Blackwatertown by Paul Waters

It’s my turn on the blog tour for Blackwatertown. Author Paul Waters gives us a story full of intrigue, corruption, and religious-political conflict, all within a fantastic setting: 1950s Ireland. If this sounds like your type of mystery, read on!

My thoughts

I wasn’t certain what to expect from this novel. The blurb, you’ll notice, is rather short; it left me with a lot of questions (such as, how does one accidentally start a war?) but of course, that’s the entire point of a blurb!

The story opens with “Jolly” Macken, a Catholic police officer on the Protestant Northern Ireland police force, leading a parade through a Catholic dominated area. The parade celebrates the current Queen and the triumph of Protestant William and Mary over Catholic King James in the Glorious Revolution. When the Catholics decide to block the path of the Protestant marchers, forget any reasonable solutions: both sides crave violence.

That’s a lot of mentions of Catholics and Protestants in one paragraph. But this is Northern Ireland in the 1950s: the place is steeped in religious conflict.

Poor Macken is in the unenviable role of having a dual identity: religiously Catholic but serving on a Protestant police force. He ends up banished to Blackwatertown. He also finds out that his brother, his predecessor on the Blackwatertown police force, has died a sudden death.

The authorities call it an accident.

Others whisper it was suicide.

Macken? He suspects murder.

Characters

When the book begins, Macken prefers to be swept along by events. It’s safer and less painful than making a stand. He goes along with the location reassignment, doesn’t tell his supervisor of his relationship to the dead constable, and doesn’t stick his head above the metaphorical parapet. Doing that would make him the target for anti-Catholic or anti-police sentiments.

But that ennui can’t last, even a beautiful, sleepy town fishing town. I had a sense of some impending change brewing, and I knew that Macken would either be swept up in it or instigate it. Little did I know that it would be both!

Waters does an excellent job developing his main characters. Macken, Aoife, his love interest, and Constable Cedric Andrews, his hostile barracks roommate, were particularly vivid for me. It is a large cast of characters, though. After a while, my head spun trying to remember all the allegiances, religious or familial, of so many people. In a sense, this mimicked the reality of living in a border town during the time period.

Plot & Pace

The story started off slowly. That wasn’t a bad thing; I needed the time to get my bearings with the setting and the references to various events in the Irish Catholic vs Protestant history. (Incidentally, I re-learned quite a bit of history. Quite enjoable!)

But whenever I became complacent, something huge happened that shredded the complacency into pieces. Waters took the story in unexpected directions, and several major plot points surprised me.

Setting

Though this novel takes place in a different time and area than my own, I saw definite parallels to our own time. Equality is still illusory for too many people, especially minorities. Bigotry is rampant. People point fingers rather than take responsibility for their own actions and attitudes. And everyone must take sides. As Waters writes,

“Life was a constant challenge to take sides.”

But which side is “right”? What if you, like Macken, have conflicting identities and belong to more than one side because of dual roles and identities? There are no easy answers, only uneasy ones. Ones that no one likes.

The religious/political tension permeates each aspect of the novel. The threat of violence ripples under even seemingly-innocuous scenes. Waters immerses us in a world of division and bigotry, one not unlike our own, and shows the effect of that venom on those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. It can turn an impressionable child into a bitter adult, like Macken. Or it can crush the more sensitive ones, like Macken’s half-brother Danny, the dead constable.

One Favorite Thing . . .

Everything I’ve said may make Blackwatertown sound like a dark story. It is.

But there are occasional touches of humor, which Waters uses effectively to offset the violence and often bleak setting. I particularly enjoyed the one involving a dog and a wig. (No spoilers. You’ll have to read the book to understand.)

Overall, this was a strong novel. I enjoyed reading it.

Note: I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review and was not required to give a positive review. Thanks to Anne Cater for letting me join the tour.

Buy the book!

Amazon US here

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