Review: The Sisters

The Sisters by Dervla McTiernan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this one up because I’ve been enjoying Irish noir of late. And because, well, it was short and it was free (from Audible).

As it turns out, this is less Dublin noir than Dublin third-wave feminism procedural. That’s not a bad thing, but it isn’t quite what I was looking for.

Still, I’m pleased to see McTiernan bringing some real skill to this. You can see the pieces coming together – one sister is a rising barrister and the other a low-rung figure in the garda (police). The set-up implies they’ll run into sexism and condescension, and then the mystery – a young man has been accused of murder on the strength of two or three ultimately thin eyewitness testimonies – has holes that open up early enough to take away a lot of the uncertainty.

To McTiernan’s credit, though, she moves through the necessaries with efficiency. It’s no spoiler to say that, once the sister in the garda gets a confession, the story’s over. I can well imagine someone else padding a denouement that added little except additional pages.

I understand this is a prequel to an existing series, so it’s possible someone coming “back” to it with awareness of the sisters’ later careers might find a lot to enjoy in “cookies,” in references to things that will take place only later.

All in all, I’d call this solid work. It’s good to see McTiernan bringing a feminist lens here, and it’s good to see her refusing to waste time in the telling.


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