Created by Marian Keyes
(1963–)
Okay, so if you’re looking for the Second Coming of Chandler or Hammett or Spillane or even Grafton, The Mystery of Mercy Close (1998) ain’t it.
It’s merely another frothy installment of the seven book Walsh Sister rom-com series by Marian Keyes, focussed around fun-loving, twenty-nine year-old single mom Claire Walsh who ‘s not having any fun to love lately, and so she heads back home to Dublin, seeking comfort in her family: her soap opera addicted mom, her befuddled dad and her two younger, man-crazy sisters Anna and Helen. In ensuing books, we meet the other sisters (there are five, in all) hard-partying Rachel and”good sister” Maggie.
Each sister gets at least a book to shine, but it’s the fifth entry, the afore-mentioned The Mystery of Mercy Close, that makes its way onto this site.
The baby of the family, HELEN WALSH is still—at thirty-three—on the road to find out, trying to make sense of her life and coping, in her own snarky, wisecracking way, with a major bout of depression. She’s working as a private eye, and trying to come to terms with Artie, her new boyfriend (and his three children from a previous relationship). Having recently lost her apartment and stone-cold broke (“Times had never been leaner”), she’s moved back home to live with her Mom.
And then shifty Jay Parker, an old boyfriend, pops up, seeking Helen’s help. Seems Jay’s now the manager of the Laddz, once Ireland’s number one boy band, and one of them—the now middle-aged Wayne Diffney, the “Wacky One”—has gone AWOL just before a string of super-hyped and potentially lucrative reunion concerts. Jay thinks Helen is the only one who can find the missing Diffney because—he claims, silver-tongued devil that he is—she, in her own “unpleasant little way…is a genius.”
Surprisingly, Helen agrees with him, admitting (Helen’s the narrator) that “He was right. I’m lazy and illogical. I’ve limited people skills I’m easily bored and easily irritated. But I have moments of brilliance. They come and they go…”
Reluctantly, she takes the case.
The result, I’m told, is a little darker than the rest of the series–the buzz is that the author was dealing with her own depression while writing the book. Still, she dances with what brung her, and her gift for heartwarming froth and strong, emphatic characterization is intact, and Keyes has a lot of fun kicking around the pop music scene. Stories are told of Wayne in famously assaulting U2’s Bono and smacking him one on the knee with a Hurley and yelling “That’s for Zooropa!”
I bet Jack Taylor wishes he’d thought of that one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marian Keyes is a bestselling an Irish author and radio host, best known for her humorous romance fiction, including Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel’s Holiday, Sushi for Beginners, This Charming Man, The Woman Who Stole My Life, and Grown Ups, and a couple lot collections of journalism: Making it up as I Go Along and Under the Duvet.
NOVELS
- The Mystery of Mercy Close (1998) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
