High Achiever

Dervla McTiernan's Cormac Reilly crime series began with The Ruin (2018) in which readers were introduced to the Detective Sergeant who had recently moved to Galway with his girlfriend Emma.  In The Scholar (2019), Reilly is back and this time he has personal reasons for wanting to resolve a case. 

Reilly is a decent, hard working cop who doesn't want to participate in office politics or put up with slackers. After a year of working in Galway, he still hasn't found his footing and has been relegated to working on cold cases. Meanwhile his colleague DS O'Halloran is swamped in cases and struggling to find a balance between work and her family. She needs to offload some work to Reilly, and he is keen to take on active cases.

One night Reilly's partner Emma stumbles across a body in a parking lot at the pharmaceutical lab where she works. A young woman has been killed in a hit-and-run. Despite the potential conflict of interest, Reilly takes on the investigation. The case becomes highly sensitive when a connection is found to Carline Darcy, the granddaughter of the wealthy businessman who owns the lab. Can Reilly solve this case without involving Emma? 

This was a great crime novel - fast-paced and easy to read. I figured out whodunnit quite early, but it was interesting to see how the story would unfurl and there were still quite a few surprises. I really like McTiernan's writing style and her characterisation of all the cops at the station. In each novel she adds more layers of information, which make me want to continue with the series and see how Reilly evolves. Fortunately, I have the third book, The Good Turn (2020), and the fourth novel, The Unquiet Grave, is due out in May 2025 so there is plenty to look forward to.

My review of other DS Reilly novels can be found on this blog here:

• The Ruin (2018)  (Reilly #1)