This is my second time starting a Lisa McInerney novel with great excitement. I have to admit I had mixed feelings when I realised The Blood Miracles was a sequel. I’m not a big fan of series books, not sure why. I never buy anything with a number in the title. Yet this cast of characters was so wonderfully realised in the debut novel, that I was more than happy to delve into their chaotic lives again.

The Blood Miracles picks up the plot a few years on from the end of The Glorious Heresies: “This, like so many of Ryan Cusack’s Fuck-ups, begins with Ecstasy”. And we’re off. That first line sets the pace for the whole book. Ryan is a fuck up. He just can’t get his head out of gangland and drug dealing. He’s been making too much easy money. And he’s already in too deep; it’s not a job where you can just hand in your two week’s notice and ask for your p45. But he’s sick of his own wheeling and dealing, and getting off his head more than he can handle, and more than his girlfriend can bear. His creative musical side nags him constantly. He has so much wasted potential and his girlfriend, Karine, is sick of telling him this.

Their relationship has soured badly. The whirlwind romance is over. It’s on the floor of some filthy toilet cubicle in the remnants of a coke wrapper. The relationship is threatened from all angles. Ryan is really trying to make some progress with his music, but the gangland nutters keep pulling him back to the gutter. There’s a huge Ecstasy deal going down and he’s the only man for dealing with the Neopolitan dealers who don’t have a word of English. There’s a new girl on the scene too, and an old one, our beloved mystic; Maureen. There’s too much chaos to juggle and Ryan can barely keep his head together to make sense of it all, or make any sensible choices.

Blood miracles is a thoroughly engaging and thrilling read. I can’t remember the last time I found it this hard to pull myself away from a book when needs must, and then the pull of it demanding to be picked up again was magnetic.

True Dat Boy!!

Released 20th April

In The Bloody Miracles Lisa McInerney revisits the territory of The Glorious Heresies with the same motley collection of misfits skirting either side of the law and coming to grips  with life in difficult circumstances  - through moments which can bring the reader to tears of joy and sadness. 

Ryan  is the focus of attention here- a young Irish Italian man making his way still traumatised by the loss of his mother. Tender moments such as  'like flowers in a garden of profanities' and 'after the social workers stopped trying with him' are often lodged between the light and the comic. Such is the flow of the prose which like a Roddy Doyle of the 21st century McInerney's work sheds an alternative view of contemporary culture through a  lens which while appearing light- hearted has hidden depths which can catch the reader unawares. Like Doyle this work must have a special place in readers familiar with the locations

In his distress, Ryan moves' with a shivering joyless gait' - something which couldn't be said of this writing. It trips along smartly through well nuanced scenes which deserve to be seen on stage and/or screen to bring this story to the wider audience it deserves. 

'While Ryan builds up a solid business, he doesn't do meth' and this is not the only common ground with Walter White; like the iconic  TV series, a good story well told can bring the reader or viewer that pleasure of visiting territory they may not ordinarily veer towards - this is such a story.

Absolutely brilliant book! Loved the relationship between Ryan and Maureen in particular. Would definitely recommend this book to others

The Blood Miracles is a fast paced novel, a gangster film with heart, and a story of one guy’s messy involvement with a new route for getting drugs into Cork. Ryan Cusack is half-Irish and half-Italian, but caught between far more things and people than that: his own issues chase him, his girlfriend’s not happy, and his allies are not always so allied. 

The plot follows a fairly expected chase around deals, betrayal, and the mix between business and pleasure, but with Ryan holding the narrative together as he attempts to deal with everything at once. He is a gripping character, one who is barely holding together family problems and mental health issues, and who is trying to be clever but also facing mounting danger as allegiances and threats come to a head. His musical ability and inability to make something of it show how it is not always talent that can be a miraculous escape, but instead luck and circumstance. The supporting characters are the kind to be expected from a book about deals and drugs, from the paranoid user boss to the rival with a connection to the hero, but McInerney paints them well, forming a vivid picture of the Cork world that Ryan lives in.

Though The Blood Miracles may sound from its description like another kind of Trainspotting or a Guy Ritchie film, in reality it is a modern take on the genre, with references to cloud storage and Orange is the New Black serving as reminders that McInerney is perhaps the future of the gangster story, bringing cleverness and charm to her work.