Synopses & Reviews
Irish immigrant brothers Michael and Thomas O'Driscoll have returned from the brutal front lines of the Civil War. Unable to adapt to life as farm laborers, they reenlist in the army and are thrown into ferocious combat with Red Cloud's coalition of Indian tribes in the heart of Montana's Powder River Valley. Thomas finds love amidst the daily carnage--which leads to a moment of violence that will change the brothers' lives forever.
Meanwhile, following a double murder in an illicit brothel, Lieutenant Martin Molloy sets off to track down the killers. As he journeys to a remote outpost, he meets Irish nationalist rebels and anti-immigrant nativists who prove to be violently opposed to his investigations.
Wolves of Eden blends intimate historical detail and emotional acuity in a haunting narrative that explores timeless themes of morality, the resilience of the human spirit, and the injustice implicit in warfare.
Review
“Kevin McCarthy shows himself to be an inspired explorer of history’s lost and forgotten causes. Wolves of Eden is a war story, mystery and elegy — thrilling, unflinching and finely observed.” Ed O’Loughlin, author of the Giller Prize–shortlisted novel Minds of Winter
Review
“Kevin McCarthy is a fresh voice, and a keen one. This Irish thriller writer has ventured boldly into a new continent and a new history. His place is the American West in the 1860s, when the long, sad carnage was winding its grim way toward Wounded Knee. With this story of profound tragedy, his new readers will be many.” Larry McMurtry, author of The Last Kind Words Saloon
Review
“When it comes to saturation-level historical authenticity — the sense of being there, alive and at large in the vanished past — I think Kevin McCarthy is in the company of masters like Patrick O’Brian and Hilary Mantel. Wolves of Eden is also a shiningly humane novel, all the more credible for being told by an Irish author, about the immigrant soldiers who found themselves on the front lines during the harrowing seizure of the American West.” Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and A Friend of Mr. Lincoln
Review
“Absorbing…. It's the well-drawn characters and riveting scenes that make this novel memorable.” Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Kevin McCarthy is the author of the acclaimed historical crime novel Peeler, selected by the Irish Times as one of its top ten thrillers of 2010. McCarthy's second novel, Irregulars, was shortlisted for the 2013 Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.