McEvoy,
Dermot. Terrible Angel. A Novel of Michael Collins in New York.
The Lyons Press: Globe Pequot. October, 2002. c304p. ISBN 1-58574-742-4.
$22.95. Fiction.
In August 1922, Michael Collins, chairman
of the Provisional Government and commander-in-chief of the
Irish Free State Army, was assassinated. Seventy years later,
newly liberated from Purgatory and at the door of heaven, he’s
told that he has to atone for his violent acts by freeing an
innocent Irishman from a lockup by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service in New York. Provided that the reader accepts this
premise, is willing to maintain a continuous suspension of
disbelief (accepting angels and miraculous events in sometimes
awkward juxtaposition with many realistic details), and doesn’t
mind the meshing of past and present (usually deftly handled),
McEvoy’s debut is an intriguing tapestry—part recollection
of New York in 1914 (during an imagined visit of Collins to
the city), part 20th-century Irish history, and part suspense
novel. It’s the latter that provides the scaffolding
for a group of stereotypical NY characters out to help or hinder
the protagonist: bartenders (male and female), detectives (good
and bad), a homeless woman, and the gay chief of MI-5's Belfast
Division. A novel of some potential; order where subject matter
is of interest to patrons.