Crime: Celtic Tiger Ireland was bound, sooner or later, to give birth to some pretty lively literary kittens: and this début from the former Irish Independent crime correspondent Liz Allen is one sharp-clawed baby, writes Arminta Wallace.
Allen's Dublin is the kind which hasn't featured in Irish crime writing before. It is a city populated by champagne-swigging young things in sports cars and/or designer threads, some of whom are legal eagles, some prostitutes, some gardaí, some gangland criminals. The problem - as we all know - is that to the untutored eye it's virtually impossible to tell the difference.
Catty? Is it heck. It's also a terrific read.
The central character, Deborah Parker, is an ambitious young solicitor who finds herself defending the son of one of Dublin's organised crime bosses, Michael Mooney Junior, with worrying implications for her reputation, not to mention her life.
As the plot sweeps along, never missing a beat, Allen imbues her storyline with a generous amount of plausible-sounding court and police procedure - something else that's new in Irish crime fiction - and the characters are multi-dimensional, some even (almost) likeable.
Oddly, the one you might actually enjoy going out for a pint with is the villain's Da, Michael Mooney Senior, an ordinary decent criminal of the old school type. Anyone we know?
Well, Allen - who took over from Veronica Guerin at the Indo, and gave evidence in a couple of high-profile criminal cases - isn't telling.
In fact, her cool, clinical tone is - so to speak - her biggest criminal asset. If she can cure herself of the occasional urge to flirt with romance fiction, we might even have a Minette Walters in the making here. More, please.
Arminta Wallace is an Irish Times journalist.
Last To Know. By Liz Allen, Coronet, 393pp. £6.99