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Bloodland: A Novel
by
Alan Glynn
A Picador Paperback Original
A helicopter crash off the coast of Ireland sends unexpected ripples through the international community in this intricate new thriller from the author of Winterland and Limitless (now a major motion picture).
Susie Monaghan was on the cusp of stardom when her life was cut short by a tragic helicopter crash. After a full investigation, her death...more
A helicopter crash off the coast of Ireland sends unexpected ripples through the international community in this intricate new thriller from the author of Winterland and Limitless (now a major motion picture).
Susie Monaghan was on the cusp of stardom when her life was cut short by a tragic helicopter crash. After a full investigation, her death...more
Paperback, 384 pages
Published
January 31st 2012
by Picador
(first published January 1st 2011)
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After a slow start, this book became unputdownable. Called Audible to have kindle version whispersynced to droid....a new feature I will take advantage of with next book, John Le Carre's "A Delicate Truth". Ironically, "Bloodland" reminded me of Carre. Glynn careens from the coast of Donegal to the Congo to Paris to London to New York so fast you get reader whiplash. And many of the main characters - heads of international corporations and politicians are so amoral and greedy, they make Monsanto...more
This is not the kind of book I'd normally read and if it hadn't been for the fact that I absolutely LOVED 'The Dark Fields' I probably never would have given Bloodland a second thought. Having said that, Alan Glyn rocks the house and makes this story of a washed up train wreck of a celebrity involved in political and corporate sabotage and, ultimately, murder immensely readable, if a bit hard to follow in places. But I think the trouble in following the rather complicated storyline lies more wit...more
Wow! This was a non-stop conspiracy thrill ride from start to finish! I have to admit that intricate plots with lots of interconnected details are often not my cup of tea. Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum often give me a headache and leave me Googling the connection that I obviously missed. However, I wanted something more than the typical summer novel laden with descriptions of violent hand-to-hand combat and out-of-breath chase scenes that fill the gaps between the semblance of a plot line. Bloodl...more
Bloodland is a political thriller. It’s connected to Glynn’s last novel, Winterland, by a couple of characters – Larry Bolger and James Vaughan, a businessman who also pulls political strings at the highest levels in the US administration. The story is ambitious in its scope, connecting together characters, business deals and incidents on three continents – Congo, Ireland, UK, Italy and the US. The focus on resource extraction, the new scramble for Africa, business and political corruption, and...more
The connections beneath the surface
In a marketplace filled with legal thrillers, techno-thrillers, and crime thrillers galore, a true conspiracy thriller is a rare animal indeed. This one opens with some sort of paramilitary operation in Congo. The reader is thrown into a heightened situation without any exposition or background, and it’s a little disorientating.
From there, we are in the study of a young, Irish journalist, Jimmy Gilroy. These are hard times for journalists. Papers aren’t hiring...more
In a marketplace filled with legal thrillers, techno-thrillers, and crime thrillers galore, a true conspiracy thriller is a rare animal indeed. This one opens with some sort of paramilitary operation in Congo. The reader is thrown into a heightened situation without any exposition or background, and it’s a little disorientating.
From there, we are in the study of a young, Irish journalist, Jimmy Gilroy. These are hard times for journalists. Papers aren’t hiring...more
Laid off from his newspaper job, journalist Jimmy Gilroy is glad to pick up work of any kind, even if it's as trivial as writing the biography of a popular reality TV star killed in a helicopter crash. But he's puzzled when he gets a call from his late father's former business partner, Phil Sweeney, who tries to discourage him from writing the book. Sweeney and Gilroy's father ran a PR firm together, and Jimmy can't understand why Phil, who still works with big name clients, would be concerned a...more
Can something as mundane as a hand accidentally slammed in a car door derail an eminent United States senator's promising presidential prospects? In Alan Glynn's new international thriller, "Bloodland," it might do so just as readily as the mysterious helicopter crash off Ireland's coast years earlier that killed a coked-up young Hollywood trollop at the peak of her notoriety. Without a steady job in hand or on the horizon, young journalist Jimmy Gilroy reluctantly finds himself freelancing on s...more
If you’re a fan of ‘70’s-style paranoid thrillers like the Parallax View or The French Connection—average man caught up in forces greater in scope and influence than he can imagine; shadowy conspiracies with machinations at the intersection of business and government—then you will enjoy Alan Glynn’s Bloodland.
An effective, timely and fast-moving thriller, Bloodland entertainingly weaves together many of the greatest current social, economic and geopolitical factors—e.g., the Chinese Industrial...more
An effective, timely and fast-moving thriller, Bloodland entertainingly weaves together many of the greatest current social, economic and geopolitical factors—e.g., the Chinese Industrial...more
I had not yet read any of the author's previous work so was excited to see if I now had a "new" author to follow. I've read numerous "thriller" novels, no matter how you define that term, and have long been wary of trying new authors because there just seems to be so many that write by some perceived formula for "success". That's not always bad as I do like a good adrenaline rush as much as the next guy, as long as there are the other aspects of a good novel (like well written characterization,...more
WOW - This book was non stop action - Loved it!
Out of work journalist Jimmy Gilroy picks up a job writing the biography of a popular reality TV star killed in a helicopter crash. He gets a call from his late father's former business partner, Phil Sweeney, who tries to discourage him from writing the book. Sweeney and Gilroy's father ran a PR firm together, and Jimmy can't understand why Phil, who still works with big name clients, would be concerned about a relatively unimportant person such as...more
Out of work journalist Jimmy Gilroy picks up a job writing the biography of a popular reality TV star killed in a helicopter crash. He gets a call from his late father's former business partner, Phil Sweeney, who tries to discourage him from writing the book. Sweeney and Gilroy's father ran a PR firm together, and Jimmy can't understand why Phil, who still works with big name clients, would be concerned about a relatively unimportant person such as...more
"An interesting and timely piece of globilization noir..."
Alan Glynn's third novel BLOODLAND won the 2011 Irish Book Award in the Crime Fiction category and is, according to a LOS ANGELES TIMES reviewer, "an interesting and timely piece of globilization noir" with an ensemble cast of characters from three continents. At the heart of the story is an out-of-work Dublin journalist named Jimmy Gilroy who has just picked up a fluff assignment of writing a biography of a soap opera star who died in a...more
Alan Glynn's third novel BLOODLAND won the 2011 Irish Book Award in the Crime Fiction category and is, according to a LOS ANGELES TIMES reviewer, "an interesting and timely piece of globilization noir" with an ensemble cast of characters from three continents. At the heart of the story is an out-of-work Dublin journalist named Jimmy Gilroy who has just picked up a fluff assignment of writing a biography of a soap opera star who died in a...more
British author Alan Glynn's third thriller "Bloodland" (Picador 2011) is about a rising star who's death captures the imaginzation of the nation (if not the world). The fun begins when struggling journalist Jimmy Gilroy is asked by a publisher to write her story. He is warned off by people he respects which makes him dig into her death to find out why powerful people would want her story stopped.
What he finds is a vast conspiracy that almost destroys him.
The most appealing part of what might oth...more
What he finds is a vast conspiracy that almost destroys him.
The most appealing part of what might oth...more
My expectations were perhaps unreasonably high for this one, having loved Winterland so much.
The book was very good. Thematically, very similar to Winterland.
I felt like the book was trying to be a sprawling epic (three continents! presidential campaigns! shadowy multinational conglomerates!), but the somewhat straightforward plot just didn't match up with that goal.
Still, solid characters, lots of action, very entertaining. Sounds from the author notes like there will be another book in the s...more
The book was very good. Thematically, very similar to Winterland.
I felt like the book was trying to be a sprawling epic (three continents! presidential campaigns! shadowy multinational conglomerates!), but the somewhat straightforward plot just didn't match up with that goal.
Still, solid characters, lots of action, very entertaining. Sounds from the author notes like there will be another book in the s...more
Bloodland by Alan Glynn is a first rate political thriller for modern times.
Everything a fan of political thrillers could possibly want is here. The stream of consciousness approach taken by Glynn may disorient the reader at first, but I feel that it provides a unique window into the minds and thought patterns of the character involved in each section that really brings the action of the novel to life and keeps the reader wanting to turn the page. The story in itself is compelling because of how...more
Everything a fan of political thrillers could possibly want is here. The stream of consciousness approach taken by Glynn may disorient the reader at first, but I feel that it provides a unique window into the minds and thought patterns of the character involved in each section that really brings the action of the novel to life and keeps the reader wanting to turn the page. The story in itself is compelling because of how...more
No...rozhodne to nebolo zlé, o čom svedčí fakt, že som si na začiatku myslela, že knihu nedočítam ani o dva týždne, ale nakoniec som ju zvládla za 3 dni. Ale na druhej strane to nebol ani detektívny skvost. Možno je to tým, že som dievča a až tak ma nezaujíma politické dianie a všetky tie svinstvá v pozadí. A ešte aj v polke knihy som mala pocit, že sa to celé len rozbieha. Nakoniec som sa zmierila s tým, že toto je skôr taká "mentálna" detektívka, v ktorej sa akcia odohráva v dialógoch. Každopá...more
A sharp, informed thriller set in contemporary crisis-crippled Ireland and parts beyond. An out-of-work Dublin reporter barely covering the bills freelancing gets in over his head when research for an innocuous-looking celebrity bio provokes a nasty cover-up reaction. Dirty politics and sinister multi-nationals abound. A twenty-first century plot, taken from the headlines and involving the most under-reported catastrophe of the past decade or two, the war in the Congo.
A truly top-flight conspiracy thriller from an Irish author I've never even heard of before (I randomly bought it on remainders for a buck). It deftly juggles multiple characters and plotlines and doles it all out slowly without the usual lack of mystery and suspense endemic to thrillers where they work from the viewpoints of both the protagonist and antagonist. Written in a clipped but dense second-person shorthand that reminds me of American Tabloid.
Interesting story about wealth, greed, murder, political intrigue and exploitation of natural resources in Congo. A journalist stumbles upon a cover-up. As the plot progresses, he connects seemingly isolated deaths and follows the trail to U.S. power brokers. Although fictional, it is easy to imagine politicians, major corporations, private security companies and third world dictators becoming partners for profit.
This book is very fast paced, there's always something happening and its fundamentally a good conspiracy story involving events on multiple continents, but some of the incidents in the book stretched my belief in the characters a little too much, going against how I felt they would have behaved.
Having said that, I did enjoy it and would read other books by this author.
Having said that, I did enjoy it and would read other books by this author.
Really really well written book. Lots of characters though and can be a bit confusing until you get to know everybody. Did I mention that the writing is great?
Loved the part where he started back on the booze.
Just finished it last night (actually today at 3am) and going out now to buy the other books by the same author.
Recommended.
Loved the part where he started back on the booze.
Just finished it last night (actually today at 3am) and going out now to buy the other books by the same author.
Recommended.
I read this right through in 24 hours, so obviously it moves. Not sure there's that much more to it...a story about a Halliburton-ish corporate mercenary intrigue involving the Congo, rare earth metals, the Irish real estate meltdown and a U.S. presidential candidate, very au courant, but a bit soul-less.
A really well written thriller which explores the web of corruption and murder that ties together a warlord in the Congo, shady businessmen in New York, and corrupt Irish politicans in hock to dodgy developers post boom. It zips along from one character to the next, yet never loses focus on the main plot - a really gripping book!
Jimmy Gilroy is an unemployed Irish journalist. He's trying to write a biography of an actress killed in a helicopter crash three years before. Digging into the circumstances of the accident, he finds himself drawn farther and farther into political intrigue from the Congo to the US.
I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened, but essentially it is the book equivalent of TV or a blockbuster action film. I can't help but imagine Ireland's Nobel laureates rolling in their graves at the "Great Irish novel" quote on the cover.
I like the concept, but the execution was just a bit well...boring. I kept hoping it would speed up just a little, but that only really happened at the very end and lasted for all of two pages. I know, I should appreciate the twisty plot with its real-world parallels. I can't help myself, I need things to be shiny or my attention wanders. And by shiny, I mean things happening besides conversation after conversation after conversation after conversation...
Having said all that, I really did like t...more
Having said all that, I really did like t...more
Skilfully plotted and fast paced, this is a great story of conspiracy and corruption. Hope we get to read more about journalist Jimmy Gilroy in the future - I would have liked his character to have been a little more fully developed, but he was a likeable hero.
Absolutely superb. Natural dialogue mixed with concise accurate descriptions of places and each character's physical appearance and mental/emotional state. I immediately bought his other two books and will buy all future ones.
Bloodland is a fast paced thriller. A Dublin journalist is writing a biography of a movie star who died in a helicopter crash. The journalist finds there is much more than just Susie's death involved in this accident. This is my first Alan Glynn book and I will be reading this author again.
Good read. Gripping tension and scarily plausible as the reviewers wrote. Winner of the Ireland AM crime fiction award. Set in Ireland, the Congo, and New York
Mar 19, 2013
Susanne Gulde
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
donnap, janice williamson
Shelves:
neglected
This is not a book I'd normally pick up to read, but really enjoyed it. It's an exciting plot, good characters...I couldn't read fast enough to see how it ended.
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