Martin Fallon is a legend in the Organization. He joined the IRA at 17, and was the leader
of the Ulster Organization at 22, and served nine years at the Dartmoor Prison
before escaping to Ireland where he lives in the rural County Cavan. Fallon earns a living writing nondescript
thrillers, drinks too much, and is generally hiding from the world. His comfortable, if not satisfying, life is
interrupted when an old associate seeks him out with a special job.
Patrick Rogan, leader of the Ulster Organization,
has been arrested and he has sent out an ultimatum. If he isn’t busted out before he reaches
Belfast he will spill everything he knows about the Organization in exchange
for a reduced sentence. Rogan is not
well liked, but he knows enough to set the IRA back years. Fallon isn’t keen on getting back into the
game, but he allows himself to be manipulated, and soon he is back in Northern
Ireland on a mission to rescue Rogan.
Cry
of the Hunter is the footprint for many of Mr
Patterson’s later novels featuring Irish anti-heroes. The protagonist is a man fallen far below his
station; in this case Martin Fallon is a product of Queen’s University, and in
the words of his favorite professor—“a
fine man ruined and a good mind wasted.”
He is as much a man of ideas as he is of action. He is an idealist who knows his actions are
less than ideal, and the dialogue is that of the standard Harry Patterson Irish
rogue—think Liam Devlin, and Sean Dillon.
The action doesn’t play out exactly as expected—the
tension of the story is between Martin Fallon and Patrick Rogan rather than
Martin Fallon and the Constabulary. It
is plotted with Mr Patterson’s deft hand, and the character of Martin Fallon is
developed beyond just a simple cut out.
Fallon is a romantic who is afraid he has lost his nerve, and he also
fears the Organization’s momentum. The
good men are being replaced by sociopathic hoods, which is exactly what Rogan
is.
The prose is sharp, stark, seemingly simple, and at
places almost lyrical—
“It
was a fine morning with a clear sky and the sun was beginning to lift above the
horizon. He drove in silence for half an
hour and then the girl spoke.”
Cry
of the Hunter is plainly one of Harry Patterson’s
first novels—it suffers from a naïve exuberance of ideas and mood—but it is a
good example of a quick, exciting, and entertaining thriller. The action scenes are well written—
“Fallon
moved so quickly that Doolan didn’t stand a chance. A fist caught him high on the right cheek and
he stumbled, tripped over a loose rug and fell heavily to the floor.”
And the mood is something shifting between brooding
despondence—it rains for more than half of the novel—and naïve hope, but it
does so with the slightest touch of humor—
“He
started to walk faster. It wouldn’t do
to collapse in the street. That would be
stupid.”
—and a bushel of romantic ideas. There are also a few terrific terms I wasn’t
familiar with. One example is referring to
the police as “peelers,” which is a slang term derived from Sir Robert Peel’s
surname; the founder of the Irish Constabulary.
Cry
of the Hunter is worth reading on its own merits, but
it is even more interesting (and possibly entertaining) as a study of Harry
Patterson’s craft, and just how far it advanced from this novel to its younger
siblings with similar plot structures (i. e. A Prayer for the Dying, and The
Savage Day).
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