The Color of Blood

Ed Loy #2

by Declan Hughes

Still adjusting to being back on Irish soil, PI Ed Loy finds himself caught up in a deadly web of lies, betrayals and shrouded histories. Shane Howard, a respected dentist from the venerable Howard medical family of Dublin, asks Loy to search for his missing daughter. The only information available is a set of pictures portraying nineteen-year-old Emily in a series of very compromising positions.

Seems like a pretty easy case to Loy . . . until people start dying. The very same day that Loy meets Howard, Emily's mother and ex-boyfriend are brutally stabbed to death. But that's only the beginning.

Loy discovers that the Howard family is not all that it seems. For years their name has stood for progress and improvement within Dublin's medical community, but that is only what's on the surface. The true legacy of the Howards is one of scandalous secrets, the type that are best left unearthed. Against his better judgment, Loy is drawn into the very center of the Howards' sordid family history, and what he finds could ruin more than reputations.

In The Color of Blood, Declan Hughes once again brings the city of Dublin to life in all its gritty glory. The dark realities of the streets converge with the lethal secrets of the past in a sinister and graphic thriller that will have readers on edge right up to its shocking conclusion.

Genres: Mystery, Ireland, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Noir, Suspense

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Declan Hughes has worked for more than twenty years in the theater in Dublin as director and playwright. In 1984, he cofounded Rough Magic, Ireland's leading independent theater company. He has been writer in association with the Abbey Theatre and remains an artistic associate of Rough Magic. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Series:
* Ed Loy Mystery

Reviews

[Yvonne G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Declan Hughes definitely brings the role of the Private Detective bang up to date and into the 21st Century, with his character Ed Loy.

The language, sexual references and violence, all accentuate the fast paced story and vividly drawn characters.

The story certainly highlights the seedy, depraved, gang run side of Dublin, that lurks not too far beneath the surface; of the people who will do anything for gain, enjoy what they do and have nothing to lose.

Much worse I thought, were the people from 'the other side of the fence', who did the hiring, but considered themselves to be squeaky clean, because they didn't actually bloody their hands or see the results of their greed and hatred.

The thin veneer which personified the respectable face of humanity and philanthropic living, was quickly peeled away by Loy.

Family image and an unforgiving religion are the pivotal points of the story; old money, old lies, old secrets, old grudges. One lie and half-truth, follows the other, until Loy starts to unravel the secrets they have been trying to hide as individuals, but that would bring the whole family dynasty to it's knees, when pieced together.

The climax of the story, forces the family to bring all of it's skeletons out of the cupboard and face the consequences, in a spectacular way, whilst at the same time forcing Ed Loy to confront a few ghosts of his own and hopefully begin to lay them to rest.

I thought that the weaving together of the two stories at the end of the book, was very well done and I certainly hadn't put two and two together.

I was a little confused about the kidnapping (not giving anything away, it is part of the synopsis), it didn't seem to have any relevance or substance to it and was quite a weak part of the overall story.

As a murder mystery and an overview of the religious fervor in the Catholic Ireland of the 1960's, 70's and 80's, it lived up to expectations and earns a 3.5 out of 5. Rounded down to 3 on sites which demand a rating

[Dave Riley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't bother. The book needs a darn good editor and at least a re-write.Hughes can write a chapter very well indeed with all the dialogue and blow by blow required but he has no control , no format other than to try to remake Chandler's The Big Sleep and update it to 21 st century tolerance for incest stories and porn.

I find it amazing that the publisher allowed this mess to go out without some aggressive paring down -- say by 100 pages! -- to make it a half decent novel.

As for the marketing -- The Color of Blood: An Irish Novel of Suspense -- come off it. Buzz words for crappy goods.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Nothing's ever what it is, it's always bound up with something else, something that happened in the past." This is a quote from Declan Hughes' "The Color of Blood" but it could as well have been a summary of the main theme in novels written by an American mystery writer, Ross Macdonald. When I was reading the first two chapters I felt as if I were reading a new book by the author of "The Chill" and "The Underground Man", one of my most favorite mystery authors. I fell in love with the first half of "The Color of Blood". Reading a Ross Macdonald's novel happening in Dublin, Ireland, in 2006 was an unexpected treat. In addition to interesting plot, the novel invited comparisons between Southern California society of the 1950s and 1960s and that of Ireland of the 2000s.

Ed Loy, a private investigator in Dublin, is hired by Shane Howard, a rich and powerful man, to find his 19-year old daughter whose pornographic pictures are being used as a blackmail tool. The case soon becomes much more complex; several people are murdered, and connections to the past of the Howard family emerge. Mr. Loy is very much like Lew Archer of Macdonald's novels: a PI with strong moral principles and a heart of gold who is able to respond to violence with violence and who is inclined to take law into his own hands. The case investigated by Mr. Loy, like Lew Archer's cases, is about what powerful people can do to less powerful people; how they can destroy their lives just because they can.

My enthusiasm about "The Color of Blood" gradually decreased as I kept reading. What was a great four-star novel after first few chapters, a good three-star book by about the mid-point, totally collapsed into a ridiculously overblown, overcomplicated, and way overlong mess. The plot became so bizarrely convoluted in the last 80 or so pages that I felt it bordered on the absurd. I had a hard time to force myself to finish reading the novel that began so wonderfully promising.

One of the main differences between a great writer and a not-so-great one is that the former knows when to stop writing.

Two and a quarter stars.

[LJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

First Sentence: The last case I worked, I found a sixteen-year-old girl for her father; when she told me what he had done to her, I let her stay lost.

PI Ed Loy has been hired to find a dentist’s teenaged daughter. The girl’s porn filmmaker ex-boyfriend turns up dead and the family seems to no longer care what has happened to the girl. With plenty of suspects from whom to chose, Ed is on his own in sorting this case.

I tried three times to get into this book and just couldn’t get past the portents and the stereotypical characters. There were too many characters, none of them likeable or well developed.

The plot was hackneyed and bordered on silly. It just was not interesting to me. I found it a trial to get as far into it as I did.

Mr. Hughes and I are just not made for each other.

THE COLOR OF BLOOD (PI-Ed Loy-Ireland-Cont) – DNF
Hughes, Declan – 2nd in series
William Morrow, 2007, US Hardcover – ISBN: 9780060825492

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another dark and violent tale from Ireland. In this second book in the series Ed Loy is adjusting to life back in Dublin working as a PI but still without his official license. Just like the first book he is involved with lots of sordid characters with even deeper and darker secrets. This time instead of his family he's dealing with a rich family of doctors that is pretty sexually depraved. Lots of action and a climbing body count as Ed crosses back and forth between what's legal and illegal and perhaps damaging his reputation in the process. It was quite confusing keeping track of the many sordid characters in this one family. You needed a genealogy chart as there were half brothers and then names were changed. Ok, who is this guy again and what's his beef? And just when you think you had it figured out more surprises. Multiple murders and multiple killers. Hoping the next one is somewhat different.

[Dana King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hughes’s Ed Loy books are the synthesis of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Having heard Hughes speak on the primacy of the PI story in crime fiction, it’s easy to see that passion on every page here. Ed Loy gets hired to do a task, follows through to the end because he needs to know. This may not be the way of a real-life PI with bills to pay and a license to maintain, but it makes for intoxicating fiction. In The Color of Blood, Loy finds the motivations for murder in events over twenty years’ past, and describes them with a kind of prose few other than Chandler have managed. Things get a little convoluted at times and have to be explained in the classic, “I supposed you wonder I called you all together” scene, but even that is less a resolution than the spring that will launch the resolution when it comes.

[Trilby · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were too many characters, some characters with nicknames and aliases, for the reader to easily keep track of. Too often I found myself pausing to recall relationships or how the character fit into the plot. Detective stories should be page-turning fun to read. This one wasn't.

Here's my spoiler: I found it disturbing that Sandra, a main character, describes in neutral terms her father sexually abusing her, saying she enjoyed it and was jealous of her brother and sister when Dad started abusing them. WTF? The opposite is usually the case. The first one abused often tries to protect the siblings. Also, it's usual for the abuser to abuse either male or female children, not both.

Remembering the incidents of abuse is a terrible trauma, having a life-long effect on the victim. Sandra's revelation of the abuse is an important plot-point and needs to be there to wrap up the story. But for me, it tainted the whole story. I am appalled by it. Ironically, Hughes takes the Church and Establishment to task for their sexual sins, yet blows off the trauma experienced by Sandra. Not cool.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why are most novels about Irish detectives so depressing? It seems, as one of the characters in The Color of Blood says, that the Irish believe what the English, and the Catholic Church, have told them all these years: that they are worthless, stupid and evil. The main characters in The Color of Blood certainly act like they are. Oddly named Ed Loy is the private investigator who has returned to Ireland after many years in LA, and he is trying to figure out who is killing people in the Howard family and why. This is not a book you want to read if you are looking for a sweet little cozy.

[Maggie K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am really enjoying these Ed Loy mysteries This was no exception. A dysfunctional family hires Loy when they are being blackmailed with revealing pics about their daughter. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg os family secrets, and Loy will have to crack a lot of ice to bring this story to the surface.

[cynthia Byrne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too many characters - mostly too many bad guys. Confusing and complicated. Couldn’t get more than 2/3 of the way through. Seems like a lot of detective novels follow the same sort of style, but this one could definitely use some editing. I’m going back to Harlan Coben and some PIs who are more entertaining and less full of complicated plots.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually, a 1.5. Not the book for me. The characters were poorly developed and the plot was not very credible. The book was about 100 pages too long with way too many uses of the "C" word, and I don't mean "commitment".

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Raymond Chandler in the 21st century. Everything--the corruption, the perversions, the violence--laid out bare without innuendo or implication. A dark, yet compelling, story but not for the faint of heart.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tight, complicated plotting crossed with a great character in Ed Loy.

[Béatrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Est-ce la complexité de l'intrigue ? Ou la difficulté à trouver quelqu'un de sympathique dans cette histoire ? Bref, je n'ai pas été passionnée.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing with a hardly believable plot.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly developed story and characters, and very poorly written.
I’ve thought better of Hughes after reading other books by him.
Maybe he wasn’t paying as much attention with this one.

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard; thinking, drinking, punch throwing and taking Ed Loy solving a crime mystery in modern Dublin. Good stuff here dealing with a multitude of issues from the personal to societal and beyond.

[The Villan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok read. Complicated plot. Has done better

[Bookworm with Kids · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ed Loy is basically an American PI from noir novels such as those by Ross MacDonald and Dashiell Hammett transplanted to Dublin. Another detective story with a main character, Loy, drinking too much and wrestling with his demons but it was enjoyable nonetheless. At times, it seemed there was a cast of thousands and I kept having to stop to think who somebody was but the dark and twisted ending was good. I will definitely read more by this author.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is the second Ed Loy novel by Declan Hughes, the first being The Wrong Kind of Blood, published in 2006.

Ed Loy is a Private Investigator in current day Dublin, Ireland - a place that's part gritty, poor, desperate and part rich, privileged, twisted. Shane Howard is a Dublin dentist, and the son of Dr John Howard, a pillar of Dublin Irish Society, famous in the local area, with a legacy that is maintained by his family. Shane's 19 year old daughter Emily has gone missing and now he is getting blackmail threats and sexually explicit photographs of her - Shane is not sure if she's being abused or if she's a willing participant.

What starts off as a fairly straight-forward job locating the missing Emily and tracking down the source of the photographs rapidly gets more and more complicated as digging around in the Howard family starts to reveal a lot of skeletons in everyone's closets.

There are a few reasons why you'd wonder if this was a good book or not. There's the tortured, embittered, lost, hard-drinking PI in Ed but for many reasons he may teeter on the edge of the cliché, but he never quite tips over. There's the wealthy, seemingly successful Howard family, rotten to the core with all sorts of secrets and tacky goings on, but stereotypical in many ways, however there's something engaging, human, interesting in many of the members of that family.

There are a lot of subplots in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. As Emily is found and the blackmailers are being tracked down, there are events in and surrounding the family from years ago, leading up to current day, that are rapidly revealed. The book roars along at a rapid pace with revelation and resolution overlapping themselves at every twist.

There's also a great sense of irony, of gentle humour, the cast of characters certainly help with that. The dentist Shane, whose Medical Doctor father never quite "approved" of his choice of career. Sandra, the Irish Princess, sister of Shane, family manipulator, she of the vaguely Gothic look, swooping down from the family estates to rescue Emily and her son Jonathan. Jonathan and his purposely put on private school boy touches. None of these humorous touches are overdone but they balance the brutality of many of the other aspects of the novel.

Finally, there's a great sense of place in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. Current day Dublin with its wealth, opportunity, developers and 21st century values are contrasted brutally against the greed, exploitation, societal manipulation, hypocrisy, criminal gangs, drugs and violence. And ultimately that's the crux of the whole book - if something's rotten at the core, then it doesn't matter a damn where that something is positioned on the social scale - the damage lingers and it will come back to bite you

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is the second Ed Loy novel by Declan Hughes, the first being The Wrong Kind of Blood, published in 2006.

Ed Loy is a Private Investigator in current day Dublin, Ireland - a place that's part gritty, poor, desperate and part rich, privileged, twisted. Shane Howard is a Dublin dentist, and the son of Dr John Howard, a pillar of Dublin Irish Society, famous in the local area, with a legacy that is maintained by his family. Shane's 19 year old daughter Emily has gone missing and now he is getting blackmail threats and sexually explicit photographs of her - Shane is not sure if she's being abused or if she's a willing participant.

What starts off as a fairly straight-forward job locating the missing Emily and tracking down the source of the photographs rapidly gets more and more complicated as digging around in the Howard family starts to reveal a lot of skeletons in everyone's closets.

There are a few reasons why you'd wonder if this was a good book or not. There's the tortured, embittered, lost, hard-drinking PI in Ed but for many reasons he may teeter on the edge of the cliché, but he never quite tips over. There's the wealthy, seemingly successful Howard family, rotten to the core with all sorts of secrets and tacky goings on, but stereotypical in many ways, however there's something engaging, human, interesting in many of the members of that family.

There are a lot of subplots in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. As Emily is found and the blackmailers are being tracked down, there are events in and surrounding the family from years ago, leading up to current day, that are rapidly revealed. The book roars along at a rapid pace with revelation and resolution overlapping themselves at every twist.

There's also a great sense of irony, of gentle humour, the cast of characters certainly help with that. The dentist Shane, whose Medical Doctor father never quite "approved" of his choice of career. Sandra, the Irish Princess, sister of Shane, family manipulator, she of the vaguely Gothic look, swooping down from the family estates to rescue Emily and her son Jonathan. Jonathan and his purposely put on private school boy touches. None of these humorous touches are overdone but they balance the brutality of many of the other aspects of the novel.

Finally, there's a great sense of place in THE COLOUR OF BLOOD. Current day Dublin with its wealth, opportunity, developers and 21st century values are contrasted brutally against the greed, exploitation, societal manipulation, hypocrisy, criminal gangs, drugs and violence. And ultimately that's the crux of the whole book - if something's rotten at the core, then it doesn't matter a damn where that something is positioned on the social scale - the damage lingers and it will come back to bite you.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

First line: The last case I worked, I found a sixteen-year-old girl for her father; when she told me what he had done to her, I let her stay lost.

After receiving some compromising photos of his missing teenage daughter, Emily, along with a ransom demand, wealthy Shane Howard employs Dublin private investigator Ed Loy to find her. This task is no difficulty for someone with Ed's knowledge of Dublin's darker side. However, disentangling himself from the Howard family proves more difficult.

When Emily's ex-boyfriend is found murdered in his flat things start to get very messy. Ed finds himself enmeshed in a complicated web of pornography, blackmail, gangsters and murder; not to mention a family with some deeply buried secrets that they would very much like to stay buried. The key to the current events lies long in the past, and as Ed starts making the connections that draw all the threads together, the story moves along at a rapid pace until the final dramatic scenes.

The Colour of Blood has an extremely complex plot, and it's a sign of Hughes' skill that he was not only able to keep track of all the various threads, but to untangle them so neatly by the end. The story revolves around the Howards – and a more dysfunctional family you'd never want to meet. On the surface they appear to have everything – money, success and social position, but underneath they're sinking in a veritable cesspool of deceit and secrecy. Ed's involvement in the case is further complicated by his attraction to Shane's sister, the beautiful and sexy Sandra Howard.

Ed is tough and resilient in the noir PI tradition. He has a strong moral core that compels him to search out the truth, even if that truth is sometimes an uncomfortable one. His past, particularly the death of his daughter, and his subsequent broken marriage, continue to haunt him.

The Colour of Blood is a worthy sequel to The Wrong Kind of Blood, the first in the Ed Loy series, and I look forward to reading the next book, The Dying Breed (The Price of Blood in the USA). The fourth in the series, All the Dead Voices has just been released in Britain and Australia.

For more information go to Declan Hughes' website.

[Janebbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second Dublin thriller featuring Ed Loy, P. I., May 14, 2010

OPENING LINE: The last case I worked, I found a sixteen-year-old girl for her father; when she told me what he had done to her, I let her stay lost.

Well, I've just finished the second Declan Hughes Ed Loy crime novel and have to disagree with another Amazon reviewer--it's not as good as THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD, the debut novel. Sure, there's that intriguing and clever opening line that ropes you into the book. And there's that shocking conclusion that's really shocking. I was intrigued by the first sentence and shocked by the conclusion in both books!

THE COLOR OF BLOOD is about a hunt for a prominent Dublin dentist's daughter.

I titled my review of the first Ed Loy "An Irish Ross MacDonald" and compared the book to MacDonald's "The Drowning Pool," the second Lew Archer crime novel. Family blood and betrayal in both, I declared. After I finished THE COLOR OF BLOOD, I added another word - secrets. Hughes writes about family blood, betrayal and secrets.

Tim Ruttan of the Los Angeles Times quoted an interview with Declan Hughes in his review April 14, 2010 of Ed Loy #5 just published. Hughes talks about the Holy Trinity of hard-boiled crime novelists:

"I think it's Ross Macdonald I'm most influenced by. If Hammett took murder out of the rose garden and put it back in the alley where it belongs, Macdonald told you about the kid who'd been dumped in the alley, found out that he was from a family with more than a little loot, and then took you into their house to leaf through the family album... That `family gothic' spoke to me, because Irish society is still pretty tribal, and because, despite the impression Irish people give that we're open and friendly and candid, there's a lot we don't want to tell you -- a lot of skeletons in our closets."

Don't miss this second Ed Loy! It is a fascinating crime novel amid a Irish "family gothic" tale.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. For starters, I hardly predicted anything. And even better, I didn't want to. This book was full of so many great twists and turns, but it was never confusing or unbelievable. I really liked Ed Loy, and the homage his character pays to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. In fact, the sexual disfunction of the characters reminded me of The Big Sleep, Mildred Pierce, and of course, Chinatown. But since Hughes is writing in the 21st century, he can be much more blatant than Chandler or Cain was able to be (not that he is coarse or disrespectful).

I was also really impressed by his courage in pointing the finger at Irish culture when it comes to the generational abuses he writes about. He is willing to (basically) come out and say that a culture that values both denial AND secrets, pride AND shame - in conjunction with poverty and the Church - is going to engender these kind of deep-seated family problems. Lots of Irish writers observe this, but I've never read one who actually pointed out that maybe it is a pattern of behavior that should be changed... not just temporarily forgotten by a trip to the pub. Considering my own family's history, this was a great point of view to come across.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this – like his first book, that were very many characters and sometimes it was hard to keep track of everyone, but as the story unfolded, I found myself deeply involved in fascinated. I like this better than his first book, because it was more original – I haven't really read a book like it before, though I've read very many mysteries – it was all about the strange relationships and twisted past of this very wealthy family. I had a hard time finding the characters likable, except for Ed Loy, the detective – and Tommy, his dysfunctional sidekick – but the characters grew on me eventually, and even the ones I didn't like, I was interested in their strange histories. Most of it was like a soap opera in a sense, but I found it satisfying in the conclusion was exciting and interesting. My only negative criticism really is that I couldn't figure out why Loy stuck with the family as long as he did – why was he so loyal to them, when they were rather condescending and nasty to him, why was he so drawn to them and so emotionally attached to what happened to them? It didn't seem realistic, and that is why I'm giving this only 4 stars instead of 5.

[Diane Wallis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stanley Townsend's narration of the audio version of this dark Dublin tale is brilliant. There must be more than 20 characters, and he has a distinctive voice for each one. He's particularly good at the women and girls, especially the two Lithuanians without papers who have been trafficked by bad boy, Brock Taylor's gang. The cringing whine of Ed Loy's wayward lieutenant Tommy Owens, is my favourite.
Borrowed from the library to help pass the time on a series of long car journeys, there were a few glitches on one of the tracks which sped up the dialogue to chipmunk pace, but stopping and cleaning the disc would have broken the flow and I could pretty much guess any gaps in the plot.
There is much murder, mayhem, violence, incest, swearing, drinking, smoking and abuse of power in The Colour of Blood so it's hardly a book about good, clean fun. Ed Loy's brand of private detection is fired by his own sense of despair, loss and indignation but it is nicely spiked with irony and humour. And the icing on the cake is Stanley Townsend's delivery.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second installment of the Ed Loy series - Ed is a Dublin PI, transplanted to LA and now back in Ireland. He's hired to find the daughter - who may or may not be involved in the world of pornography - of a somewhat reputable family and very quickly finds himself thrashing around in a family closet full of skeletons. The Color of Blood is a roller coaster ride from start to finish - murders, fires, sex, kidnappings - poor Ed doesn't sleep, rarely eats and is fueled by alcohol.

A lot of spaghetti is thrown at the wall and though some of it sticks this reads like a Raymond Chandler meets Hunter S. Thompson meets Emeril hybrid - Plot development is accomplished by simply "Kicking it up a notch" with one spectacular event/revelation after another. So although this book is entertaining, at times it borders on incoherent with far too many twists and turns, red herrings, shootings, beatings and characters, leaving this reader sometimes confused and often incredulous.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reputable dentist from a venerable medical family, Shane Howard wants Loy to find his lost daughter after receiving a set of photographs featuring nineteen-year-old Emily in provocative poses. But a simple missing persons case rapidly devolves into something even more sordid and grisly when two of the players are savagely slain. And it's only the beginning.

The Howard family is not what it seems. Beneath a veneer of wealth and respectability is a dark history of corruption and rot and secrets best left unearthed. By entering the Howards' vicious circle, Loy may find himself stained with the most corrosive and lethal type of blood—the kind that even death cannot eradicate.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars because I gave the first four, whereas they each merit 4.5.

I am deeply admiring of a man who can tell a tale in such beautiful language, can describe a conversation with an old and drink-damaged nightwatchman in such a way that I am grinning with delight at the bribery attempt, and can add an ever-increasing, ever-faster number of twists to an always twisting tale yet finish it up fittingly, despite the astonishingly high body count.

And retain a sense of caring for the too-curious-for-his-own-good Ed Loy.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complicated and convoluted story of a family who have a lot of skeletons in their closet. Ed Loy gets involved when Emily, the daughter, is reported kidnapped and her father is sent photographs of her, naked.

As Ed uncovers the truth the bodies mount.

It's pretty evocative of the messy, complicated feuds that happen in Dublin these days. The body count is pretty high though and you'd have to wonder at the mess it makes of the lives left over.