Broken Dreams (Joe Geraghty 1)

Author/Guide: Nick Quantrill

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Take an historic tour around the city of Hull and see its many faces and its underbelly in full and gritty detail

ISBN: 978-0955407024
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

Joe Geraghty is a private investigator, used to working from one case to the next in the hope of making his next rent. Life is tough and work is slow but then a case comes in which changes his life. A local businessman to investigate a member of his staff who has seemingly gone missing. Sounds normal enough. But when she is found bleeding to death in her bed, the case is a whole other ball game.

The investigation soon leads back to the days when Hull had a thriving fishing industry. A man who used to be a gangster but how is now involved in the city’s regeneration plans also might have some answers.

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Travel Guide

Set against the historic city of Hull, the story of a PR investigating the disappearance of a local worker leads the reader on a journey back into the city’s heartland, fishing industry and gangster underworld. The fishing heritage is something which has made this city what it is today and throws a spotlight on its past –
I’d read that when the trawlermen returned to Hull. They’d often pick up substantial paypackets. The men worked hard and played hard, taxing around the city and spending their money in the pubs of Hessle Road before heading back to the docks for another trip.

An investigation which leads to Geraghty, a realistic and gritty man to come face to face with the local gangland boss. Joe is a product of his city in many ways. There is a sense of social reality through each one of the city’s many layers. This is a city under regeneration, its past changing on one hand (fishing industry) and sometimes even catching up with itself in other ways. A dark pattern of corruption and greed starts to spread out across the city and its people…

The flesh of the details and descriptions of Hull add to the overall gritty realism of the novel. This is an urban landscape not usually on a literary map and the city of Hull proves to be a fascinating and interesting backdrop as well as a character in its own right. One which is colourfully described if the palette is only made up of dirty greys and off whites.

Hull like Joe Geraghty is a bit of a dark horse…