A serving policeman himself, Galvin's first novel is about a murder in a small town in Ireland. Part of the enjoyment of the book is to be found in the internecine rivalries and feuds waged between the various ranks as they jockey for position in the course of the investigation. John Burns is a well-known businessman in Dunsheerin and, when his battered body is discovered floating in a stream, the happening sparks off a train of events that unearths quite a few dark secrets. Garda Jack Hegarty is the local man on the spot but soon a top brass team arrives to dig into the why and the wherefore of the killing.
It turns out that Burns was a wife-batterer, and it is the hard-done-by spouse who becomes the first suspect. But then a connection is made between the victim and a high-profile Dublin criminal named Michael Carroll. Could it have been he who sent his hard men to teach Burns a lesson, or was there a deeper, darker motive for the murder?
Author Galvin manages to keep the denouement well hidden until the climax of the novel. There is nothing terribly original about Bog Warriors; as a matter of fact it is a rather old-fashioned read, with simplistic delineation of character and an over-use of cliche and coincidence. But there is an enthusiastic sweep to the story that carries it along nicely, and the humour is never forced. If one can compare a book to a pipe and slippers, then Bog Warriors is familiar, comfortable and easy on the little grey cells.