Irish Fiction

The first in a mystery series from the much-loved Irish actor, writer and comedian, for readers who enjoy the warmth of Graham Norton and the mystery of Death in Paradise, all wrapped up in one small Irish town. When beloved celebrity gardener Finn O’Leary returns to his hometown of Abbeyford in Ireland to care for his aging mother, he is naturally roped into the Tidy Towns committee. The Tidy Towns is a competition fanatically fought over by every town and village in the land. And for his best friend’s sister, Aoife, it’s a competition she’s determined to win.

With everyone’s favourite gardener on board, she is sure that this year Abbeyford will take home the prize. But Finn’s not been back long when an alto-baritone at his mother’s choir practice drops dead during a rendition of ‘What the World Needs Now’. With more at stake than just winning Tidy Towns, Finn soon finds himself trying to solve a murder – or two.

For one of his many qualities is that people tend to confide in him…With his mother, her carer and Aoife in tow, Finn sets out to discover just who has brought murder to Abbeyford. And so it begins.

‘A writer living and thinking his way to the frontiers of human society’ Spectator

Cameo is the life story of invented Irish novelist Ren Duka, who has unexpected, runaway international success with a prolific series of autofictional novels.

What begins as a playful satire on literary ambition and the chaos of our times expands into a dazzling, polyphonic odyssey that challenges the border between fiction and reality.

As the Ren Duka novels race outwards in widening circles of influence, we encounter Dina Tatangelo, cult novelist of the New York underworld; a Japanese manga artist whose work eerily affects his family life; a grizzled Dublin taxi driver who just might ferry his passengers between worlds; a film-star facing public disgrace; and Rob Doyle, an author enduring a psychic and ontological crisis.

Cameo is at once a metaphysical architecture of the imagination, a human comedy full of unruly passions, and a self-portrait across multiple dimensions.

My name is Anna, and for some time now, I have been trying to account for certain events in my life – my adult life, that is – which, from this vantage point of forty-five years, I often find baffling . . .

In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Anna is introverted and naïve, and Peter’s experience, wide circle of friends and thirst for adventure captivate her. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal.

As Anna’s life becomes less predictable, she uncovers deeper layers of herself. Her journey gives an intimate portrait of a woman embracing herself as she is, claiming the life she yearns for.

Julie McDermot has just been released from ‘The Mental’, the psychiatric institution where her husband committed her after the devastating loss of their two infant children. Returning to her narrow, lonely life along the canal, Julie is haunted by grief and the aching absence of what might have been. As she struggles to piece herself back together, an unexpected encounter with a stranger along the canal offers a glimmer of connection and the fragile possibility of hope.

Their encounter also brings long-submerged realities to the surface, to a place where they can no longer be ignored; exploring Ireland’s dark history of institutional incarceration and offering a profound glimpse of hopein a stunning portrait of a woman’s life. Moving and deeply evocative, this novel is a powerful meditation on sorrow, isolation, and the surprising ways joy can return to even the most broken heart.