New Lodge Affair
A J Russo
R F I West Books Without Boundaries

Recommended 4 stars

Ann Scalia and her aunt Megan McGrath come to Ireland so that Dr. McGrath can treat an infertile couple, or so they believe. Unionist terrorists have used ultimate influence upon Catholic Mary Curry with a promise that Mary's oldest son Sean will be released from prison if her niece, Doctor McGrath will come from America to the New Lodge area of Belfast to treat the radically ailing Unionist terrorist cancer patient Garrett Redmond.

It does not take long before Megan and Ann find themselves caught up in the entanglement of animosity raging throughout Northern Ireland. Megan has been told that she is to help an infertile couple on their quest to becoming parents only to find herself abducted and compelled into helping the very greatly diseased Redmond.

Before his imprisonment Sean has seen the deaths of his father and sister at the hands of the Protestants. While a prisoner Sean determines that Redmond was mixed up in the slayings of his family. Complicating matters; Ann is developing a relationship with the Redmond grandson.

Between the covers of The New Lodge Affair the reader is carried along in the hostility between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland from 1947-1991. The lives of two families: the Catholic Currys and Protestant Redmonds are presented in intense detail by writer Russo during Northern Ireland's most deadly period. Intertwined through rancor and violence the lives of these two families are presented in a suspenseful, fast paced narrative filled with passion, horror and machination. By focusing attention on the lives of two families writer Russo delineates more the heartache experienced as the characters lose more than they gain from the enmity and discrimination rampant in the area.

Filled with a good bit of the poignancy found in Eric Balkan's City of Tears and the attention to rich detail employed by Paul Clayton in Calling Crow Russo's The New Lodge Affair is an entertaining read which will keep the reader engrossed from the opening pages right on to the last paragraph.