The Wrong Kind of Blood: An Irish Novel of Betrayal

In a superbly woven tale of shocking suspense, award-winning playwright Declan Hughes delivers an unforgettable saga about the ties of blood that bind beyond the grave, and the lives that are irrevocably changed when a long journey home unearths a legacy of murderous betrayal

After more than two decades away, private detective Ed Loy returns from L.A. to his hometown of Dublin for his mother's funeral. But his grieving soon takes an unexpected turn when his old classmate Linda Dawson pleads with him to find her missing husband, Peter. As if a worried wife with a seductive persona weren't enough to keep Loy occupied, his childhood pal turned small-time criminal, Tommy Owens, shows up on Loy's doorstep with a hard-luck story and a recently fired gun.

When Loy finds an old photograph of his long-missing father on Peter Dawson's boat, and a corpse is discovered in the foundations of the local town hall, things begin to get personal. Then a murky property deal linked to the Dawson family not only threatens to expose the corrupt secrets concealed behind the great gates of the mansions on the hill, but also leads Loy to the land below, a violent underworld of drug dealing, extortion, and murder presided over by the notorious Halligan brothers, local purveyors of organized criminal mayhem.

As he tries to lay the dead to rest, the case becomes a dark obsession, and Ed Loy finds that the truth of the present can only be fully understood by uncovering the secrets of the past, and that in Ireland, everything -- and everyone -- is connected.

Filled with intrigue, exhilarating suspense, incredible local flavor, a superbly drawn cast of unforgettable characters, and writing as rich and colorful as the streets of Dublin themselves, The Wrong Kind of Blood will keep thriller fans breathless until its final spine-tingling revelation.