John Sweeney
Damned Rebels
Like most Englishmen or women, nothing made me hit the TV zapper faster than reports of the latest misery in Northern Ireland. The drizzle of death rarely impinged on our lives, unless there was some oblique personal connection to the latest killing. Most of the time, for most people, the Troubles were a bore, involving two unattractive sets of murderers playing their own version of tit-for-tat, with the British Army doing a little bit of killing on the side. There was a reason for this lack of interest: the conflict, not quite a war, seemed intractable. As nothing could be done to end it, nothing new needed to be understood.
One of the strengths of Kevin Toolis’s compelling, chilling, coldly brilliant book is that it reawakens the mind to the reality of the Troubles and the need to understand why they took place. Toolis has not set out to write an ‘entertainment’, but it ends up as one. He has
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It soon becomes clear that what we have in our hands (or, given its hefty 600-odd pages, on our desks) is a peculiar kind of haunted-house drama.'
Patrick McCabe's 'Poguemahone' is 'ambitious and disturbing', says @funesdamemorius.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/it-started-with-a-kiss
'This is entertainment of the highest class.'
@NJCooper_crime reviews new thrillers by Mick Herron, Kassandra Montag, @LVaughanwrites, @AuthorSJBolton, @ajaychow, @tombradby, @SaraParetsky, @writejemmawayne & @GillianMAuthor.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/may-2022-crime-round-up
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa