(Note To Self: Use Terrible “RIVERs Of Babble-On” Pun Here)

It’s still early doors for Brian McGilloway’s third offering, BLEED A RIVER DEEP, which isn’t due until next April, but already I’m reduced to culling second-hand big-ups from CSNI. John Connolly has been a supporter of McGilloway’s Inspector Ben Devlin series from the off, but here he outdoes himself thusly:

“Inspector Ben Devlin is that rare creature: a detective who is not violent or tortured, but who is intensely, movingly human, and it is his humanity and decency that grip the reader and give these novels a searing honesty. The Devlin books are set to become one of the great series in modern crime fiction.”

  Nice. And just in case you think JC was having an off-day (JC? Having an off-day?) when he penned that little love-bomb, here’s Sir Kenneth of Bruen all a-blurb-o on the back of BLEED A RIVER DEEP:

“Devlin is going to join the ranks of Rebus, Resnick, Davenport and Scudder as one of the reference points of character series.”

  So there you have it. Connolly and Bruen united as one voice. How often is that likely to happen, eh?
  Kidding aside, though – Rebus? Scudder? Let’s hope no one compares Our Brian to James Lee Burke. He’d probably just hang up his quill and retire …