Paul Mulchrone is visiting a hospice. A patient, Margaret, calls him Gareth who is either her son or grandson. Paul speaks a little but mainly listens patiently. He says goodbye Ma. I thought he was her son.
He is actually just a guy performing 6 hours of charity work each week by going to hospices and hospitals and being whoever an elderly patient with confusion thinks he is in their family.
Paul knows he has “one of those faces”. It is “entirely ordinary, as was the rest of him …. His sheer ordinariness was the whole point. He was a medium everything; his features the most common in every category …. Collectively, they formed an orchestra designed to produce the facial muzak of the Gods”.
Hospital staffs know him as the “granny whisperer”.
An elderly man, Mr. Brown, attacks Paul, putting Paul in hospital. In his hospital bed Paul finds himself in a solicitor’s office though he knows he is not there. He can see and hear the solicitor, Greevy, reading his Great-Aunt Fidelma’s will. That she is sitting on a donkey behind the solicitor confirms that he knows he is dreaming while still dreaming.
Counting every cent of every Euro, I thought Paul was living on government assistance. He is actually existing on 500 euros per month from Great-Aunt Fidelma’s estate and abiding by her conditions for the monthly stipend that include no other sources of income and the weekly charity work.
I expected it was a temporary arrangement given the modest amount but it turns out Paul has been living on the meagre monthly payments for seven years, four months and two weeks to frustrate the distribution of the estate to the Donegal Donkey Sanctuary.
McDonnell is deft with irony edging into sarcasm. Detective Inspector Jimmy Stewart, a week away from a retirement forced by age, dislikes complications. He senses nurse Brigit’s enthusiastic statement on Mr. Brown’s attack on Paul, during which Mr. Brown dies of a heart attack, is going to mean complications. Stewart’s investigation is:
Dotting the “I’s” and crossing the “T’s”, waiting for the S and the H to show up.
Mr. Brown is not Mr. Brown, a lonely old Irish man, come home to die. Who Mr. Brown thought Paul was, must have been someone he hated.
Brigit appears to be an average nurse from rural Ireland with an average routine job of caring for the elderly. She is actually a passionate devourer of real crime stories. She is secretly delighted to be caught up in a real crime story. She had always believed that there “had to be some adventure, some magic left in the world”.
Paul has to go on the run and Brigit is eager to help him.
Who do you trust when you are uncertain why you are a target and who has identified you?
Paul understands Gerry Fallon, the big boss of Dublin’s underworld, is involved. Paul reaches out to a minor crime boss. Auntie Lynn is a 50 plus red haired looker. She is blunt:
“Son, not even God can help you.”
Facing a desperate situation, I was proud that Paul and Brigit reached out to a lawyer.
DI Stewart and another veteran officer, Detective Sgt. Bunny McGarry, are determined to keep Paul and Brigit alive.
Paul and Brigit find the most unusual safe house in all my reading days.
The deceiving appearances kept happening through the book and I kept being deceived.
The relationship between Paul and Brigit is “complicated” to me though Brigit is a firm believer that:
“Nuclear physics is complicated. The middle east is complicated. Our lives? They’re actually pretty damn simple, we just somehow make them difficult for ourselves.”
Having decided self-help is the only way to save their lives the unlikely sleuths start investigating. Brigit proves adept at internet sleuthing.
The twists and turns in their investigating journey are fascinating.
McDonnell is a brilliant writer. Paul may have “one of those faces” but his mind is keen and his psyche unsettled. He is a unique character but it is Brigit I will remember. Resourceful, determined and bright she is engaging. She is the final deception. I underestimated her.
The book has abundant subtle humour and occasionally scenes that made me chuckle, more accurately snicker, aloud.
The dialogue is amazing. It rivals Tana French’s The Seeker. I have now read two works of crime fiction with superb dialogue in 3 months. Both are by Irish writers.
It is a grand book. Were it not for a bizarre ending, A Man with One of Those Faces would be a great book.
I'm intrigued, Bill, just from your description. It sounds like an unusual book (in a good way), and I'm intrigued by your comment about the safe house. It sounds as though these are interesting characters, too. The premise resonated with me, too, as many years ago, when I was a teenager, I volunteered at a care home, and I remember some of the residents who thought I was a relative or friend, etc.. It meant a lot to them to have their 'daughter' or 'sister,' or 'niece' visit.
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