Stolen Souls (eBook)
Stolen Souls (eBook)
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Description
Detective Inspector Jack Lennon of the Belfast Police has watched the developing cooperation between Northern Ireland's Loyalist gangs and immigrant Lithuanian criminals with unease. The Lithuanians traffic women from Eastern Europe and Asia for the Loyalists' brothels, and they're all making big money in spite of the recession that has stopped Northern Ireland's peace boom in its tracks. Lennon has a more intimate knowledge of the city's brothels than he'll ever admit, but the surge in trafficked girls makes him question his lifestyle, especially considering he has his daughter, Ellen, to care for now.
When a Lithuanian trafficker turns up dead on Christmas Eve with a shard of glass embedded in his throat, Lennon's plans to spend the holiday with Ellen are put in jeopardy. The dead man was the younger brother of a ruthless Lithuanian crime boss, Arturas Strazdas, and the young Ukrainian woman who killed him has escaped her captors. Now Strazdas holds the Loyalists responsible and won't let up until everyone involved has paid. A bloody gang war erupts across the city.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Belfast, Galya, the Ukrainian girl, is running for her life, alone and scared, clinging to the darkest corners as the frozen streets empty for the holiday. Galya's captors told her how the police deal with illegal immigrants, that she is a criminal in a foreign land, and the law will not help her. And now she is also a murderer. She cannot be discovered by anyone, not the cops, not the gang who held her prisoner. There is only one person she can go to: a man she met on her first day as a prostitute, a friend who gave her a crucifix and an address to run to if she ever got away. He'd saved four prostitutes before her, he's told her, and she can be his fifth. But when Galya arrives at the address, she finds something more evil than she had ever imagined.
About the Author
Stuart Neville is the author of two previous books, Collusion and The Ghosts of Belfast, winner of the 2010 LA Times Book Prize and the Spinetingler Award for Best First Novel, and a finalist for the Macavity Award, the Barry Award, and Anthony Award for Best First Novel. He lives in Armagh, Northern Ireland.
Praise for Stolen Souls…
Praise for Stolen Souls:
“Top-notch Irish crime fiction ... one senses a diamond-hard stillness at the heart of Neville's prose, despite the hurtling plot. This leaves us poised between savoring the beauty of his words and reading madly to get to the end.”—Los Angeles Times
"Gripping, compassionate and packed with wonderfully realised characters, this is a book that will stay with you long after you finish it. Just three books in and Stuart Neville is already a crime-writing star."—Mark Billingham, author of Lazybones
“Neville slowly ratchets up the tension—and the violence—until each page practically twangs with suspense.”—Publishers Weekly
“Vivid characters and atmosphere.... ‘The gray and the rain and the hate’ of Lennon’s Belfast make these streets among the very meanest in the genre.”—Booklist
“You read Stolen Souls wincing, in thrall to Neville's brilliance but wishing you weren't.” —Guardian
“Neville excels at conjuring up memorable details.... A gripping excursion into the nightside of humanity, but it is not without its richness and insights. It burrows into your brain like the best dark fairy tales.”—Mystery Scene
Praise for Stuart Neville:
“Neville’s novel is a coldly lucid assessment of the fragility of the Irish peace ... a rare example of legitimate noir fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Stuart Neville belongs to a younger generation of writers for whom the region's darkest years are history—but that history endures, as his first novel, 'The Ghosts of Belfast,' shockingly demonstrates.... This noir thriller plays out in a Belfast that, even in summer sunshine, remains oppressively gray. The clannishness of its inhabitants is vividly evoked.... A riot scene, one of the novel's best, captures a new generation's appetite for blood and an old veteran's nostalgia.... In scene after gruesome scene, Neville attempts to persuade us that this time around, with this repentant murderer, the killing is different.”—Washington Post
“Neville's tightly wound, emotionally resonant account of an ex-IRA hit man's struggle to conquer his past, displays an acute understanding of the true state of Northern Ireland, still under the thumb of decades of violence and terrorism.”—Los Angeles Times
“Stuart Neville is Ireland’s answer to Henning Mankell.”—Ken Bruen
“The Ghosts of Belfast is a tale of revenge and reconciliation shrouded in a bloody original crime thriller.... Brilliant.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Neville’s debut novel is tragic, violent, exciting, plausible, and compelling.... The Ghosts of Belfast is dark, powerful, insightful, and hard to put down.”—Booklist
“Neville slowly ratchets up the tension—and the violence—until each page practically twangs with suspense.”—Publishers Weekly