No Man's Land

Inspector Celcius Daly was introduced to readers a year ago in Anthony Quinn’s debut novel Disappeared. I enjoyed the book tremendously, and in particular liked the character of Celcius Daly: a hard-working, honest Catholic cop in a Protestant land, trying his hardest to ensure that justice prevails in a world that seems dead-set against him. And so I have been eagerly looking forward to Celcius Daly’s return in Anthony Quinn’s Border Angels, in which Daly’s doggedness and honesty get him into serious trouble...

You see, it all revolves around Lena Novak, a Croatian woman who was forced into a prostitution ring by the ruthless Jozef Mikolajek. While on the job, she met a man named Jack Fowler who took pity on her. He decided to become her knight in shining armour and to rescue her from Mikolajek’s brothel. But a few weeks later, the fairy tale has taken a dark turn. Jack, responsible for some dirty tricks with money that doesn’t belong to him, is found floating in his swimming pool, quite dead. Suicide is possible, but Daly isn’t quite convinced. And Lena’s photograph is found by the body, but the girl herself is nowhere to be found…

Without a Trace

Anthony Quinn’s Disappeared opens on an interesting scene. David Hughes, an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s, suddenly encounters a ghost from his past. It seems to be the spirit of Oliver Jordan, a man who has been dead for nearly twenty years; it is implied that he was murdered by the IRA. Jordan has returned to sniff out his killers, and he demands David’s help.

A month later, David’s sister telephones the police in hysterics. David is gone, apparently kidnapped. Even if he wasn’t kidnapped, the odds are slim for a man with Alzheimer’s to survive on his own for a long time. Inspector Celcius Daly is called in to investigate. Before long, a corpse is discovered by a priest and the savagely-murdered victim had a connection with David: their mutual passion for duck-hunting.