Book Review | A Man With One Of Those Faces

A couple of months ago I was asked if I wanted a copy of A Man With One Of Those Faces to read and review. It was described to me thusly:

"Award-winning Irish TV writer and comedian Caimh McDonnell's debut novel, A Man With One Of Those Faces, has recently been published. It's a pacy crime thriller set in his home-town of Dublin and it mixes well crafted storytelling with dashes of distinctly dark Irish wit. One of the main characters is a kick-ass nurse who, whilst it's not explored in the novel, would probably have very fancy pants!".

Now, that is an introduction! 

Needless to say, I gratefully accepted a copy and got reading as soon as I could.

Paul Mulchrone is the sort of fella that wears an extra three jumpers in Winter instead of turning on the heat. He's a cheapskate and is also down on his luck. He's doing community service of sorts in a nursing home, pretending to be the long lost son of several confused residents when a dying man mistakes him for an enemy and tries to kill him. 

He thinks this is the last of his bad luck until another attempt is made on his life and it's then that he must go on the run and simultaneously figure out why people have it in for him. 

Luckily, a nurse from the nursing home, Brigit, feels guilty about the initial injuries he sustained and vows to stay by his side and help him solve the mystery. She has a bit of an obsession for true crime stories and fancies herself a bit of an amateur detective. She's also well versed in Dublin gangland sagas, which ultimately comes very much in handy. 

While those two are gallivanting around, Detective Jimmy Stewart (not that one) is trying to find them before someone makes a third, successful attempt on Paul's life. 

This is one of the wittiest, well written books I've read in a really long time. The dialogue between all of the characters flows beautifully and sings from the pages. And that's another thing, the characters were so well developed that I felt like I had a really good grasp on their motivations, so even when the plot could have been considered far fetched, it was still completely believable. I can see this making an excellent film or TV adaptation, as it would work well in either medium. 

I deducted a point in my rating for this book on Goodreads because I felt that at times, there was so much detail that it slowed the story somewhat. That said, I enjoyed reading the book throughout, so it didn't impact how much I relished reading Paul and Brigit's adventures and the ending had me glued to my kindle, making me late for the cinema!

If you enjoy Irish wit, drama, thrillers, crime, unsolved mysteries and dark humour, then this is very much the book for you. I was really sad to get to the end of this one and have no more Paul, Brigit, Jimmy and Bunny to read about so I was delighted to hear that Caimh is writing a sequel!

You can find it HERE on Amazon if you want copy for yourself!

Does this sound like your cup of tea?

What are you reading right now?!

To the comments!

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*This book was provided free of charge for review. This is not a sponsored post and as always, all opinions are my own. Even the terrible ones.