Anthony J. Quinn’s Silence is the third installment in the Inspector Celcius Daly series. The author’s talent for creating police procedurals that read with the disquieting lyricism of a work of literary fiction is on stunning display again with this tale.

Daly is a taciturn, melancholy detective in Northern Ireland, and this mystery finds him delving into his own past. A dead man’s obsession with a series of murders in the 70s sheds light on the death of Daly’s own mother, once thought to be a victim of collateral damage but now evidence points to a much grimmer scenario. Daly’s mental health is fragile, his life bleak, and his past never far away.

Quinn excels at immersing the reader into a land where the ghosts of the Troubles still walk. The borderlands between Ireland and Northern Ireland are steeped in fog and distrust, shadows and betrayals, vast empty stretches and cover-ups. The era in which even your own family and closest friends were suspect is not so distant from today. A foreboding undercurrent laces every interaction, and sinister, secret forces dog Daly’s every step.

As I have come to expect from Quinn, this is a darkly introspective read, poetic and haunting and gritty. The author’s scene setting is impeccable, so much so that I can feel the mist on my skin, hear the lap of the dark lake, and smell the smoke of peat fires. A visceral, tense read, Silence is a stellar piece of social commentary, tumultuous history, and Irish crime woven into an engaging and literary mystery.

Highly recommended for fans of crime fiction with a literary bent that explores a violent, dangerous era in Irish history.