The Scholar

Cormac Reilly #2

Dervla McTiernan

Harper Collins Australia

ISBN: 9781460754221

 

Description:

From the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Ruin comes a compulsive new crime thriller featuring DS Cormac Reilly.

 

Being brilliant has never been this dangerous …

 

When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit and run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him.

 

A security card in the dead woman’s pocket identifies her as Carline Darcy, a gifted student and heir apparent to Irish pharmaceutical giant Darcy Therapeutics. The multi-billion-dollar company, founded by her grandfather, has a finger in every pie, from sponsoring university research facilities to funding political parties to philanthropy – it has funded Emma’s own ground-breaking research. The enquiry into Carline’s death promises to be high profile and high pressure.

 

As Cormac investigates, evidence mounts that the death is linked to a Darcy laboratory and, increasingly, to Emma herself. Cormac is sure she couldn’t be involved, but as his running of the case comes under scrutiny from the department and his colleagues, he is forced to question his own objectivity. Could his loyalty to Emma have led him to overlook evidence? Has it made him a liability?

 

 

My View:

This series continues to deliver a narrative that on the surface appears straightforward but is nuanced with contemporary issues, richly developed characters, interesting back stories with a landscape of corruption and political point scoring that is contemporary and engaging.

 

Cormac Reilly continues to outshine most contemporary protagonists I have read.

 

The only negative – it will be a long wait for book 3 in the series J