ANTHONY J QUINN

The Celcius Daly series

 

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"This should make Quinn a star, for it is unquestionably one of the crime novels of the year, written in peerless prose, with a delicate plot - this is a novel to be read slowly and to be savoured sip by sip, as it slowly but surely snares you in its grip."Daily Mail

 

The five novels in the series have received critical acclaim from The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Express, Der Spiegel, The Irish Times and the Irish Independent. 

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DISAPPEARED, introducing Celcius Daly, a Northern Irish Police Inspector laden with flawed judgment and misplaced loyalties, was selected by The Sunday Times , the Daily Mail and Strand Magazine as one of their Best Books of the Year. It was longlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year award, and shortlisted by the book critics of the Washington Post, the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and other US newspapers for a Strand Literary Award after its US publication. It was also listed by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top ten thrillers of the year. UNDERTOW is the fifth and the latest in the series.

 

''A highly original take on a much-traversed topic. He writes with melancholic elegance, and persuades us that the Troubles are never over.'

The Times Books of the Year

 

'Widely anticipated ... A tough yet lyrical novel, evoking that desperate period of Irish history.'

The Sunday Times

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'Atmospheric, elegant ... It is a police procedural of the highest quality and has remained in my mind since I encountered it five months ago ... a crime novel to be savoured.'

The Daily Mail Books of the Year

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'Finely honed though the plotting is, Quinn's greatest skill is the evocation of the landscape of his country matched with an astringent examination of betrayal and schism, inextricably linked with the Ireland of the Troubles' Financial Times.

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'Anyone who is fed up with journalistic generalisations about the Irish border and what it represents should read the Inspector Celsius Daly series ... Its ambiguous answers to many of the moral questions it raises seem appropriate in a book dealing with the consequences of living on an island divided in two' Sunday Telegraph.

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'Stained with the darkest of noir, Undertow is a powerful tale of a generation manipulated, betrayed and ultimately abandoned by the powers-that-be' Irish Times.

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'The beautifully written Disappeared is much more than a routine whodunnit as it unflinchingly lays bare Northern Ireland's society as it tries to come to terms with its violent past. Outstanding.'

The Irish Independent

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'The Troubles of Northern Ireland are not over. This message is so disturbingly, convincingly and

 

elegantly conveyed in Anthony Quinn's first novel ... Beautifully haunting.'

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The Times

 

"The pace is elegiac, with the nuances of who is to be trusted and who not emerging like ghostly trees from the fog around Lough Neagh. But the languor does not blunt its intensity — this is a novel to be read slowly and to be savoured sip by sip, as its spider’s web slowly but surely snares you in its grip."

The Daily Mail

 

"Quinn has created a distinctive milieu for his fictional anti-hero, Insp Celcius Daly of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. You’ll never think of rural Armagh - the setting for his atmospheric crime novels - in quite the same way....one of the most striking features of his novels is his compassionate approach to his characters. He creates a rounded person first and foremost."

The Irish Times

 

"Quinn has quietly made a reputation for himself over the last couple of years as a purveyor of deftly plotted, dark-spirited and periodically lyrical yarns set amid the gurgling bogs and lurking mists of Northern Ireland."

Kirkus Reviews

 

"The truth gradually comes clear in this beautifully written novel. It reveals a frightening fact: the Troubles aren't over yet."

Literary Review

 

"Quinn's pacy prose walks the fine line between a James Lee Burke-like melancholy and the sort of muscularity found in Michael Connelly's works. His characters hum with authenticity too. They're not always sympathetic but they're always intriguing ... a tense and unpredictable ride."

Sunday Herald

 

"Disappeared is an absolute winner - a crime novel that doesn't waste a single word in delivering its lean and muscular narrative."

Good Book Guide

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