Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful, haunting tale
Review: Once again, Owen Parry brings the Civil War era to life with "Bold Sons of Erin," the fifth book in the Abel Jones detective series. It is written in the same lovely, lyrical prose we've come to expect from Parry, but this book is darker and more disturbing than previous books, and for that I loved it all the more. Parry probes the darker reaches of the human soul with a vivid cast of complicated characters who struggle with faith and fear, sacrifice and greed--and he tells a whopping good story along the way. Jones is sent to solve a murder in his hometown, from which he has been largely absent for some time (solving those murders in the previous books, of course). As he becomes reacquainted with his family and neighbors, he discovers that his personal life has become as unsettling to him as the murder in question. Parry's descriptions of the psychological landscape in which the characters live is as evocative as the physical landscapes. The plot, which is full of surprising twists, makes this a page-turner, yet the writing is so beautiful I wanted to linger over every paragraph. Highly recommended for all readers who love a good story well told.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, haunting tale
Review: Once again, Owen Parry brings the Civil War era to life with "Bold Sons of Erin," the fifth book in the Abel Jones detective series. It is written in the same lovely, lyrical prose we've come to expect from Parry, but this book is darker and more disturbing than previous books, and for that I loved it all the more. Parry probes the darker reaches of the human soul with a vivid cast of complicated characters who struggle with faith and fear, sacrifice and greed--and he tells a whopping good story along the way. Jones is sent to solve a murder in his hometown, from which he has been largely absent for some time (solving those murders in the previous books, of course). As he becomes reacquainted with his family and neighbors, he discovers that his personal life has become as unsettling to him as the murder in question. Parry's descriptions of the psychological landscape in which the characters live is as evocative as the physical landscapes. The plot, which is full of surprising twists, makes this a page-turner, yet the writing is so beautiful I wanted to linger over every paragraph. Highly recommended for all readers who love a good story well told.
Rating:
Summary: You cannot go home again.
Review: Owen Parry continues his Able Jones series with another book that gives a real sense of time, place and people. This time the place is Able's beloved hometown in the Pensylvania coal fields which turns out to be stranger than anywhere his travels have taken him so far. Once again the author gives us thumbnail sketches of historical figures. This novel has strong gothic elements, which were, for me, the least interesting part of the book. In additon to solving murders which nobody wants solved and working from limited information Able has to deal with his wife and son, who are changing in ways he did not anticipate. He also has to defend his staunch Methodism against enticing secular influences. Able is one hero aware of his own limitations...at least partially. He does not take himself too seriously...in the end. The book ends with a description of the slaughter of federal troops at the battle of Fredericksburg, which is, by itself, reason enough to buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: You cannot go home again.
Review: Owen Parry continues his Able Jones series with another book that gives a real sense of time, place and people. This time the place is Able's beloved hometown in the Pensylvania coal fields which turns out to be stranger than anywhere his travels have taken him so far. Once again the author gives us thumbnail sketches of historical figures. This novel has strong gothic elements, which were, for me, the least interesting part of the book. In additon to solving murders which nobody wants solved and working from limited information Able has to deal with his wife and son, who are changing in ways he did not anticipate. He also has to defend his staunch Methodism against enticing secular influences. Able is one hero aware of his own limitations...at least partially. He does not take himself too seriously...in the end. The book ends with a description of the slaughter of federal troops at the battle of Fredericksburg, which is, by itself, reason enough to buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Another gem...
Review: Owen Parry has given us another gem in his series of Civil War mysteries, and this one is an emerald. *Bold Sons of Erin* takes us to the anthracite coal region of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the home of our hero, Major Abel Jones (and a region where our author has family roots as well). In *Bold Sons* we meet the Irish miners who settled in the area, learn a bit about their hard lives, and consider both those who fought for liberty wearing Union blue and those who fought for their liberty to stay out of the war. They battled prejudice and the company bosses to eke out a living, and many served valiantly for their new country and died on the fields of Antietam and Fredericksburg. The author gives us much in *Bold Sons* to think about. Parry paints a detailed picture of the coal towns and the region of central and eastern Pennsylvania in the early 1860s. We see the streets and shops and hear the voices and sounds. As other books in the series have done for other settings, *Bold Sons* helps us to imagine what life might have been like in that place and time. That's one of my favorite things about the series and about this book as well. The mystery of the murder -- or rather, murders -- at the heart of the book grabs our attention at the very beginning, as the blade of a shovel hits the wood of a coffin, and the story develops wonderfully around it. In many passages the action is vivid. Again as in the previous four novels in the series, Parry's characters are rich and colorful and his writing makes me Irish green with envy. In every respect, *Bold Sons of Erin* is a very worthy fifth book in the Abel Jones series. As a fan of the series, I enthusiastically recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Another gem...
Review: Owen Parry has given us another gem in his series of Civil War mysteries, and this one is an emerald. *Bold Sons of Erin* takes us to the anthracite coal region of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the home of our hero, Major Abel Jones (and a region where our author has family roots as well). In *Bold Sons* we meet the Irish miners who settled in the area, learn a bit about their hard lives, and consider both those who fought for liberty wearing Union blue and those who fought for their liberty to stay out of the war. They battled prejudice and the company bosses to eke out a living, and many served valiantly for their new country and died on the fields of Antietam and Fredericksburg. The author gives us much in *Bold Sons* to think about. Parry paints a detailed picture of the coal towns and the region of central and eastern Pennsylvania in the early 1860s. We see the streets and shops and hear the voices and sounds. As other books in the series have done for other settings, *Bold Sons* helps us to imagine what life might have been like in that place and time. That's one of my favorite things about the series and about this book as well. The mystery of the murder -- or rather, murders -- at the heart of the book grabs our attention at the very beginning, as the blade of a shovel hits the wood of a coffin, and the story develops wonderfully around it. In many passages the action is vivid. Again as in the previous four novels in the series, Parry's characters are rich and colorful and his writing makes me Irish green with envy. In every respect, *Bold Sons of Erin* is a very worthy fifth book in the Abel Jones series. As a fan of the series, I enthusiastically recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Gets better with each book
Review: Owen Parry's books get better with each novel. The suspense is good, the mystery is well handled. His character of Jimmy Malloy is priceless and unlike one reviewer's comments, Mr. Parry (not Perry, that's an Irish name) is even handed and speaking from a 19th century perspective). I would only have several minor nits with it: The German used has occassional grammatical errors; there is no Welsh. A man of Abel Jones' background coming from Merthyr would have spoken Welsh. Why don't he and his wife speak in Welsh in front of the workers rather than go to another room? He also comments on the baroness being from "Estland" (Estonia) and then commenting about the German barons' treatment of the Slavs. The Estonians are Finns, not slavs.
You cannot read these books fast. There is a lot of excellent imbedded wisdom. I think every fundamentalist who reads his Bible with blinders on should read the section when Malloy talks about Darwin and the creation story.
In earlier works you get a very real sense of what Washington and London were like in these days. Here you get a very real sense of the coal mines and Fredericksburg (where I live and work as a volunteer at our Civil War parks) after the Union occupation.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Wait for the Paperback!
Review: Owen Parry's latest installment in the Abel Jones series is just as moving, disturbing and eye opening as the first four novels. His sensitive and insightful portrayal of immigrants and their part in the United States of the the 1860's is absolutely dynamic, drawing the reader into a corner of our history too often ignored in the history books.
In his latest, The Bold Sons of Erin, Mr. Parry returns to the plight of the poor Irish laborers, this time in the coal mines just outside of Pottersville, the home town of the hero, Abel Jones. Abel has been asked to investigate the grisly murder of a mysterious Union general. His encounters with the Irish, the German, his fellow Welsh, and the most confounding race of all, the politicians, require all his faculties as a soldier and a Methodist as he sorts through a maze of violence, greed, racism and deadly passions.
His encounters with his wife are no walk in the park either. The tension between his old fashioned morality and her modern sensibilities make for some of the funniest scenes in the book. Of course the funniest scenes of the book are those with the irrepresible Irishman Jimmy Molloy, who forces his help on Abel Jones in an attempt to escape some of his own marriage woes.
A bittersweet and haunting novel with one of the most well drawn protaganists in Civil War fiction, I loved every page and recommend it whole-heartedly.
Rating: 
Summary: Abel Jones progresses through the Civil War
Review: This is the fifth book in the Abel Jones series, written by Owen Parry, who to my mind is approaching the status of a national treasure. For the uninitiated, Jones is a Welshman who served in Queen Victoria's army in the 1850's, was a sergeant, and saw considerable combat, especially in the Sepoy Rebellion (1857). After many experiences, he made his way to America with a wife and child, swearing to never fight again, only to be confronted with something he can't ignore or sit out: a war to free the slaves. Jones, you see, is very religious, and can't abide slavery; he must, therefore, enlist and use his soldiering skills to do his part in that institution's demise. Wounded at First Bull Run in the leg, so that he can't run or even walk without a cane, he is transferred to more indistinct duties. Instead of clerking somewhere, he's a sort of ad hoc investigator for the Union army, which sets the scene for a wonderful series of private eye novels disguised in a Civil War uniform.
In this, the fifth installment, Jones is sent to coal country in Pennsylvania to discover who murdered a Union general who had been sent there to recruit new soldiers from among the Irish coal miners. The Irish are uninterested, many of them, in fighting for the Union with the goal of freeing the slaves, who many of the Irish see as potential rivals for the menial jobs that those Irishmen now hold down. The supposed killer of the General is a local Irish coal miner, who confessed and then conveniently caught cholera and died, out of cholera season. Jones, however, is not convinced the man is dead, and digs up his grave, to view the body. Instead of the dead man, however, the coffin is inhabited by a young woman, stabbed to death, and this sets Jones to investigating to discover what's going on.
Jones is a marvelous character, full of the prejudices and quirks of the 19th Century man. These, however, don't make him evil, just a product of his times. The character is well-drawn and intelligent, and the supporting cast is well done also, from General Thomas Meagher and President Lincoln to various fictional coal miners and other figures. This book also represents the first break in the narrative of Jones' Civil War service: there's mention of his adventures surrounding the Battle of Antietam, but that episode wasn't the previous book. In addition, there's also reference to the Molly Maguires and other episodes from the post-war period, telling us that Abel Jones will probably move along after the war. One reviewer complained that the Molly Maguires aren't well-defined, here, but of course they hadn't formed yet, so they would be ill-defined, wouldn't they?
I enjoyed this book immensely, and would recommend it to any fan of mysteries, or anyone interested in the Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Abel Jones Mystery
Review: This is the fifth in Parry's wonderful Civil War detective series with protagonist Major Abel Jones, a prissy and dogged Welshman turned Union officer who runs special errands for the Lincoln White House. Jones' character has taken a turn for the worse, as "Bold Sons of Erin" revolves around the murder of a Union general, grave robbing, and the insular lower-class Irish immigrant community in Pennsylvania coal country. Parry has done his homework and the Civil War era comes to life as Jones plods his way to the solution. This reader identified the culprit less than one-third of the way through, but enjoyed the rest of the tale no less. The plot lines here are less convoluted and opaque than in the previous installment, "Honor's Kingdom", making this novel smoother if less demanding on the reader. Major Jones, however, is becoming insufferable. In earlier novels, his idiosyncrasies were sort of quaint and amusing. By now, he's grown a bit unlikeable, making one hope that his beloved wife pounds some humanity and compassion into him before the next installment comes out.
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