A sultry blonde looks out from the cover of Triobloid, the new thriller from Irish-language publisher, Comhar. Aimed at the adult-learners-of-Irish market, the story is set in a seedy city-centre world of drugs, prostitution, murder and marriage break-up.

Four prostitutes are dead - ta ceathrar stripach marbh - as a result of taking contaminated heroin. The opening premise of the short novel by Colman O Drisceoil, principal of Scoil Lorcan in Monkstown, Co Dublin, is the fictitious crime that must be solved by Garda Carla de Londra. "I wanted to write a contemporary novel in simple Irish without patronising the reader," says its author. Up to now, "Novels written in simpler Irish were generally aimed at teenagers," he says.

This is the second novel in this new series from Comhar, which published Paloma by Pol O Muiri, Irish editor of this newspaper, last year. That first book also centred around a young woman Garda who must solve a complicated and dangerous crime: "Teann an tursc eal seo i bhfeidhm ar an leitheoir on gcead abairt," according to the literary panel of Oireachtas na Gaeilge last year.

The books include short word glossaries with explanations of the difficult words and phrases at the bottom of each page. Triobloid retails at £4 and is available in bookshops or directly from Comhar, 5 Rae Mhuirfean, Baile Atha Cliath 2.