Brouhaha

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But while secrets begin to be revealed and ‘new’ facts uncovered, raking up the past is neither easy, nor advisable, especially when there are less than savoury characters involved; one of these is Fergal Coleman, once the local ‘bad boy’ into drugs and much else, now an aspiring politician, still surrounded and supported by his old gang.

If you have ever sat in front of a peat fire in an Irish country pub, nursing a pint of Guinness or perhaps a glass of Jameson’s, listening to the resident shanachie weaving a magical spell with a long, meandering and enthralling tale from local folklore, you will have an idea of what reading this book is like. I got about 140 pages into it, and then jumped to the last 5 chapters to find out what happened, but all in all just felt disappointing and kind of lack the oomph or the excitement for me to really get stuck in. Joanne has a genuine passion for journalism which is appreciable, yet she was my least favourite of the three, causing rather than resolving trouble (even after having done it once for Dove and realising she was wrong, she does it all over again). It was so funny at points, but overall the pacing felt so scattered I couldn’t find my way through it.In my case, until the first 20 per cent or so, I was reading on—not uninterested but also not gripped.

His follow-up has taken nearly a quarter of a century to appear, and unfortunately the boldness of his original debut has been replaced by a jarring mixture of whimsy and brutality. The story keeps you guessing from start to finish, and it has an intriguing bevy of threads woven into it about secrets and the sins of the past. The writing is very intense and I failed to pick the bones out of the story; not for want of trying mind.

If there is a word or phrase which means the complete opposite of ‘page turner’, it would apply to this book.