Kurzbeschreibung bei Amazon:
Viel mehr als nur ein Thriller - Psalmen des Todes ist ein literarischer Hochgenuß. Seine apokalyptischen Schilderungen Nordirlands schaffen eine einzigartige Atmosphäre, die den Leser so schnell nicht mehr losläßt.

Christopher Petit's 'The Psalm Killer' works on several levels--as a historical novel, political novel and as crime thriller. The setting is Belfast Northern Ireland and the time it covers ranges loosely from the early 70's to the mid 80's. On its surface RUC Detective Cross (a Catholic Englishman married into a Protestant Northern Irish family) and his younger female partner Westerby are trying to track down a serial killer (Candlestick--Francis Albert Evans and an Englishman himself) originally planted by one of Britain's intelligence services MI 5 assisting Protestant paramilitaries in their war against the Catholic population. MI 5 and Britain's other intelligence service MI 6 are at odds ends--one (MI 5) determined to keep the country divided--the other MI 6 having the idea of bringing the country together--South and North into one country and both sending operatives in to gain their own ends. Around these cross purposes much of the action of this work revolves. Candlestick working with MI 5 is the agent showing loyalist members belonging to the Shankill Butchers how to torture and murder Catholics unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. He is also well versed in the comings and goings of one John McKeague--a Prostestant extremist homosexual bigot who has control of an orphanage--one in which he prostitutes young Catholic boys to well heeled Northern Irish protestants and British aristocrats (name dropping we have former British prime minister Edward Heath and a member of Britain's royal family Lord Louis Mountbatten--later assassinated by the Provisional IRA) and civil servants--Petit having the habit here of seguing real events and real people into his novel--the Kincora School boys scandal, the Shankill Butchers being two of the major events. Later on though Candlestick switches sides and becomes a hitman for the Official IRA (not to be confused with the Provisional IRA). In fact one thing that makes this book so intriguing to me it how Petit unravels and differentiates the different groups on all sides--on the Catholic--the Official IRA (aka the Stickies), the Provisional IRA (aka the Provos) and the INLA (the Marxist orientated Irish National Liberation Army)--these groups often feuding with and sometimes killing each other and on the Protestant side--the RHC (Red Hand Commandos--from which the Shankill Butchers sprung), the UDA (Ulster Defense Association) the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) and UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters) also with the habit of feuding and murdering each other--the British Military including the Special Forces SAS, Army Intelligence, MRF (Mobile Reconnaissance Force) the UDR--the Ulster Defense Regiment (almost all Protestant--a kind of National Guard) the state security forces of the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary--who Cross and Westerby work for--again almost entirely protestant) and Special Branch--the whole apparatus of security forces--the policy of shoot to kill and their tendency to blame the IRA (convenient for them to have a bete noir) for crimes they've committed themselves. Petit outlines and differentiates all these groups pretty well--the conflicts even within their own sides--working in facts about a completely internalized society and the apalling incidence of domestic violence against women and children that fuels the murderous violence constantly making the news.

Beyond that the crime part of the novel revolving around the sinister Candlestick--himself abused by his father as a child--and intent on murdering so many people with the idea that all sides will eventually stop murdering each other and confess up to their crimes. It is well paced and very intriguing--well worth reading just as way of seeing someone sort out in an intelligent way (for once) what actually went on--and it's all incorporated into a so-called 'work of fiction'. FWIW that is quite a lot and I think Petit should be commended. I have a quibble though--and it's the ending doesn't do justice to the rest of the book--is rather too conventionally worked out. Not a fatal flaw it does however take away a chunk of the impact this book had for me up to that point. Other than that IMO this book would have been a masterpiece. ( )

A cleverly crafted thriller with a diabolical, Hannibal type character crawling bloodily through the mess that was the "Dirty War" in Northern Ireland. For those of us close to the conflict, the incestous dealings of the secret services and the paramilitaries has the ring of versimiltude. ( )