As my readers know, I am a sucker for an author with a good idea. Stuart Neville has a really good idea and the result (in a first novel amazement) is The Ghosts of Belfast. Gerry Fegan is a former IRA hit man with more than a bit of problem with mental stability. He is haunted in fact by the ghosts of the 12 men, women, and children he has murdered on behalf of his superiors in the IRA. He comes to the conclusion that his only hope to flee these apparitions is to take out all of those who gave him the orders to kill. This, as you can well imagine, creates quite a few problems for an old Republican with a drinking problem. His life expectancy doesn't begin to increase when the higher-ups start showing up dead.
Neville paints a bleak picture of the heroics of the IRA and of its impact on Northern Ireland and Belfast. His depiction of the wanton violence - now more motivated by the politics of hatred than the politics of progress. (Interesting how political crime in Ireland has devolved into organized crime. In the US, it appears it went the other way.) The toll on the people and the places are horrific - the decades long nightmare creates psychological burdens for all the survivors - and it isn't pretty in the least. Neville's dialog is authentic (as far as I can tell - perhaps I should say that his dialog is persuasive) and the story rockets along pretty well with the chapters numbered backward from 12 (that's a hint, I suspect).
Neville includes a bit of a love story, but it is the core violence and the price paid for that violence that is central to The Ghosts of Belfast. Neville appears to have an insider's view of what's happened and what is happening in Northern Ireland. That there is any peace - however fragile - appears to be one of our modern miracles if Neville's view of the world has any merit.
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