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The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland or the Annals of the Four Masters are chronicles of medieval Irish history. The entries span from the Deluge, dated as 2,242 years after creation to AD 1616.
About the author
John O'Donovan grew up in Dublin Hill, on the North Side of Cork City, in Ireland. He married the love of his live, Mary Collins, also a native of Cork City. John was never a police officer in Ireland.
However, in 1989 John, Mary and their young children emigrated to Canada. Five years later, John joined one of the largest municipal police forces in Canada. After a short period as a uniformed officer, John was transferred into a Detective Unit.
As a detective, John excelled and soon transferred into several different specialty units. John transferred to the Homicide Unit and eventually became the Supervising Officer. During his career, John has been involved in the investigation of over 255 homicides and hundreds of sudden and suspicious deaths.
John O'Donovan served as a police officer for twenty-five-years and served in a Government Investigative Agency for another three years. Like Jules Cahill, Mary O'Donovan supported her husband and helped him deal with the carnage and violence that became part of normality. Without Mary's support, John could not have been a successful investigator.
After retirement, people often asked John if he missed the job. John always said no. However, there were parts that he missed. He missed the joy of outsmarting the killers and the elated feeling when an arrest was made. He missed the energy that was required to drive a complex investigation forward, even when physically and mentally exhausted. And he missed working with a dedicated team.
What John did not miss outweighed these things. He did not miss the exhaustion from working non stop, for days at a time. Neither did he miss the horror of violent sudden death. He did not miss the agony and sorrow of the families of victims when they were told their loved one had died suddenly and violently. And he did not miss the sight of the mutilated corpses and the stench of death.
The writing of this series of books is in many ways cathartic for John, who has the utmost respect for Police Officers all over the world carrying out their duty under tremendous stress. Sometimes balancing several complex cases at once, as described in this book.
EVERY INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE described in this book has been successfully deployed in an investigation that the author was involved in. All of these stories are based on real live experiences.
