Bad Day In Blackrock By Kevin Power

Bad Day in Blackrock by Kevin Power is a fiction novel based loosely on the real case that shocked Ireland in 2000 when a wealthy young Irish teenager named Brian Murphy was killed in a violent brawl outside a Dublin night-club.

Bad Day in Blackrock by Kevin Power

If you are looking for a crime thriller with lots of twists, you will be in for a great disappointment for Bad Day in Blackrock breaks the rules of the conventional crime narrative. From the opening pages, you know who the victim is and who his killers are.  But I still find it a great read as it provides both an insightful look into the murder of a Dublin teenager by a group of his contemporaries and a shocking portrayal of Dublin’s young, privileged nouveau riche caught in the trappings of their wealth. No one emerges from this tale unscathed or blameless.

On a late August night a young man from a privileged background by the name of Conor Harris is kicked to death outside a Dublin nightclub by others from privileged backgrounds. But only three of the attackers were identified and charged: Richard Culhane, Stephen O’Brien and Barry Fox.

The three attended the elite privately run Brookfield College and are also star players in the Dublin rugby scene. Culhane’s girlfriend is the much-admired beautiful Laura Haines who used to be the girlfriend of the victim Harris.  Haines’ behaviour at the nightclub is the trigger that finally results in Culhane and his two friends assaulting and accidentally killing Harris.

The lives of the families of both the victim and the accused are so affected by the tragedy that it leaves them in private anguish and their lives will never be the same again. The things which they took for granted have been snatched away with three kicks to the head.

The book is written as a narrative and it is this narrator who holds the story together from a distance without judging the actions of his peers. Remaining intimately connected with everyone in the story, he never appears to play a part in its development. Characters confide in him, tell him the details of their most private moments, and he shares them with us, his readers. It was towards the end that his identity is revealed. An interesting way to tell a story!