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Critical MickReviews Free of Rules.Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck |
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The Guilty Heart |
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Irish crime writing at its finest, Julie Parsons' Mary, Mary was one of the best books Critical Mick read in 2005. It really earns its Oo! Click for details. |
Ten years have passed, in The Guilty Heart, since the unexplained disappearance on Halloween day of eight-year-old Owen Cassidy. "Once upon a time, there was a boy…." His father Nick Cassidy, once a celebrated illustrator of children's books, has fled to a restless life searching America. His abandoned wife Susan soldiers on in the house where her son was left in the care of his nanny, Marianne. Susan is a doctor who specializes in children in life-threatening peril. She has finally begun to reassemble her own life. A colleague wants to marry her. It has been years since Min Sweeney or any of the Gardai have rang, though the case has never officially been closed. The novel opens with Nick Cassidy drunk in a strip-club in New Orleans. He recognizes not only the dancer- Roisin Goulding, the awkward teen who lived next door back in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin- but the fox mask that she wears in her act. It calls to mind the Halloween mask he was helping his son finish the morning Owen disappeared, almost exactly ten years ago. It seems the events of that day impacted more people, more deeply than he had known. There are many things, Roisin reveals, that Nick had not known. Nick is drawn back to Dublin to investigate and perhaps make peace with his estranged wife. Throughout the novel, pain's smarting bitterness is ever-present. It is immediate in every sentence that Julie Parsons writes- as is the sexuality. Yes, mixing memory with desire, spring roots with autumn rain- Parsons' prose is almost poetic. This is a novel to read slowly. Each new revelation on Nick's, Susan's and Min's journey is worthy of stopping to reflect upon. Who was responsible for Owen's disappearance? What became of him? Is Owen dead? Or lost in the terrible, terrible world of child exploitation that Parsons reveals? |
That is the one red flag that I must raise about The Guilty Heart. Min Sweeney has long since stopped walking the beat and is now assigned to a computer crime unit which investigates paedophiles who operate via online rings.
Confession time: My nine-to-five job is in computer security and computer crime, which has led me to slam even the mighty John Connolly over his lapses. I am a nerd. I am unforgiving.
From what I know about software programs and techniques, The Guilty Heart's descriptions for how these crimes against children are analyzed and investigated are shockingly accurate. I cannot help but be convinced that the horrific descriptions of the evidence that Min's Garda unit works with are accurate, as well. Though Parsons spares readers from the worst details, this is harsh, enraging stuff.
Criticalmick.com's long-term readers known that I read a lot of crime fiction, blood and torture and gore by the bucket. No matter how desensitized you consider yourself, do not read The Guilty Heart unless you are prepared to be disturbed for months afterward. Do not read The Guilty Heart unless you are prepared to become a parent who would throw the switch on the electric chair yourself. I have read The Guilty Heart's convincing accounts of abuse and murder- and what happens within the hearts of all involved- and, by God, I sure am.
Julie Parsons even does a decent New Orleans. Most authors just use Big Easy cliches.
Critical Mick says: Parsons delivers a slow-release dose of very strong medicine. The Guilty Heart is powerful writing that will change perceptions forever and make parents attentive and protective. This novel has earned its place on the list of Best Books that Critical Mick has read in 2008.
before I was a nerd I lived near New Orleans.
Check out Declan Burke's interview with Julie Parsons on Crime Always Pays.
Shots eZine also features an excellent 2006 interview with Julie Parsons.
Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2008 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.
Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.
This Page Was Last Updated On 12 August, 2008.
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