Alan Peter Ryan (1943–2011)

Feast your eyes upon this super creepy cover! What horror fan wouldn't want to read this book?

A seanachie in ancient Ireland was an historian and storyteller. It's a word mentioned to Jack Quinlan, an American visiting Ireland to research a book he's writing about the Irish potato famine. Jack sets himself up in a rental house for 3 months so he can explore the area and get to writing. The Irish towns he visits are small with old buildings, and the townspeople are all simple folk with simple traditions. However, these towns often have secrets and rituals and Jack is about to stumble onto some of them. Will he survive the encounter? You'll have to read Cast A Cold Eye to find out!

This book drips with atmosphere. A ghost story set in October, on the western shores of Ireland. There's fog, there's moors nearby, there's the sea bashing the rocky land day and night. Alan Ryan's prose when describing the delights of the Irish scenery was rich and vivid. It created a contrast in my mind with the horrible facts about the Irish potato famine: Such natural beauty in the scenery yet many people starved to death in the middle of it.

Unfortunately, I felt that the atmosphere did not deliver in the end. I was somehow expecting more of a bang and when the denouement arrived it somehow felt anti-climactic. However, that does not mean that I didn't enjoy the journey because I did.

Recommended to fans of atmospheric ghost stories and beautiful prose!

*Thanks to Valancourt Books for providing a free e-copy in exchange for my honest review. This is it!*… (more)

Not for me thanks...
Jack Quinlan is an American writer that decides to travel to Ireland for the span of three months in order to gather information for his new book that he is writing on the potato famine of Ireland. While he is there he witnesses some very strange things and starts seeing apparitions.
This book is far too stereotypical. And what I mean by that is it's like looking at Ireland through an American lens. The people and the countryside are exactly what people in America think that it looks like and how they act which coming from a person who's actually read books on Ireland by people from Ireland, makes this entire book one big eye roll.
While Jack's cocky American attitude makes him an interesting character and his love interest and the banter that they have between the two also very interesting, I found this book to be little more than dry and boring. Most of the book is of Jack driving around, seeing his apparitions, and going to the pub.
Speaking of Jack and his love interest let's talk about that for a moment... Jack seems to be absolutely obsessed with her breasts and mentions them more than several times throughout the book. Their sex scene was also completely overdone in my opinion and the writing seems to be completely outlandish at this point in the book. Not to mention the fact that at this point they had only met up with each other a few times and now all of a sudden they're having sex in the rain after just seeing a ghost.... like WTF?
The last thing that I had a problem with was there really seems to not be any danger aspect in this book. I mean yes he is seeing ghosts and that is pretty creepy but they are not doing anything and nothing really happens throughout the book. It just comes off as very foolish and pointless.
All in all I will give this book 2 stars for the author's effort and because I didn't hate the book but I really didn't like it either. Can't say I'd recommend this one.… (more)

CAST A COLD EYE preys on my mind. I first read it from our local library when it came out and it gave me nightmares. Then I found a 1st Edition hardcover of it in a book shop in Inverness, where it was stacked by accident in a shelf of Scottish hardcover crime books. I bought it, read it again, and got more nightmares.

There's something going on in these pages that keys directly into my psyche. I think it's a Celt thing, and small towns where old men mutter secrets to each other in smoky bars while someone in the background sings the old songs. I know a bit about that kind of place. And so did Alan Ryan, a wonderful writer taken from us too soon.

He spoke in interviews of how he dodn't spend uch time on research, but went for feel and gut instinct in writing it, and in doing so, I think he too tapped into something primal about blood, and kin, and community.

It's a book with heart and soul, wearing both on its sleeve. Sure, it gets melodramatic in places, but in others there's a deft handling of creeping dread, and of how the supernatural might creep into a world view otherwise inimical to it.

I've found that not many of my supernatural fiction writing buddies have read this one -- it seems to have gone under the radar back in the day, and been largely ignored. Which is a great shame, as it's a great ghost story, a fine piece of writing, and a lovely examination of a way of life that's disappearing fast. Hopefully the Valacourt edition means more people are finding it.

I love it...even if it still gives me nightmares.… (more)