The Good Life

Dublin’s Grand Canal used to be a place for young lovers to take a romantic stroll. Now it’s a prime spot for drug deals and prostitution. The water which used to harbour elegant swans now washes up syringes and dead bodies. Mary Mullen is found battered and her body dumped callously, jammed against a canal lock. All she wanted was some of ‘the good life’, but after hooking up with the notorious Egan brothers, things began to spiral out of control.
In his efforts to solve Mary’s murder, Minogue is plunged into the depths of Dublin’s underworld. It’s a world of drug trafficking, pornography and prostitution. Every path Minogue follows seems to lead back to the Egans, whose organized crime family is already under surveillance by a joint police task force.
The Gardai keep receiving frantic phone calls from a friend of Mary. Liam Hickey, a petty thief and sometime drug user, knows something but he’s terrified both of the Gardai and the Egans and wants to stay on the run. The investigation is soon complicated by a problem with Minogue’s new partner on the Squad. Tommy Malone, a dyed-in-the-wool Dubliner, has a twin brother: Terry, complete with his drug addiction, is about to be released from prison, and he’s heading straight into the Egan’s deadly web.

‘The fifth in Brady’s superb police procedural series... an unwavering air of menace accompanies a brilliant depiction of the city’s slatternly underside - its foul smells, mean streets, and desperate lives overshadowing the twists and turns of plot - all of it riveting to the last page.’ (Kirkus Reviews U.S.)