energy or excitement even when things happened that should have been heart-poundingly exciting. It was the prose equivalent of a model. I am not looking for a lot of action in my reading, fully half of what I read and love could reasonably be summed up as stories where nothing much really happens. Still, there has to be something that pulls me in, compelling characters, fraught interactions, or insights gained. In this book I think they were looking for that third option, insights gained, to carry the day. Sadly, the epiphanies and observations offered (and there are many of them) are nearly all stunningly banal. At their best, the awakenings would be meaningful if the characters were 20, but these characters are just shy of 40. The cast here appears to be short on insight, particularly with respect to themselves.

In the second half, the focus shifts to the action side of the story, and it picks up considerably. The story is bloody, violent, complicated, and surprising. I actually started to really enjoy the book as it moved toward resolution. That last half was a solid 4, the first half a low 2, so a 3.… (mais)

“Grief is like falling in love; it is always narcissistic. Some catastrophe cuts through your life and immediately you reshape the world to make this disaster the secret heartbeat of all things, the buried truth of the universe.”

Katherine ‘Kala’ Lanann was 15 years years old when she disappeared in November 2003, leaving her friends Joe, Aoife, Helen, Mush, and Aiden and the whole town of Kinlough in shock. The once tight-knit group of friends eventually go their own ways, their friendship fractured in the aftermath of Kala’s disappearance. Fifteen years later Helen, Joe and Mush reunite in their hometown. Joe is a famous rockstar who is back in town due to personal reasons and Mush never left and helps run his mother's café. Helen is a freelance journalist who settled in Canada and is back in town to attend a wedding. Past events come back to haunt them when Kala’s remains are discovered in the woods by the lake, evidence confirming that Kala was murdered. Who killed Kala and why?

The subsequent disappearance of Mush’s twin teenage cousins sends shockwaves through the small town. Could their disappearance be in any way related to the events from fifteen years ago? The narrative follows the three friends as they cope with their past trauma and try to get to the truth behind Kala’s murder while also searching for the two missing girls.

The strength of Kala by Colin Walsh lies in its characterizations and the author’s powerful writing. Part coming-of-age story and part literary thriller this is a dark and immersive novel. The narrative is presented from the perspectives of Mush and Helen in the first-person, and Joe in the second–person, in alternating chapters. The plot is well structured, though I did find the pacing a tad uneven. Past and present timelines are seamlessly woven into an intense, cohesive narrative that traces how the events from the past have cast a shadow on the lives of Kala’s friends – their grief, confusion, guilt and personal struggles that have followed them into their adulthood. I loved how the author built up Kala’s character giving us a vivid look into who she was and her dynamic with each of those in her circle of friends. Initially, I found it a bit difficult to keep track of the large cast of characters, especially how they were related to one another but as the narrative progresses, it becomes much clearer. To be honest, the mystery behind Kala’s disappearance and subsequent murder became a tad long-drawn and as the narrative progresses there are enough breadcrumbs to get an idea of what might have happened, but the author’s writing, the characters and the description of the dynamics within a small town riddled with corruption and secrets had me captivated till the very end.

I could not believe this is the author’s debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Colin Walsh in the future. Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

“It takes strength to be open to life, to the possibility things will change for the better.”

⚠Please Note that there are descriptions of animal cruelty and violence that are quite disturbing.

Rating: 3.75⭐

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