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The Rule Book
It is April in the Wicklow mountains and a young woman is found dead, seemingly sacrificed. Accompanying her body is Chapter One of "The Rule Book" - a self-help guide for serial killers. The case is assigned to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and headed by Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy. Since the recent death of his wife, McEvoy is a shadow of his former self - two stones lighter with a wardrobe of ill-fitting suits, struggling to quite the cigarettes that killed his wife, and still getting used to being a single parent. Less than twenty-four hours later a second murder is committed. Self-claiming the title 'The Raven', the killer starts to taunt the police and the media. When the third body is discovered it is clear that The Raven intends to slaughter one victim each day until "The Rule Book" is published in full. With the pressure from his superiors, the press, and politicians rising, McEvoy goes after a killer that is seemingly several steps ahead. Is the "Rule Book" as definitive as The Raven claims?
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Rob Kitchin
55 books107 followersI'm a professor at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and the author or editor of 28 academic books and a 12 volume encyclopedia, and author of four crime novels and two collections of short stories. My passions are reading and writing crime fiction and undertaking research on social issues. I contribute to three blogs: The View From the Blue House, Ireland After NAMA, and The Programmable City.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 21, 2012
The Rule Book is an intricately plotted police procedural set in and around Dublin, in the atmosphere of impending social and political failure that eventually led to the Celtic Tiger having its head unceremoniously expelled from its ass by the 2008 banking crisis.
The book was published in 2009, but Kitchin's 'Acknowledgements' on the final page are dated August 2008. Thus, he was probably writing the story in 2007 and the beginning of 2008. The novel shows how contemporary crime fiction, as opposed to historical crime fiction--which has the benefit of hindsight--can, in the hands of a prescient writer, capture the most salient elements of a corrupt state, although at the time of writing the writer doesn't know what is going to happen in a few months' or a few years' time.
Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy is put in charge of the hunt for a serial killer who, after every murder, leaves behind a deliberate set of clues, but in never enough detail--until it is too late. McEvoy is a decent man, a person whose human failings are numerous, and whose grieving for his dead wife, prevents him from functioning effectively, either as father or policeman. These traits reminded me of the police officers to be found in the crime novels of Henning Mankell and Arnaldur Indridason. A big difference between Kitchin and Mankell or Indridason is that Kitchin refuses to tie everything up neatly with a pink bow at the end of the book.
You want Colm McEvoy to succeed but, at every turn of Kitchin's cruel handling of him, he screws up even worse than the time before, and the reader becomes more and more convinced of what McEvoy admits himself, that if the killer is ever unmasked it will only be by accident. Kitchin invites you to to witness McEvoy being used as a convenient scape-goat by his superior, a commanding officer who says he is there to protect him but who is, in reality, a cynical placeholder. Time and again, McEvoy is taken off the case, only to be put straight back on it, as his commanding officers (his boss and his boss's boss, right up to the Minister for Justice) realize that, if they no longer have a fall-guy, they will have to take the responsibility for failure themselves. Colm McEvoy is also undermined throughout the book by a Detective Inspector named Charlie Deegan, who brought to mind the way in which another self-serving Charlie, who went under the surname of Haughey, undermined the then solid underpinnings of the Irish State with which he was entrusted. Deegan's conduct, undermining Colm McEvoy at every opportunity, gets him taken off the case, once, but people in positions of power are ready to pull strings to reinstate him, and he too is kept on until it is too late.
Kitchin's descriptions of the hounding of Colm McEvoy and his family, by journalists from the Sun, and the influence the press had on figures of power in Ireland (terrified of having people from abroad scrutinize their incompetence) foreshadows the well-deserved wave of public disgust in the U.K. that was soon to hit News International and all who sail in her.
Kitchin dissects an Ireland where men who get into positions of power--shown here in the shape of the country's police force, but not limited to them--suffer from a lack of expertise in a field they are supposed to master; spend an inordinate amount of time trying to please the media; and pay more attention to form than substance. Colm McEvoy's boss is more interested in the state of his clothes, and how he will appear to the television cameras at the frequent press briefings, than he is in the details of the murders McEvoy has to investigate. People in authority refuse to shoulder the responsibility that should be the corollary of their well-paying jobs; push important decisions down the chain of command until they find the guy who will take the fall; plan every action in the way that will best cover their asses, and, most tellingly of all, have no idea of what needs to be done to thwart sophisticated enemies, whether they be serial killers, (or, by extension), financial whizz-kids, who are left free to run rings around the stately, plump, prevaricating authorities.
Through the prism of the Irish police force, the novel depicts a whole country that doesn't have the smarts to understand any of the challenges it has brought on itself by moving away from a rustic set of values towards items of interest dear to the gutter press: sensationalism, human weakness, the wreckage resulting from the availability of cheap and plentiful booze and drugs and the rivers of teenage vomit and drunken violence running through Dublin's O'Connell Street late on a Saturday night.
The novel points out that there has never been a serial killer in Ireland. Until four years ago, the Republic of Ireland had also not had a banking crisis that beggared belief when it happened, but for which all the signs and clues had been there for perspicacious economists like Morgan Kelly. Morgan Kelly, a man who specialized in the economics of Medieval Iceland, realized what was about to hit Ireland when he discovered, nearly by accident, that neither the Banks nor the Government were following their own basic economic rule book.
Colm McEvoy, in some ways, brought to mind the tragic figure of Brian Lenihan junior, the Irish Minister for Finance, and especially the night he was left alone to fend for himself, a distraught figure wandering the back roads of Ireland, charged by his political, banking and property-developer masters and colleagues to find a silver-bullet solution to the Irish banking crisis, a fall guy who was immediately blamed for the only remedy he could find, the disastrous state guarantee of the Irish Banks.
At the time of the novel, McEvoy is shown as a symbol of the decent people who were trying to hold Ireland together in face of an unprecedented assault on its identity. Too busy at work to get a regular wash, in dire lack of sleep, wearing a disheveled suit, now two sizes too large for him since he began to grieve for his late wife, he is obviously not up to the job he eagerly takes on. All he has going for him is a basic level of competence and a streak of honesty, but he is no match for the evil mind of the sophisticated killer, who spies on him and taunts him with clues which will eventually show that the center of everything rotten lies in what has constituted a pillar of the Irish State, ever since its founding: Maynooth.
Rob Kitchin leaves the reader with the feeling that what he or she has understood is pretty bad, but worse is still to come. Any other mind like the serial killer's--determined, sophisticated and evil--will also be free to run rings around the plodders to whom it arrogantly gives all the clues. The authorities will be incapable of catching the most powerful criminals in their midst, even when the wrongdoers disregard their own rules and make basic mistakes or, as the serial killer does at one moment, hold the door open for them while wearing a ridiculous disguise.
The Rule Book is a page-turner and will give any discerning reader of crime fiction extremely good value for his or her money.
The book was published in 2009, but Kitchin's 'Acknowledgements' on the final page are dated August 2008. Thus, he was probably writing the story in 2007 and the beginning of 2008. The novel shows how contemporary crime fiction, as opposed to historical crime fiction--which has the benefit of hindsight--can, in the hands of a prescient writer, capture the most salient elements of a corrupt state, although at the time of writing the writer doesn't know what is going to happen in a few months' or a few years' time.
Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy is put in charge of the hunt for a serial killer who, after every murder, leaves behind a deliberate set of clues, but in never enough detail--until it is too late. McEvoy is a decent man, a person whose human failings are numerous, and whose grieving for his dead wife, prevents him from functioning effectively, either as father or policeman. These traits reminded me of the police officers to be found in the crime novels of Henning Mankell and Arnaldur Indridason. A big difference between Kitchin and Mankell or Indridason is that Kitchin refuses to tie everything up neatly with a pink bow at the end of the book.
You want Colm McEvoy to succeed but, at every turn of Kitchin's cruel handling of him, he screws up even worse than the time before, and the reader becomes more and more convinced of what McEvoy admits himself, that if the killer is ever unmasked it will only be by accident. Kitchin invites you to to witness McEvoy being used as a convenient scape-goat by his superior, a commanding officer who says he is there to protect him but who is, in reality, a cynical placeholder. Time and again, McEvoy is taken off the case, only to be put straight back on it, as his commanding officers (his boss and his boss's boss, right up to the Minister for Justice) realize that, if they no longer have a fall-guy, they will have to take the responsibility for failure themselves. Colm McEvoy is also undermined throughout the book by a Detective Inspector named Charlie Deegan, who brought to mind the way in which another self-serving Charlie, who went under the surname of Haughey, undermined the then solid underpinnings of the Irish State with which he was entrusted. Deegan's conduct, undermining Colm McEvoy at every opportunity, gets him taken off the case, once, but people in positions of power are ready to pull strings to reinstate him, and he too is kept on until it is too late.
Kitchin's descriptions of the hounding of Colm McEvoy and his family, by journalists from the Sun, and the influence the press had on figures of power in Ireland (terrified of having people from abroad scrutinize their incompetence) foreshadows the well-deserved wave of public disgust in the U.K. that was soon to hit News International and all who sail in her.
Kitchin dissects an Ireland where men who get into positions of power--shown here in the shape of the country's police force, but not limited to them--suffer from a lack of expertise in a field they are supposed to master; spend an inordinate amount of time trying to please the media; and pay more attention to form than substance. Colm McEvoy's boss is more interested in the state of his clothes, and how he will appear to the television cameras at the frequent press briefings, than he is in the details of the murders McEvoy has to investigate. People in authority refuse to shoulder the responsibility that should be the corollary of their well-paying jobs; push important decisions down the chain of command until they find the guy who will take the fall; plan every action in the way that will best cover their asses, and, most tellingly of all, have no idea of what needs to be done to thwart sophisticated enemies, whether they be serial killers, (or, by extension), financial whizz-kids, who are left free to run rings around the stately, plump, prevaricating authorities.
Through the prism of the Irish police force, the novel depicts a whole country that doesn't have the smarts to understand any of the challenges it has brought on itself by moving away from a rustic set of values towards items of interest dear to the gutter press: sensationalism, human weakness, the wreckage resulting from the availability of cheap and plentiful booze and drugs and the rivers of teenage vomit and drunken violence running through Dublin's O'Connell Street late on a Saturday night.
The novel points out that there has never been a serial killer in Ireland. Until four years ago, the Republic of Ireland had also not had a banking crisis that beggared belief when it happened, but for which all the signs and clues had been there for perspicacious economists like Morgan Kelly. Morgan Kelly, a man who specialized in the economics of Medieval Iceland, realized what was about to hit Ireland when he discovered, nearly by accident, that neither the Banks nor the Government were following their own basic economic rule book.
Colm McEvoy, in some ways, brought to mind the tragic figure of Brian Lenihan junior, the Irish Minister for Finance, and especially the night he was left alone to fend for himself, a distraught figure wandering the back roads of Ireland, charged by his political, banking and property-developer masters and colleagues to find a silver-bullet solution to the Irish banking crisis, a fall guy who was immediately blamed for the only remedy he could find, the disastrous state guarantee of the Irish Banks.
At the time of the novel, McEvoy is shown as a symbol of the decent people who were trying to hold Ireland together in face of an unprecedented assault on its identity. Too busy at work to get a regular wash, in dire lack of sleep, wearing a disheveled suit, now two sizes too large for him since he began to grieve for his late wife, he is obviously not up to the job he eagerly takes on. All he has going for him is a basic level of competence and a streak of honesty, but he is no match for the evil mind of the sophisticated killer, who spies on him and taunts him with clues which will eventually show that the center of everything rotten lies in what has constituted a pillar of the Irish State, ever since its founding: Maynooth.
Rob Kitchin leaves the reader with the feeling that what he or she has understood is pretty bad, but worse is still to come. Any other mind like the serial killer's--determined, sophisticated and evil--will also be free to run rings around the plodders to whom it arrogantly gives all the clues. The authorities will be incapable of catching the most powerful criminals in their midst, even when the wrongdoers disregard their own rules and make basic mistakes or, as the serial killer does at one moment, hold the door open for them while wearing a ridiculous disguise.
The Rule Book is a page-turner and will give any discerning reader of crime fiction extremely good value for his or her money.
October 13, 2009
Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy is called to the scene of murder where the body of a young woman has been found in a way suggesting that she passively accepted her death. The case gets even stranger when a document is found at the scene written as the first chapter in a self-help guide for serial killers. Soon after, a search of the area locates six carefully placed business cards advertising The Rule Book with a picture of a raven. Does this mean six more victims?
As bodies of the second and third victims are found on succeeding days, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at work in Dublin.
Choosing a serial killer story for your first crime fiction novel is a bold move. It is too easy for stories in this genre for the focus become one of shocking the reader with graphic gore. So I was very pleased to see that Kitchin has written a very good police procedural that features a serial killer. This isn't to say that there isn't violence, there is, but it isn't drawn out in a voyeuristic fashion. There is one exception but I looked at it as means of showing just how far the killer has separated himself from any remaining humanity.
I don't want to say too much about the killer, The Raven. The hunt is intercut with scenes from The Raven's point of view and more of his methods are revealed. He is arrogant in his feeling of superiority and disdain for the police but not infallible. The way the clues are constructed and what the police do with them is clever, unique even, and adds to the enjoyment of the story.
Colm McEvoy is sympathetic and engaging character. He is still morning the death of his wife and trying to be a good father to his daughter while conducting the hunt for a psychopath. With few clues to go on, he knows that there will have to be more deaths until a pattern emerges.
With serial killers rare in Ireland, the case gets world-wide attention and pressure from superior on the police force, politicians, and the press to produce results. Added to McEvoy's problems is Charlie Deegan, an ambitious, arrogant, and back-stabbing young detective whose interest is more in making a name for himself that being a member of the team and is not above keeping information to himself.
I liked the way Kitchin builds the tension and shows how the responsibility wears on McEvoy. I really felt his frustration and weariness as leads go nowhere and the dread of more bodies bears down on him.
The author has also developed a good cast of supporting characters. In addition to the other detectives, there is Hannah Fallon, the no-nonsense leader of the crime scene investigation, Elaine Jone, the state pathologist who is determined not to let McEvoy sink into him misery, and Kathy Jacobs, a Scottish profiler. Charlie Deegan is used effectively to add tension and will also make an excellent recurring character.
Kitchin has the foundation for a good series and I closed the book wishing that there already was a sequel available.
I enjoyed The Rule Book and the story, characters, and writing style make it one I would recommend to readers who like police procedurals and can handle some graphic gore.
As bodies of the second and third victims are found on succeeding days, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at work in Dublin.
Choosing a serial killer story for your first crime fiction novel is a bold move. It is too easy for stories in this genre for the focus become one of shocking the reader with graphic gore. So I was very pleased to see that Kitchin has written a very good police procedural that features a serial killer. This isn't to say that there isn't violence, there is, but it isn't drawn out in a voyeuristic fashion. There is one exception but I looked at it as means of showing just how far the killer has separated himself from any remaining humanity.
I don't want to say too much about the killer, The Raven. The hunt is intercut with scenes from The Raven's point of view and more of his methods are revealed. He is arrogant in his feeling of superiority and disdain for the police but not infallible. The way the clues are constructed and what the police do with them is clever, unique even, and adds to the enjoyment of the story.
Colm McEvoy is sympathetic and engaging character. He is still morning the death of his wife and trying to be a good father to his daughter while conducting the hunt for a psychopath. With few clues to go on, he knows that there will have to be more deaths until a pattern emerges.
With serial killers rare in Ireland, the case gets world-wide attention and pressure from superior on the police force, politicians, and the press to produce results. Added to McEvoy's problems is Charlie Deegan, an ambitious, arrogant, and back-stabbing young detective whose interest is more in making a name for himself that being a member of the team and is not above keeping information to himself.
I liked the way Kitchin builds the tension and shows how the responsibility wears on McEvoy. I really felt his frustration and weariness as leads go nowhere and the dread of more bodies bears down on him.
The author has also developed a good cast of supporting characters. In addition to the other detectives, there is Hannah Fallon, the no-nonsense leader of the crime scene investigation, Elaine Jone, the state pathologist who is determined not to let McEvoy sink into him misery, and Kathy Jacobs, a Scottish profiler. Charlie Deegan is used effectively to add tension and will also make an excellent recurring character.
Kitchin has the foundation for a good series and I closed the book wishing that there already was a sequel available.
I enjoyed The Rule Book and the story, characters, and writing style make it one I would recommend to readers who like police procedurals and can handle some graphic gore.
June 27, 2009
Author of academic texts such as The Cognition of Geographic Space, Maynooth-based Rob Kitchin demonstrates with The Rule Book that can also write fiction convincingly. His debut novel opens with the discovery of a woman's body at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, murdered by a sword in what appears to be a bizarre sacrifice. Nearby is a typed note, headed "The Rules: Chapter One M: Choosing a victim R" and business cards which read "The Rule Book: A Self-Help Guide to would-be serial killers. In all good bookshops soon."
A killer- soon to be known in the media as The Raven- vows to deliver his rule book one chapter, one victim per day over the course of a week. To catch him and save six lives, a recently-widowed member of An Garda Síochána named Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy must find the strength and smarts to identify the boldest serial killer Ireland has ever seen.
Praise is very much due for breaking the mystery genre's cornier rules. In almost every crime film or feature, for example, the baddie turns out to be a character with whom the detective has been acquainted all along. The murderer in 1980's courtroom drama Suspect, for instance, turning out to be the judge trying Cher's case. Ugh! That might be a twist that conforms to literary convention, but it's about as likely in reality as mega-hottie Paulina Porizkova developing a deep sexual fixation with an irreverent online reviewer.
The Rule Book deserves praise for breaking one other golden diktat of detective fiction, but for that readers have to wait for Kitchin's Epilogue. Nothing is predictable.
Critical Mick says: The Rule Book puts Rob Kitchin on the Irish Crime map. It's gripping, gruesome, and a hell of a fun puzzle. It shows careful research (right down to the latitude and longitude of various points around Dublin's Phoenix Park) and digs deep into an interesting character. I was kept guessing until the end, desperately hoping that this novel would not go the crappy Hollywood route. There is a town called Hollywood in Ireland, but this serial killer's spree gives it a wide berth.
Full review can be found on criticalmick.com
A killer- soon to be known in the media as The Raven- vows to deliver his rule book one chapter, one victim per day over the course of a week. To catch him and save six lives, a recently-widowed member of An Garda Síochána named Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy must find the strength and smarts to identify the boldest serial killer Ireland has ever seen.
Praise is very much due for breaking the mystery genre's cornier rules. In almost every crime film or feature, for example, the baddie turns out to be a character with whom the detective has been acquainted all along. The murderer in 1980's courtroom drama Suspect, for instance, turning out to be the judge trying Cher's case. Ugh! That might be a twist that conforms to literary convention, but it's about as likely in reality as mega-hottie Paulina Porizkova developing a deep sexual fixation with an irreverent online reviewer.
The Rule Book deserves praise for breaking one other golden diktat of detective fiction, but for that readers have to wait for Kitchin's Epilogue. Nothing is predictable.
Critical Mick says: The Rule Book puts Rob Kitchin on the Irish Crime map. It's gripping, gruesome, and a hell of a fun puzzle. It shows careful research (right down to the latitude and longitude of various points around Dublin's Phoenix Park) and digs deep into an interesting character. I was kept guessing until the end, desperately hoping that this novel would not go the crappy Hollywood route. There is a town called Hollywood in Ireland, but this serial killer's spree gives it a wide berth.
Full review can be found on criticalmick.com
July 7, 2011
Plot was engaging, but the writing lacked something. It was simple and repetitive - I can't count how many times protagonist Colm McEvoy "placed his plastic cigarette between his lips." Also, I think it's creepy and unrealistic when children in fiction act too much like adults, and Colm's daughter Gemma practically becomes her recently deceased mother in miniature. I also wish the end had been either a bit more definitive or deliberately open-ended; as it was, it felt like the novel ended one chapter too early.
These are relatively minor complaints, though. I love a bizarre murder mystery, and this one will certainly keep you guessing. Nothing ground-breaking, but thoroughly enjoyable.
These are relatively minor complaints, though. I love a bizarre murder mystery, and this one will certainly keep you guessing. Nothing ground-breaking, but thoroughly enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews