Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 271
Shade by Neil Jordan
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 317 pages
Nina Hardy has been murdered. She died in the house where she grew up, killed by George, her childhood friend. But her body is never found, and she remains, a silent shade, watching the events of her own afterlife. She watches her half-brother Gregory as he arrives to bury her, after some thirty years away; and Janie as she attempts to elicit a confession from George, her brother. Through them Nina will relive their lives together, and somehow begin to make sense of the people they all became.
This is a story of imaginary friends and hayrides, of plays and school dances, of a seemingly idyllic childhood by the mudflats of the River Boyne. But the outside world cannot be kept at bay, and the fragile balance of their friendship is soon interrupted. Ultimately they will be torn apart by the outbreak of war, brought together again only to find that each other has changed almost beyond recognition.
This novel is at once an unforgettable portrait of childhood, a powerful story in its many forms, and a moving tragedy of lost innocence. Written with astonishing insight and perception, it confirms Neil Jordan as one of the most mesmerizing voices in contemporary Irish fiction.
Sunrise with Sea Monster by Neil Jordan
Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 15.50 USD / 10.00 UK; 184 pages [Add To Basket]
Originally published in 1994, this is a lyrical and tender book, written with tremendous sensitivity. In the blinding morning sunlight, Donal Gore stands in a monastery courtyard. He travelled to Spain to fight in the Civil War. Captured and awaiting execution, time now slows for him. And he is haunted by memories of his childhood, from setting fish lines in the sea with his father, to the moment of his mother's death. His was a life of piano lessons, or a growing passion, and of betrayal. And soon he will realise that this story has yet to find its end.
Night in Tunisia by Neil Jordan
Paperback; 12.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 120 pages
First published in 1976, this collection of highly original short stories won the Guardian Fiction prize and marked the debut of an outstanding writer. In the seaside towns of Ireland, within the tiled Victorian walls of Kensal Rise Baths, in Dublin on the day de Valera is buried, powerful rites of passage take place - the end of childhood, the moment of death, the end of a love affair. Each in turn reveals the extraordinary imagination and insight that characterises both the fiction and films of Neil Jordan.
An Irish Solution by Cormac Millar
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 9.50 UK; 306 pages [Add To Basket]
Seamus Joyce has got a few things on his mind. He has just been appointed Acting Director of iDEA, the Irish Drug Enforcement Agency. His wife is in hospital, dying of an unidentified ailment. And he is starting to question the purpose of his own existence. It's a tricky time at iDEA: an ambitious new Minister for Justice is anxious to secure a few big scalps in the Dublin drugs trade, and Joyce is expected to put himself on the front line of the fight. Soon he begins to suspect that the police, in league with the Minister, are bending the rules - and he still doesn't quite understand what the rules are. Why is money being paid into his bank account from an unnamed source in Liedhtenstein? Why are his phones being tapped? Andy why are a troubled schoolgirl and a diminutive nun accusing him of being at the heart of a lethal conspiracy? This debut novel is a sly and sophisticated work that establishes its author as one of the more interesting crime writers to emerge recently.
The Ultras by Eoin McNamee
Trade paperback with flaps; 16.00 Eur0 / 19.50 USD / 10.00 UK; 256 pages
This novel is set in the 1970s when the covert war in Ireland was at its height. Intelligence and military agencies competed for assets along the Border, and their proxy assassins prowled the night. At the centre of events was the mythic figure of Captain Robert Nairac, the Special Forces operative who disappeared while on active service in 1977, never to be found. Twenty-five years on and Blair Agnew, ex-Sergeant with a damaged past, looks back and tries to separate fact from fiction in a bid to lay his own ghosts to rest. But it is his teenage daughter who fully comprehends the deadly allure of the hidden. This startling novel, based around the compelling figure of Robert Nairac, once again drives at the complex heart of post-war Ireland. A thrilling evocation of the world of men who find themselves operating in the dark and clandestine margins of society, an exploration of ideas of perception, corruption, and murder.
The Dramatist by Ken Bruen
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 238 pages [Add To Basket]
This is the fourth Jack Taylor novel. The impossible has happened: Jack Taylor is clean, sober, even the cigarettes are but a trace of smoke. He's dating a mature woman, and if not yet a citizen, he's dancing close to the illusion. Rumor suggests he's even attending Mass.
The accidental deaths of two students appear random, tragic events. Except that in each case a copy of a book by Synge is found beneath the body. Jack begins to believe that 'The Dramatist', a calculating, ruthless killer, is out there, enticing Jack to play. An old case, the swan killer, re-surfaces, distracting Jack's attention. An urban myth, the Pikemen, may be the cover for a lethal band of vigilantes. The past, far from buried, is about the strike with a ferocity to claim the one decency Jack has clung to. The city of Galway, Jack's refuge, source of renewal and torment, now demands a sacrifice of the only love he's maintained. This book is 'Irish noir with humour and guts.'
Dispatching Baudelaire by Ken Bruen
Trade Paperback; 8.00 Euro / 10.00 USD / 5.00 UK; 160 pages [Add To Basket]
Throughout his life accountant Mike Shaw has played it safe, kept his head down, and avoided risk. His girlfriend, Brenda, is a secretary and their idea of a night on the town is to visit the local pizza parlour. But when Mike meets Laura in a bar off The Strand, their lives are irrevocably changed. Small, smart, sexy -and utterly dangerous - Laura instantly spellbinds Mike and leads him into a world of moral depravity, dominated by the sinister presence of her powerful and rich father, Harold Benton. Dressed in safari suits, dining in West End restaurants, Benton drinks only the best of wines and whiskies, imitates Richard Burton, and quotes French poet Baudelaire at every opportunity. He is also without conscience, on a hell-bent mission to mould others to his likeness.
This book is about what can happen to the blandest of men when seduced by money, power and sex. As the reader follows Mike on his journey into the heart of darkness, he comes to discover that there are few more dangerous animals than an Englishman off balance. Set against the paranoia of the early 1990s post-Thatcher London, this is yet another addictive page-turner from the prolific Irish author.
The Catalpa Tree by Denyse Devlin
Trade Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 15.50 USD / 8.50 UK; 450 pages [Add To Basket]
When Jude is orphaned at fourteen her late father's best friend, Oliver, is all she has. It is a tough break for both of them. Jude always adored Oliver, but that was before he became her guardian. And Oliver cherished spirited young Jude to, but being responsible for her -especially when she has known so much heartbreak - is a burden he could have lived without. Over the years that follow, Jude tests Oliver in ways neither could have expected. In time she learns to grieve for her past, looks to a brighter future and even finds happiness with a man, though it may not be the lasting kind. Through it all - despite it all, maybe - their unique bond grows strong. When faced with one hard call too many, however, Jude and Oliver must discover just how strong that bond it - and if it can ever be broken.
11 Emerald Street by Hugh O'Donnell
Trade Paperback; 12.00 Euro / 15.00 USD / 8.00 UK; 198 pages [Add To Basket]
Until the moment when his head gets hurt in the crush at a hurling match, Robbie leads an ordinary enough life for a young Dublin boy. Twenty-a-side soccer in the street, adventures with his dog Bobby, daily battles with Clicky Kelly's gang, sins of the flesh and of the mind … His injury changes everything. When he returns to consciousness, he believes that God has given him the power to perform miracles. At first Robbie contents himself with winning the spot-the-ball competition in the newspapers, but when he is sent to the orthopaedic hospital for 'observation', Robbie comes into his own. The other boys there are much sicker than he is - polio, thalidomide, haemophilia - but he swears to himself that he'll cure them all. Then tragedy strikes closer to home and Robbie needs all his powers, miraculous or perhaps just the fruits of a fertile imagination, to keep his world intact. With a voice as real and Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke, Robbie is an enchanting character, and the world in which he lives, particularly the hospital with its heart-rending inmates and lascivious nurses, is brilliantly created. This book marks the debut of a formidable new Irish writer.
Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon
Paperback with flaps; 12.00 Euro / 15.00 USK / 8.00 UK; 90 pages [Add To Basket]
Winner of the Pulitizer Prize for Poetry 2003. This ninth collection finds the poet working a rich vein that extends from the rivery, apple-heavy County Armagh of the 1950s, where he was brought up, to suburban New Jersey, on the banks of a canal dug by Irish navvies, where he now lives.
These Days by Leontia Flynn
Paperback with flaps; 12.00 Euro / 15.00 USD / 8.00 UK; 52 pages [Add To Basket]
This collection represents on the most strikingly original Irish poetry debuts in recent years. A Gregory Award winner, the poet - still in her twenties - writes about Belfast and the north of Ireland with a precision and tenderness that is completely fresh.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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