The Guns of Heaven (Pete Hamill, 1983)

This novel has three parts. At the beginning, we join NYC reporter Sam Briscoe landing at Belfast airport. He's an old-school, disillusioned man of the world. Divorced (his wife - of course - couldn't and wouldn't keep up with his lifestyle) with a daughter in some Swiss private boarding school. He is also an IRA supporter and had come to Northern Ireland to do the "annual" St.Patrick's day article. His uncle, a big IRA shot, arranges for him an exclusive interview with the new leader, Steel. During this interview, Steel gives Sam a mysterious envelope and asks him to deliver it to America. Things begin to accelerate now: we get a first corpse, Sam goes to Switzerland to visit his daughter, but he's followed and his life is threatened, so he takes his brat to her mother in Spain, and then he returns home.

So the plot had thickened a lot, and we are now in mighty NYC, and we expect (at least I did) that Sam will do some ass kicking journalistic investigation. Unfortunately, he doesn't. He's so streetwise that he doesn't really need to. He knows everyone: from well-informed ex-junkies, bartenders, cops, fellow reporters, lawyers and even a biology professor at Columbia University. So, he wanders around asking questions, and in the meantime, the story becomes more and more convoluted and difficult to follow. Pace drops noticeably; we need to wait for a second corpse until page 109. Oh yeah, he also gets laid three times with a woman he had just picked up in the bar, so there can be no doubt about his coolness.

The third part begins when all this shit becomes just too incomprehensible to follow. It shifts from a mystery into an against-the-clock thriller. Besides IRA, we also get UVF thrown into the pot, plus another fanatical Christian faction, plus the FBI, plus some arms dealer, plus an assassination conspiracy, and so on. Needless to say, his kid gets kidnapped. There's actually a moment when Sam does a Hercule Poirot-type of shit, explaining whodunit and what the fuck is going on. I read that paragraph twice and still wasn't sure.

Plotting is disastrous, but Hamill gets away with it because it's written brilliantly. I mean, really, really good! So good that it sometimes even hurts the novel, as it is so far above the simple language and cheap gags usually used in pulp novels (which this still is, make no mistake). Little objection I had was once again this fucking New York fascination/near obsession thing. In every book that takes place in this city, we need to endure all that crap about its history, endless descriptions of the streets, subway stations, jazz, boxing...

But the thing I'll remember Guns of Heaven the most for is the total bluntness of the author's sympathies for the IRA. This was probably a bit unusual in the early 80s, but it's pretty remarkable to read it in the post-9/11 world, given that those guys were undeniably terrorists. And Hamill does try to be objective (and probably succeeds I think) but at the same time there's no doubt he's not neutral.

So when I checked this guy, it came as no surprise that he is a reporter with Irish roots, so this explains both the quality of his writing and his feelings about all that shit that happened in Northern Ireland. His life and career seemed interesting enough to warrant checking out something else from him. But not a crime novel this time and definitely not stuff about New York! Drinking Life sounds interesting :)

A bit unusual, still enjoyable, personal, thought-provoking, entertaining, still relevant.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sam Briscoe, reporter

Location:
Starts briefly in Belfast, moves to Switzerland and then concludes in "...that capital of Satan, Sodom-by-the-Sea, New York City"

Body count: 

6

Dames: 
Sheila Rafferty, "A good woman, for a Yank". Marta Torres, with whom he has an ambiguous relationship. Try to figure it out yourself: "I liked her more than anyone I knew. But I didn't know what to do about it." And there's also his whining wife, and maybe we can count Red Emma (Sam's Jaguar) too.

Blackouts: 
Once, briefly, when an explosion occurred near a pub. The second one is pretty standard and unoriginal: "A Jagged red scribble went through my eyes, and then there was blackness."

Title: 
Not sure. The main sub-plot is about one group of fanatics trying to steal a large arms shipment from another. Have no idea where/how heaven came into the picture. 

Cover:
Good as expected from Hard Case Crime. But not very accurate - I guess the chick is Sheila, but the only time she's outside the McDaid's is when the pub is blown to pieces by a planted bomb. Her description of that evening matches, though: she does have red hair, a green blouse, and large breasts (for a thin girl).

Cool lines:  
The thin, moustached bartender wore a Pioneer pin on his shirt, a sign that he had taken the pledge never to drink. Such Irishman are prized bartenders on the Irish saloon circuit, but I never trusted them to fix me a drink more complicated than a beer.

I slipped into the scalding hot bath. I jumped, moaned, then settled. The womb.