Paul Waters – Blackwatertown

‘Blackwatertown’ by Paul Waters is a gritty, historical crime noir novel that is set in Blackwatertown, a sleepy border town in County Armagh in the 1950s. Sergeant Jolly Macken is transferred here, as well as demoted and we see how things go from bad to worse for him.

I really had no clue how much I would like this book, I only know the bare bones of Irish history. For me this was one of my favourite reads, I learned a lot about the Irish troubles, the differences for the Irish people and what mattered, as well as a bit more about the geographical parts as well.

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The story follows Mackens demotion and transfer and we see a cop, who wasn’t keen to stay a cop but who wants to find a killer and we also get to be pulled into a tense, gritty and dark thriller. I enjoyed the humour which is very much my type. It is a “You will either laugh or cry” type of thing. Not the light comedic kind, but blending into the story really well.
As we get closer to the ending it gets darker and we are treated to an absolute corker of an ending. I think Jolly is a great character and we can only hope he has more “adventures” to come!

Thanks to Random Things Tours and Paul Waters for the copy of Blackwatertown to enable me to be a part of this blog tour.