This novel starts with a murder.
An unnamed man pretty brutally murders a woman in the forest, then hides her body. When he goes back to finish off her baby, he searches everywhere, but the child is gone.
26 years later, Mahony strolls into a sleepy Irish village, ready to find some answers. He grew up in a Catholic orphanage and he's had a pretty rough life, but he's a tough guy, and he knows how to handle trouble. Also, he can see ghosts.
He has come because he received a photo from one of the nuns at the orphanage, a photo of himself as a baby in his young mother's arms. She is beaming and proud. On the back, there is a note: Mahony's actual name is Francis Sweeney, his mother was Orla Sweeney, and nobody in the town liked her.
Mahony wants to figure out why and also where she is, if she is still alive.
Some of the townspeople are shocked by him. (He looks like he doesn't wash his hair often, his bell bottom jeans are pretty tight in certain places, and he smiles too widely at the ladies...and there is something familiar about that smile and those eyes.) Some of them fall immediately in love. Some are ambivalent. And a few quietly loathe him.
The novel follows his quest for answers, in which he gets help from an aging stage actress, his hostess, a bartender, a recluse, and a whole lot of ghosts. And also some frogs. And a ghost-dog.
This book is just pure fun. It has a very Irish flavor, a good mystery with a surprising revelation at the end, fantastic character development, and a lot of out-loud laughs. And it also has a balance of poignancy--and darkness. Read it. You won't be disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment