A June of Ordinary Murders

“Conor Brady’s debut novel is a slice of history about Dublin, Ireland, and the Dublin Metropolitan police, intertwined with a first-rate murder mystery . . .”

The year 1887 marks Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and Ireland seethes with civil unrest. The countryside is aflame, both literally and figuratively, during the hours of darkness as the Royal Irish Constabulary and members of the British Military fight smallholders, whose livelihoods are threatened by ruinous rents. The British administers “under the direction of a new and tough Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour, responded with draconian crime legislation, additional powers for the police and additional prison spaces for those who demanded reform.”

In Dublin, authorities are so conscious of the rising Nationalist sentiment with its threat of violence, that crimes, including murder, are separated into two classes: “special” or “ordinary.” “The absolute priority was “special crime”—anything with an element of politics or subversion.” Every other crime, no matter how horrendous, is considered “ordinary.”

Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow of G Division, Dublin Metropolitan Police, considers the two dead bodies found in a wooded area of Phoenix Park to be “ordinary.’” Swallow sees no evidence to suggest political involvement even though the victims, a man and a boy, have their faces mutilated and carry no papers or other clues to their identities.

When an autopsy by Dublin’s medical examiner and Swallow’s friend, Dr. Harry Lafeyer, reveals that the male victim is actually a female, the detective sergeant still sees no political dimension. The murder is still “ordinary,” although particularly vicious, perhaps a crime of revenge or some relationship gone wrong.

Mistaking a woman for a man at the crime scene is understandable, as standard procedure is not to disturb the bodies in any way. It is Dr. Lafeyer’s job to undress and examine the bodies prior to autopsy. In the minds of Dublin’s journalists that does not excuse Swallow and the police from their blunder of mistaking the gender of the adult victim.

Joe Swallow is in trouble and knows it. Even though “the Dublin Metropolitan Police had been able to claim the highest rate of crime detection of any urban area in Britain and Ireland was in some considerable part attributable to the skills of Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow,” it makes no difference. To the reporters, and to a lesser extent the British administrators, it is a case of “what have you done lately?”

Detective Chief Superintendent John Mallon, a Catholic, son of a poor farmer, and a historical figure, defends Joe Swallow, but the upcoming Jubilee and the visit to Dublin of Prince Albert Victor, the critical newspaper headlines, and the nervous British administrators place Mallon in a politically precarious position.

The murder investigation notwithstanding, Swallow also has another concern. His younger sister Harriet, a student training to be a teacher, has been keeping company with James O’Donnell, a member of a radical and violent Nationalist splinter group.

Harriet has begun to speak of “Ireland’s distress,” a description of civil unrest that Swallow dislikes as he believes it is too often used as a cover for crime. He agrees with his boss, John Mallon, who has a saying: “You can buy a lot of patriotism in Dublin for a fiver.”

Adding to Swallow’s professional worries is an event all of Dublin, or at least the police, the civil authorities, and every criminal in the city, are watching. Ces Downes, the undisputed Queen of Dublin’s criminal underworld is dying.

When her two lieutenants, Charlie Vanucchi and Vinny Cussen pin the black crepe to the door of the decaying mansion where she lived, Swallow and every other policeman know that a bloodbath will ensue as Vanucchi and Cussen fight for control of Downes’s criminal empire. With the Jubilee and the visit of Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson, drawing closer, Dublin doesn’t need criminal unrest to add to the barely controlled violence of the “Land War” in the rural areas.

The discovery of a young woman’s body in a canal, identified as a housemaid for Dublin’s richest and most politically powerful Irish businessman, Thomas Fitzpatrick, also seems to be an ordinary murder to Joe Swallow. Only when Fitzpatrick and his butler refuse to cooperate, and Fitzpatrick threatens to use his political clout, does Swallow see the murder as a “special crime.”

Fitzpatrick makes good on his threat, and Swallow is removed from the murder investigation and told to concentrate on the two unidentified murder victims: the young woman and the boy, the “ordinary” crime.

Their identities and their possible connection to Fitzpatrick’s murdered housemaid now transfers that case of murder from “ordinary” to “special crime.” If the connection of the three murders to Fitzpatrick becomes widely known, then both cases will be investigated by British authorities, and Fitzpatrick will be protected.

Swallow continues his investigation secretly with the unacknowledged connivance of John Mallon, knowing that his interference with British authority may end in his dismissal and possible imprisonment. When he discovers the connection between Fitzpatrick and the three murder victims, he discovers a relationship that is the motive for murder and has ramifications for Irish society, both civil and criminal.

Conor Brady’s debut novel is a slice of history about Dublin, Ireland, and the Dublin Metropolitan police, intertwined with a first-rate murder mystery, and peopled by characters both complex and realistic. Those unfamiliar with the history of Ireland’s “troubles” might wish for more detail, but Mr. Brady has provided enough context that even a superficial reading should evoke an accurate picture of the political situation in 1887.

Equally as well written as the political history is the description of the investigative techniques used by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. From Dr. Lafeyer’ reconstruction of the female’s facial features, as pioneered by a German pathologist, to “the murder book,” a detailed record of the investigation, Mr. Brady evokes a modern police force in embryo.

Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow is a character who is worthy of a sequel; indeed, he and the Dublin Metropolitan Police are worthy of a lengthy series.