Bloodland: A Novel

Written by Alan Glynn

Narrated by Peter Berkrot

A helicopter crash off the coast of Ireland sends unexpected ripples through the international community in this intricate new thriller from the author of Winterland and Limitless (now a major motion picture).

Susie Monaghan was on the cusp of stardom when her life was cut short by a tragic helicopter crash. After a full investigation, her death was ruled an accident: case closed. But a hungry young journalist named Jimmy Gilroy isn't buying the official story. Before dying, Susie's path had crossed with an unlikely gallery of powerful men: an ex-prime minister with a carefully guarded secret; the businessman brother of a U.S. senator angling for the Oval Office; and a billionaire investor with his eye on an extremely rare commodity. Might there also be a link between Susie's death and a deranged security contractor operating in Congo?

Piece by piece, Jimmy uncovers a bizarre nexus of coincidence among these disparate people and events, revealing a conspiracy of frightening reach and consequence - one that could cost him his life.

Set against a vividly drawn world of corporate and political intrigue, Alan Glynn's Bloodland is a riveting paranoid thriller of uncommon depth and pause-resistant suspense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Jan 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781427221209

Alan Glynn

ALAN GLYNN is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. His first novel, The Dark Fields, was republished as Limitless and simultaneously released as a film of the same name in March 2011, and was subsequently developed into a TV series by CBS. The winner of the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award and a finalist for an Edgar Award, Glynn is also the author of Winterland, Bloodland, Graveland, and Paradime. He lives in Ireland.

Reviews for Bloodland

[chas.newport · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely superb. Natural dialogue mixed with concise accurate descriptions of places and each character's physical appearance and mental/emotional state. I immediately bought his other two books and will buy all future ones.

[johnwbeha · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This just about earned a third star, and although I enjoyed it, I won't be rushing to read any more. The Irish setting is interesting at first, but once the global elements creep in, it loses focus and, to some extent, believability.
Why are young journalist's so often called Jimmy?

[brleach · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book I've read that was written by Alan Glynn, and I am growing increasingly frustrated by his endings. He gets a great story going - and then stops in the middle of it, or at least before the larger ramifications of the story have really unfolded. It's not that I can't imagine how everything might end, it's that I would like to know what Glynn imagined as the ending, since it's his story in the first place.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When out of work journalist Jim Gilroy is approached to write a biography of dead model Susie Monaghan strange things begin to happen. Gilroy was caught up some time earlier by the downsizing of Ireland's press industry, lost his job, and this is his first chance to earn for some time. So when he is contacted by a former mentor and advised to drop the job, he can't help wondering why. Then a drunken former prime minister tells him that "it was never about Susie. She was just collateral damage." So, Gilroy asks himself, who is it "it" really about? And what exactly is "it"? Threads begin to converge as Gilroy persists.This was a very tight read. The style is a little disconcerting as the narrative changes point-of-view rather abruptly and I found myself searching the text for clues to whose voice it was. There was a similar situation with settings as we bounce from Dublin to London to Paris, New York, Washington, and The Congo.The blurb is right: this is about corruption in high places, and in big business, but it is also about the subtleties of economic multinationalism, and the webs that connect us all wherever we live.

[suetu_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The connections beneath the surfaceIn a marketplace filled with legal thrillers, techno-thrillers, and crime thrillers galore, a true conspiracy thriller is a rare animal indeed. This one opens with some sort of paramilitary operation in Congo. The reader is thrown into a heightened situation without any exposition or background, and it’s a little disorientating. From there, we are in the study of a young, Irish journalist, Jimmy Gilroy. These are hard times for journalists. Papers aren’t hiring, so you take what you can get. What Jimmy has gotten is a cheesy biography of a troubled actress who died in a helicopter crash a few years earlier. He is stunned when a former mentor calls and puts some not too subtle pressure on him to drop this utterly inconsequential job. But it’s a paycheck, and he needs it. Next, the reader is introduced to a series of powerful men on both sides of the Atlantic, from businessmen to politicians. Glynn isn’t spoon-feeding readers his story, and it takes a while to make the connections. What other readers describe as being “slow,” I chalk up to complexity and brilliance. The author made me work a little. There were a lot of names, places, and people to keep straight and links to discover. I got to uncover what was going on alongside Jimmy Gilroy, and I loved it every step of the way!Now, this isn’t a novel with a lot of room for character development. Actually, I think there was more “lack of character” development, because there were some seriously morally bankrupt people in this tale. But I did think it was well written. More than anything, I just thought the plotting was so deliciously complex and smart. It was a pure joy putting these pieces together. I thought the world of international powerbrokers in which Glynn set his story was fascinating. While this novel didn’t have the same kind of pacing as an action thriller, I found myself unable to stop turning the pages. Intellectually, I just NEEDED to know what was going on. Mr. Glynn gave me several satisfying twists and turns, and I never came close to guessing the ending. Tension builds throughout the novel as Jimmy gets closer and closer to the truth, and as those who are obfuscating it get increasingly desperate. It’s all believable enough to make one wonder how much of the world really works like this. I’d highly recommend Bloodland to patient readers willing to work a little for a solution.

[rgazala_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Can something as mundane as a hand accidentally slammed in a car door derail an eminent United States senator's promising presidential prospects? In Alan Glynn's new international thriller, "Bloodland," it might do so just as readily as the mysterious helicopter crash off Ireland's coast years earlier that killed a coked-up young Hollywood trollop at the peak of her notoriety. Without a steady job in hand or on the horizon, young journalist Jimmy Gilroy reluctantly finds himself freelancing on spec to write a biography of the famously dead starlet. The vapid celebrity expose he dreads writing becomes something vastly more dreadful as finds himself delving into a savage conspiracy that sucks him into an increasingly menacing labyrinth of lies and corpses reaching from the depths of war torn African jungles to the steps of the White House.Though it takes a little while to get off the ground, Glynn's novel is a worthy read for conspiracy thriller fans. The Great Recession's rapacious specters loom in the book's background as Glynn deftly weaves spiraling plot lines teeming with twisted characters, all of whom are intriguingly flawed and none of whom are particularly loveable. The dialogue is crisp, and thanks to Glynn's fastidious research the settings ring both exotic and true. As with many of the best modern thrillers, a real-life story chillingly similar to the tale Glynn spins in "Bloodland" could be the breathless headlines on tomorrow's news.