Green Blood is for France

"Gaynard dissects France's political corruption in his novel about a
police investigation into the murder of a young woman used as a sex toy
by French political leaders." Kirkus

The near-naked, mutilated body of a young black woman is washed up on a remote beach in the west of Ireland. The search to find her killer takes Timothy O'Mahony far from his existence as a Garda sergeant in Bangor Erris into the corruption and machinations surrounding the election campaigns for the next President of France. With his prime suspects in the inner circle of Laurent Delahaye, the main opposition contender for the Presidency and womanising one-time leader of the Social Democratic party, O'Mahony finds that even senior French judges and policemen cannot always be relied upon to be impartial when a case may have political implications.

Mahony's position becomes increasingly difficult as he follows the trail to the Congo and finds a link between its brutal dictator, a French oil company, at least one of the suspects, and the dead woman. When he loses the cooperation of his French colleagues and is taken off the case, O'Mahony, in his search for justice for the murdered girl and her family, finally has to call on the help of the Irish travelling community, known for their distrust and dislike of the Irish police.

Below are more excerpts from the Kirkus Review of the novel.

"Hardened Irish police detective Timothy O'Mahony investigates the murder of a young African woman after her mutilated body washes up on the Irish coast. Turns out that she disappeared from a luxury yacht chartered by a man vying to be the next French president. The purported reason for the trip was so the candidate could discuss campaign strategies with his advisors. In reality, the trip was an excuse to indulge in wild orgies, and O'Mahony must separate the culprit from the mass of suspects. In Paris, coverups and threats abound as the political rivals and competing police forces try to outdo each other; each proclaims they're acting "for the good of France."

Gaynard's novel examines the corruption and cynical exploitation of former French colonies, as well as France's role in encouraging the chaos and savagery in the Congo to keep control of raw material supplies. The author's knowledge of the political and legal systems often verges on political philosophy. Says a puzzled Congo politician, "Why is it only Africans that are charged by the International Criminal Court? Why don't American or British leaders like Bush and Blair get hauled up?"