Bloodland

In this elegantly plotted thriller from Irish author Glynn (Winterland), Dublin reporter Jimmy Gilroy, who’s hurting for steady work, seizes the opportunity to write the life story of hard-partying Susie Monaghan, a washed-up actress killed three years earlier with five others in an unexplained helicopter crash off the coast of Donegal. Almost immediately, Gilroy encounters resistance, making him want to dig deeper, particularly into Monaghan’s final days. Yet when he’s offered the plum job of co-writing ex-prime minister Larry Bolger’s autobiography, with explicit instructions to drop all other assignments, Gilroy reluctantly agrees. When Bolger, recently off the wagon, lets slip that Monaghan’s death was merely collateral damage, Gilroy knows he can’t abandon his earlier project. Further digging leads to a vast conspiracy with international implications. Glynn handles multiple story lines that would trip up a lesser writer, and his characters populate a world where nothing is black and white. Agent: Antony Harwood, Antony Harwood Ltd. (Feb.)