The Blood Miracles is Lisa McInerney’s follow-up to her award-winning debut novel The Glorious Heresies.
Published to critical acclaim in 2015, it featured a bizarre murder that entangled the lives of five marginalised characters living in post-crash Ireland.
The Blood Miracles returns to Ryan Cusack; a teenage drug dealer in the earlier novel.
Five years on, he is trying to manage his burgeoning career as one of Cork city’s hard men. However, his mental health is fragile and his relationship with long-term girlfriend Karine, disintegrating.
Plagued by the childhood loss of his mother, Ryan returns again and again to the gifts she left him: a flair for the piano and fluency in Italian.
It’s the latter skill his underworld mentor, Dan, exploits to establish a relationship with the Neapolitan mafia and set up a new ecstasy supply route to the city.
With writing as punchy as the characters, The Blood Miracles is more than just a crime thriller. An intense and moving read, it explores class, culture and the toxic effects of modern masculinity.
