The mean streets of Dublin — and Sligo

SLAUGHTER'S HOUND By Declan Burke Liberties €14 IF those of us of a certain vintage have trouble accepting Dublin-based sleuths muscling in on territory we've grown up believing to be the preserve of New York detectives, or at least those based in London, then Sligo poses a real challenge. For Sligo is the setting for Declan Burke's Slaughter's Hound and whatever about a Golden Dagger, he certainly needn't expect a gong from the local tourism honchos. The lasting impression I've taken from this jaunt round the mean streets of that town is that it's one place I don't want to visit again. How the location WB Yeats eulogised and Jack painted could have spawned such a degenerate collection of lowlifes is beyond me. At least Gene Kerrigan's central character was trying to stay on the side of the angels. Harry Rigby, however, Burke's PI and part-time taxi driver, is just bad to the bone. This 'playboy' of the western world killed his brother, and that's about the sum of his contribution to society. When I was in school Burke would have been categorised by the Brothers as someone with an over-active imagination and, for his own sake, would have had this troublesome trait leathered out of him. Burke obviously came of age after the strap was decommissioned from Irish education. This is a difficult story to synopsise. Rigby's friend tops himself and he becomes involved in the aftermath. This brings him into contact with as dissolute a shower of degenerates, hungers, crooks and sadists as you'd find anywhere outside East Galway. The tangled web, at times, just got too much for me. I longed for someone I could half like, even the dog would do, but no joy. I stuck with it because Burke's Absolute Zero Cool was one of my favourite books of last year. A fictional character coming to life and butting heads with his creator, I can take. The ugliness of Sligo's underbelly just about defeated me. Maybe it's age. Raymond Chandler was never this unrelenting. I can take hard-boiled but Burke's pot was left on the hob and forgotten about. That said, the writing is good, the trademark humour is there and I even liked the incongruous artistic references. They certainly breed a better class of thug in Sligo. My sainted mother used to wish that the library would stock special editions for readers such as herself who didn't want what she viewed as foul language and dirty bits spoiling her reading. Maybe the author can bring out a tamed-down version for sensitive armchair psychopaths like myself. I've no problem with murder and mayhem, but can I please have the pill sugared a little?