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lindsaymay92's review
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
celiapowell's review
3.0
This police procedural set in Belfast starts off dramatically when a blood-covered young woman confesses to the murder of her four friends. The bodies are laid out in a cottage, where the words "Who took Eden Mulligan?" are scrawled on the wall, a reference to the disappearance of a young mother in the '80s, during the Troubles.
Most of the investigation focuses on the cold case of Eden Mulligan, and it's an interesting journey, particularly the picture it creates of Belfast during the Troubles. The connection between the Mulligan disappearance and the present day murder I found much less convincing, and after a slow-moving middle, the threads come together very quickly at the end. The writing was workmanlike, and I didn't particularly enjoy the believed-to-be-unrequited pining each of the main characters was doing about each other. However the story drew me along, and I enjoyed seeing all the threads wrap up in the ending.
I received this book from NetGalley.
Most of the investigation focuses on the cold case of Eden Mulligan, and it's an interesting journey, particularly the picture it creates of Belfast during the Troubles. The connection between the Mulligan disappearance and the present day murder I found much less convincing, and after a slow-moving middle, the threads come together very quickly at the end. The writing was workmanlike, and I didn't particularly enjoy the believed-to-be-unrequited pining each of the main characters was doing about each other. However the story drew me along, and I enjoyed seeing all the threads wrap up in the ending.
I received this book from NetGalley.
esdeecarlson's review
1.0
[This book was provided to me by the author via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review]
1 star
This book was a big miss for me both in terms of plot and writing style.
Plot-wise: I think this book might work for someone who is particularly interested in cold-case fiction. Based upon the premise and the opening chapters, I had believed that this would be a crime-fiction thriller involving a cold case that comes to light due to being tangled with a contemporary murder case, which is a premise that has worked really well for me in the past (see: The Night Shift by Alex Finlay). Unfortunately, this premise failed to deliver. While a cold case does come up due to a current murder case, it was also independently under review by the same detective at the time of the new case, and so the narrative focuses almost exclusively on said cold case. We never find out anything about the present-day murder victims until 39% of the way through the book, which was just weird to me, and very unsatisfying. It felt a very backwards way to approach investigative priorities.
I’ll also say that the solutions to both cases are ultimately kind of unsatisfying in that they’re a little convoluted and mainly something the detectives stumble into through routine policework rather than ‘solving,’ which may certainly be how these cases realistically work but doesn’t make for terribly interesting fiction, in my personal opinion.
Writing-wise: The dialogue, both internal and external, is so flat. None of it feels like something a person would really say. Our two main characters, a detective and a forensic psychologist, are so boring, and constantly repeat the same sentiments about their lives in their internal monologues. Most of the book is devoted to their internal musings about their family lives and careers, which are astonishingly bland.
The book also fell into some of the classic, overplayed, rather boring gender stereotypes of crime fiction, without bothering to bring any new angles or make any sort of commentary on them. Our heroes are a tall male detective and an attractive female forensic psychologist. The male detective’s story revolved around his recently failed marriage, due in part to his wife’s mental illness and his own neglect of his relationship in favor of his job, while also lusting after his attractive female partner. The female forensic pathologist’s story revolved around her being an ‘ice queen’ with commitment issues and a need for control in her relationships, due to her tragic family backstory. Add on that there’s a fair bit of commentary about how absent fathers aren’t a very big deal but absent mothers utterly destroy their children, because… well, no reason is given, it’s stated as a fact. I was frankly shocked to read in the ‘about the author’ section at the end of the book that Dempsey studied women in crime fiction for her postgraduate degree.
I believe this book is the first in a planned series; I will not be reading any sequels.
1 star
This book was a big miss for me both in terms of plot and writing style.
Plot-wise: I think this book might work for someone who is particularly interested in cold-case fiction. Based upon the premise and the opening chapters, I had believed that this would be a crime-fiction thriller involving a cold case that comes to light due to being tangled with a contemporary murder case, which is a premise that has worked really well for me in the past (see: The Night Shift by Alex Finlay). Unfortunately, this premise failed to deliver. While a cold case does come up due to a current murder case, it was also independently under review by the same detective at the time of the new case, and so the narrative focuses almost exclusively on said cold case. We never find out anything about the present-day murder victims until 39% of the way through the book, which was just weird to me, and very unsatisfying. It felt a very backwards way to approach investigative priorities.
I’ll also say that the solutions to both cases are ultimately kind of unsatisfying in that they’re a little convoluted and mainly something the detectives stumble into through routine policework rather than ‘solving,’ which may certainly be how these cases realistically work but doesn’t make for terribly interesting fiction, in my personal opinion.
Writing-wise: The dialogue, both internal and external, is so flat. None of it feels like something a person would really say. Our two main characters, a detective and a forensic psychologist, are so boring, and constantly repeat the same sentiments about their lives in their internal monologues. Most of the book is devoted to their internal musings about their family lives and careers, which are astonishingly bland.
The book also fell into some of the classic, overplayed, rather boring gender stereotypes of crime fiction, without bothering to bring any new angles or make any sort of commentary on them. Our heroes are a tall male detective and an attractive female forensic psychologist. The male detective’s story revolved around his recently failed marriage, due in part to his wife’s mental illness and his own neglect of his relationship in favor of his job, while also lusting after his attractive female partner. The female forensic pathologist’s story revolved around her being an ‘ice queen’ with commitment issues and a need for control in her relationships, due to her tragic family backstory. Add on that there’s a fair bit of commentary about how absent fathers aren’t a very big deal but absent mothers utterly destroy their children, because… well, no reason is given, it’s stated as a fact. I was frankly shocked to read in the ‘about the author’ section at the end of the book that Dempsey studied women in crime fiction for her postgraduate degree.
I believe this book is the first in a planned series; I will not be reading any sequels.
emckeon1002's review
2.0
A hundred pages in. After three pages of exposition disguised as a monologue, I quit.
clodaghmeaney's review
3.0
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is a mystery novel set against the back drop of Ireland’s political turmoil in Belfast following The Troubles and The Good Friday Agreement.
When a young woman enters a police station and confesses to killing 4 of her friends, police are stumped. At the scene, 5 dolls are hung from a tree and “Who took Eden Mulligan?” is scrawled across a wall in charcoal. The PSNI begin to investigate the link between the murders and the disappearance of Eden, a mother of 5 who vanished during the troubles.
Although the book has excellent prose and the story is intriguing unfortunately the book isn’t paced well and the end of the story is rushed to a conclusion. Some crumbs from the plot are not tied up which was the books biggest downfall for me personally.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an ARC!
When a young woman enters a police station and confesses to killing 4 of her friends, police are stumped. At the scene, 5 dolls are hung from a tree and “Who took Eden Mulligan?” is scrawled across a wall in charcoal. The PSNI begin to investigate the link between the murders and the disappearance of Eden, a mother of 5 who vanished during the troubles.
Although the book has excellent prose and the story is intriguing unfortunately the book isn’t paced well and the end of the story is rushed to a conclusion. Some crumbs from the plot are not tied up which was the books biggest downfall for me personally.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an ARC!
smilesgiggle's review
3.0
Rosie left home to attend university and never looked back.
Until her mother died.
In her early thirties, Rosie goes home. Her brothers and sister are distant - understandably so.
Her best friend from university, Danny, has been assigned a horrendous murder. Five recent university graduates are slaughtered in their rented cabin - one survivor walks to the police station claiming she killed them all.
Danny asks for Rosie's help with a cold case - graffiti on the cabin wall demanding Who Took Eden Mulligan?
In the 80s, one night Eden just disappeared. The police gave little attention. She left five young children- pulled apart and placed in care.
What ties the two cases together?
This book could have been shorter. The relationships and complexity were emphasized too much.
Otherwise great plot, kept me interested for the most part.
Until her mother died.
In her early thirties, Rosie goes home. Her brothers and sister are distant - understandably so.
Her best friend from university, Danny, has been assigned a horrendous murder. Five recent university graduates are slaughtered in their rented cabin - one survivor walks to the police station claiming she killed them all.
Danny asks for Rosie's help with a cold case - graffiti on the cabin wall demanding Who Took Eden Mulligan?
In the 80s, one night Eden just disappeared. The police gave little attention. She left five young children- pulled apart and placed in care.
What ties the two cases together?
This book could have been shorter. The relationships and complexity were emphasized too much.
Otherwise great plot, kept me interested for the most part.
lazygal's review
4.0
I'd wondered if this was going to be a series, and yes, yes it will be. So that's good.
Like Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series, this dips in and out of the Troubles, a time when murders could be masked by sectarian violence and secrets. And yet somehow this cold case from the 80s is linked to a mass killing today. And that's the mystery: how are they linked? In essence we have three mysteries here, the case of Eden, the case of the friends, and the linkage. Luckily the clues aren't quite so obscure that everything feels shoehorned into one story!
It's also the relationships that matter here, finding family you escaped from and rebuilding old friendships. The ground that's been laid seems solid and could be the basis for a good partnership going forward. We'll obviously see how that goes in Book Two.
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.
Like Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series, this dips in and out of the Troubles, a time when murders could be masked by sectarian violence and secrets. And yet somehow this cold case from the 80s is linked to a mass killing today. And that's the mystery: how are they linked? In essence we have three mysteries here, the case of Eden, the case of the friends, and the linkage. Luckily the clues aren't quite so obscure that everything feels shoehorned into one story!
It's also the relationships that matter here, finding family you escaped from and rebuilding old friendships. The ground that's been laid seems solid and could be the basis for a good partnership going forward. We'll obviously see how that goes in Book Two.
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.
fonril's review
3.0
When I got to the end of Who Took Eden Mulligan? by Sharon Dempsey, my thoughts on it were that it was an enjoyable read, painted a picture of life in Northern Ireland during the Troubles well but it also felt abruptly finished and with questions left unanswered. My immediate reaction was that perhaps it was a first novel - that might explain why I felt still not entirely sure of the outcome of the central storyline - perhaps it was inexperience. Then I looked up the author and it's not her first novel so I don't know why it left me, the reader, with questions on what exactly had happened.
The premise of the story is this - Forensic psychologist Rose Lainey returns home to Northern Ireland for her mother’s funeral; while she is there, an old friend, Detective Inspector Danny Stowe, asks her to look into an unusual case: a bloodied and hysterical young woman, Iona Garner, runs into a police station, confessing to killing five people in a run-down cottage near Belfast city. The sentence ‘Who took Eden Mulligan?’ is graffitied onto the cottage wall, alluding to a cold case where Eden Mulligan, a mother of five, disappeared in mysterious circumstances decades previously during The Troubles.
I believe there is a follow-up book to come, which would excuse some of the unresolved storyline but not that I remain unclear of what actually happened in the cottage where the five people were attacked. Even one scene giving a run through of the events might have given me that clarity of closure.
The premise of the story is this - Forensic psychologist Rose Lainey returns home to Northern Ireland for her mother’s funeral; while she is there, an old friend, Detective Inspector Danny Stowe, asks her to look into an unusual case: a bloodied and hysterical young woman, Iona Garner, runs into a police station, confessing to killing five people in a run-down cottage near Belfast city. The sentence ‘Who took Eden Mulligan?’ is graffitied onto the cottage wall, alluding to a cold case where Eden Mulligan, a mother of five, disappeared in mysterious circumstances decades previously during The Troubles.
I believe there is a follow-up book to come, which would excuse some of the unresolved storyline but not that I remain unclear of what actually happened in the cottage where the five people were attacked. Even one scene giving a run through of the events might have given me that clarity of closure.
themaxdog's review against another edition
2.0
Full review now up on the blog: https://www.thewritinggreyhound.co.uk/2020/11/book-review-who-took-eden-mulligan-sharon-dempsey.html
Set in Belfast, this thriller boasts an intriguing crime, with a suspect who has confessed and a mysterious link to a decades-old unsolved disappearance.
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is a dark and gritty read. The case combines two crimes into one, with DI Stowe and Rose Lainey, a forensic psychologist, tasked with solving the crimes, finding the answers, and neatly tying up both cases. The pair certainly have a difficult job, made all the harder by the political backdrop of The Troubles during the time of Eden Mulligan's mysterious vanishing act.
This book has all the right elements for a gripping thriller, but sadly, they did not seem to gel together very well. The cases seemed disjointed and the motives were unclear. Additionally, the pace was slow to pick up, with nothing much happening for large portions of the book. This is a shame as the cases were intriguing - particularly with the link between the two - however, the execution lets this story down.
That being said, the two main characters, Rose and Danny, are interesting and it would be good to read more about them. Both have their personal demons, yet are highly skilled professionals and also great friends. They were definitely the highlight of the book for me!
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is a dark and disturbing crime thriller with an unexpected twist at the end.
Set in Belfast, this thriller boasts an intriguing crime, with a suspect who has confessed and a mysterious link to a decades-old unsolved disappearance.
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is a dark and gritty read. The case combines two crimes into one, with DI Stowe and Rose Lainey, a forensic psychologist, tasked with solving the crimes, finding the answers, and neatly tying up both cases. The pair certainly have a difficult job, made all the harder by the political backdrop of The Troubles during the time of Eden Mulligan's mysterious vanishing act.
This book has all the right elements for a gripping thriller, but sadly, they did not seem to gel together very well. The cases seemed disjointed and the motives were unclear. Additionally, the pace was slow to pick up, with nothing much happening for large portions of the book. This is a shame as the cases were intriguing - particularly with the link between the two - however, the execution lets this story down.
That being said, the two main characters, Rose and Danny, are interesting and it would be good to read more about them. Both have their personal demons, yet are highly skilled professionals and also great friends. They were definitely the highlight of the book for me!
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is a dark and disturbing crime thriller with an unexpected twist at the end.