Night of the Crow (204 pages) is Abel Tomé’s first novel and centres on the police inspector Gonçalves, who is called to investigate the murder of the Haggerty family inside their house on Gothard Island, which is ruled by an all-powerful chancellor, Aidan Faol. He will be accompanied in his investigation by two, contrasting young police officers, Pietre and Lúa. The titles of the chapters are taken from Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself”.

In chapter 1, “The Disdain and Calmness of Martyrs”, the murdered family consists of a meddlesome young boy, a meek young girl with a taste for mathematics, a father who wears glasses and reads a lot, and a suspiciously attractive mother. Gothard Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge with a gate which a guardian has to open to let you in. It has its own law, personified by the figure of the chancellor, Aidan Faol. Gonçalves arrives at the house of the lighthouse where the murder has taken place. There are lots of journalists, including a woman he finds particularly attractive, Sora, whom he has slept with after the death of his wife, Anne Marie. She got him into trouble with the police commissioner after he confided in her and she published all the details of a case. One of his officers, Pietre, is already at the scene of the crime. Pietre smokes too much, has an obsession with sex, spends almost all his salary on prostitutes and once made off with his neighbours’ fifteen-year-old daughter. The owner of the house was Gothard’s schoolteacher, who had studied in London and then settled down in the house of his father, the island’s lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse doesn’t work anymore. The police commissioner is there. The same person who killed Anne Marie also killed the police commissioner’s youngest daughter. He warns Gonçalves that the chancellor is about and to be careful with what he says. The chancellor, who is elected every five years by a show of hands, is always a member of the Faol family, which has become rich from a silver mine and controls most of the island. They intermarry with the Cárthaig family, which runs the island’s bank. In 1984, there was a revolt on the island because a twelve-year-old boy stabbed and killed Brendo Cárthaig, Aidan Faol’s brother-in-law, whom he accused of sexually abusing him, and the boy was sentenced to death by public hanging. Aidan Faol proclaimed a “Year of the Snake” and armed the local population, but the government blockaded the island and Aidan Faol had to back down, allowing the police from the nearby town of Beth to have a presence on the island.

Lúa informs Gonçalves that the head of the murdered family is the schoolteacher Niall Haggerty, his wife, Laia, her twelve-year-old daughter, Lía, and their five-year-old son Ciarán. It seems Laia was pregnant when they met and Niall agreed to adopt the child. They then had another child together. The officer, Lúa, lives with her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. She informs the inspector that the members of the family have been stabbed to death, each body having been stabbed exactly seven times. Gonçalves asks Lúa to question all the inhabitants of the island, he is sure the murderer must have been known to the victims.

In chapter 2, “I Anchor My Ship for a Little While Only”, Gonçalves and Lúa visit Mrs O’Quinlevan, who says the murder took place on the night of the crow (which in local mythology has black feathers during the day, white at night). Gonçalves discovers that Lúa’s great-grandfather, Ed Braonáin, was from the island. When conditions in the silver mine became unbearable, he organized a popular revolt and was sentenced to death. They then visit Fritz’s tavern in the harbour, where Gonçalves has a run-in with the barman and all the fishermen have alibis.

In chapter 3, “Upon a Door-Step”, as they are leaving the bar, one of the fishermen jumps into the back of their car. They drive up Mt Anam, the highest point on the island, the meeting point between man and Máthair, the goddess who created everything, where they can talk in safety. The fisherman tells them how he saw Laia Haggerty with the chancellor’s son, Rowan Faol – one time they were arguing in a car; another time Rowan was handing Laia something, which she hid in her pocket.

In chapter 4, “All Truths Wait in All Things”, Gonçalves visits Pietre’s apartment just as a leggy woman with dyed green hair is leaving. Pietre has a luxury apartment in a good area of Beth, owing to the wealth of his grandfather, who owned the largest shipyard there. His sister committed suicide, but Pietre prefers not to talk about his family. They go downstairs to have a coffee, and Pietre observes that half the houses on Gothard are empty, people having left because of the crisis, the lack of money. He suggests they draw up a list of all the inhabitants who are still on the island.

In chapter 5, “Is This Then a Touch?”, Gonçalves has a meeting with the chancellor, who upbraids him for having a run-in with the barman and tells him he has to respect the local laws. He cites the example of his ancestor Guilliam Faol, who fought to protect the island from outsiders who wanted to come and dominate them. Gonçalves remarks that they were just protecting their business interests, not the integrity of people. He himself is not from Beth, but from a town in the north, Galataz, where his great-grandfather fought for the freedom of people but lost. Aidan Faol is surprised to hear this. As Gonçalves leaves, he receives a phone call from Pietre, who has discovered five kilos of cocaine in the Haggertys’ house.

In chapter 6, “To Behold the Day-Break!”, Gonçalves has gone to the nightclub Red Moon to look for Mario Al Nasser, a local drug dealer. He spots him as he’s leaving and follows him to an abandoned part of town, where he overpowers him, shoots him in the hand and leg, and asks why five kilos of cocaine were found in the Haggertys’ house when Niall Haggerty was only a schoolteacher. Al Nasser tells Gonçalves a ship that went down off Gothard, the Virgin of Glory, was carrying a shipment of drugs – Niall Haggerty may have come across the cocaine when he was walking on the beach.

In chapter 7, “I Believe in the Flesh and the Appetites”, Gonçalves and Lúa go to visit Rowan Faol on a private estate in the north of the island. Rowan claims that he hasn’t spoken to his father in two years and they’re not on good terms. He admits to having known Laia Haggerty, with whom he’d been to school in London. They were just friends. Rowan secretly married her elder sister, Sarah. One day Sarah turned up dead. Laia took it very badly and hooked up with a guy named Max Thompson, by whom she became pregnant. Max Thompson didn’t want to know about the child, and Rowan introduced Laia to the lighthouse keeper’s son, Niall Haggerty. They fell in love and got married. Later on Max Thompson started blackmailing Laia, receiving money every month in return for leaving her alone. Rowan doesn’t think Max Thompson could have killed them because he was doing too well out of the situation. He also doesn’t think Laia and Niall could have had anything to do with the cocaine that was found in their house. Gonçalves phones Pietre to tell him to check whether Max Thompson had entered or left the island in the days leading up to the murder.

In chapter 8, “A Word of Reality”, the newspapers have cottoned on to the link with Max Thompson because Sora, the journalist, has obviously been to visit Pietre. Pietre lets Gonçalves know; Gonçalves is jealous she didn’t come to visit him. They set out to arrest Max Thompson in an area of Beth that used to be a hippy commune, Crykovia, but when they get there, they find only his corpse in an empty bedroom.

In chapter 9, “I Am the Poet of the Body”, Bob, the pathologist, informs Gonçalves that Max Thompson has been stabbed four times and died a whole week before the Haggertys, so it can’t have been him who killed them. Pietre reckons it might have been Rowan Faol who hired someone to kill Max Thompson as a way of solving the problem of him blackmailing Laia, so they wouldn’t have to pay him off every month. We learn that the man who killed Gonçalves’ wife, Anne Marie, the man who haunts Gonçalves at night, was once a colleague.

In chapter 10, “I Exist As I Am, That Is Enough”, Gonçalves and Lúa visit Rowan Faol again. They are shown into Rowan’s house by a dramor, one of the previous occupants of an island next to Gothard, Sligeanach, who have dark skin and enticingly yellow eyes. Legend has it their island was the back of a large turtle and sailed away one day, leaving them homeless. They washed up on the beaches of Gothard, were enslaved by the local inhabitants and made to work for them. Lúa accuses Rowan of hiring an assassin to kill Max Thompson. He denies this. Gonçalves asks for his help in finding out the names of all the inhabitants on the island. Once they have left, Lúa admits that she is pregnant.

In chapter 11, “This Is the Press of a Bashful Hand”, Gonçalves learns that there are 212 men over the age of thirty on Gothard Island, and a total of 112 families. Women and children are not included in the census. Pietre is going to visit all the inhabitants of the island, while Gonçalves and Lúa check out the port. In the port, they question two men from a boatyard who seem very keen not to let them see what they are doing, but when he deliberately drops his lighter, Gonçalves makes out the name of a ship, the Virgin of Glory, inside their workshop.

In chapter 12, “Do You Guess I Have Some Intricate Purpose?”, the local butcher, Oísin Feòladair, has been arrested for the murder of the Haggerty family. Apparently he has confessed to the chancellor, who calls a meeting of the island’s inhabitants in the main square so the man can be tried by a jury of the people. Gonçalves intervenes, saying the man must be questioned by the police first. He climbs on to the podium where the chancellor is, puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, only to discover there are no bullets in the chamber.

In chapter 13, “Logic and Sermons Never Convince”, Gonçalves and Pietre question the butcher, who claims that he killed the Haggertys because they owed him money, and also because Niall Haggerty, the schoolteacher, had been sexually abusing his daughter. The police don’t believe his story, he seems very scared of something and keeps saying he doesn’t remember the details. When Gonçalves returns to his car, he finds a book on the driver’s seat: Customs of Gothard.

In chapter 14, “I Help Myself to Material and Immaterial”, Gonçalves reads in the book Customs of Gothard about a meeting of the Council of Eight to decide whether to concede the land where the port is to a Beth businessman who wanted to open a whaling factory. He was prepared to pay a lot of money, but the Council of Eight, which is meant to reflect the will of the people, decided against it. On the television, Gonçalves sees the wife of one of the fishermen who went down with the Virgin of Glory, saying she would do anything to get by, she has no money, and he immediately phones Rowan to ask for information about the current accounts of people on the island.

In chapter 15, “I Am the Hounded Slave”, Gonçalves visits the offices of the local mafia in Black Mouth. He is shown upstairs, where five mafia bosses are sitting at a table. They ask him what he wants. He replies that he wants the answers to some questions, even though he knows he is putting his life in jeopardy just by being there.

In chapter 16, “Distant and Dead Resuscitate”, Gonçalves drives to Gothard at the head of a procession of eighty police officers. He has the information he needs. First, they arrest the guardian on the bridge. They then proceed to the main square, where they arrest the chancellor and all the men over thirty who have gathered to pass judgement on the butcher.

In chapter 17, “I Heard What Was Said of the Universe”, Pietre has left the police force. He is the father of Lúa’s child, but doesn’t stay around to raise him. Lúa names the child Ed after her great-grandfather. It turns out Gothard was on the brink of financial collapse. The silver from the mine had run out, nobody had any money, and when the shipment of drugs from the Virgin of Glory washed up on their shores, a meeting of the Council of Eight took the decision to sell the cocaine to the mafia bosses of Black Moon. There was only one dissenting voice – that of Niall Haggerty, who considered such a course of action immoral. For this reason, he was murdered along with his family by the other seven members of the Council. The butcher was persuaded to confess to the crime in return for money and a short prison sentence. Rowan takes over control of the island after the arrest of his father, who is the one who ordered the killing of his wife, Sarah. Rowan introduces equal rights for men and women. He orders the gate to the island to be removed and invites technology companies to set up shop on the island. He also marries Lúa, who has been promoted to inspector. Meanwhile, Gonçalves is at home. He has had a bad night, one of those nights when you want to destroy yourself, but end up destroying everything around you. There are photos of Anne Marie all over the place. Lúa arrives, lifts one of the bed sheets that are scattered on the floor, screams and calls out his name. It turns out Gonçalves, who has had trouble coping with the death of his wife, has shot himself.

This is a highly entertaining crime novel. The characters are convincing, as are the place names, which are invented, their history and local mythology. The novel contains two threads: the investigation into the murder of the Haggerty family, and Gonçalves’ futile struggle to get over the death of his wife, Anne Marie, at the hands of an ex-colleague whom he has killed in revenge, although we don’t learn the details. The novel was runner-up for the Illa Nova Award for fiction, an award the author has since won with the second novel in the series, Night of the Wolf (2019).

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne