The Neville Has All The Best Tunes # 2: THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST

Truth be told, we don’t know a hell of a lot about Stuart Neville (right), other than he’s a handsome cove and his forthcoming novel, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, has been described as “The best first novel I’ve read in years ... It’s a flat out terror trip” by no less a luminary than James Ellroy. Hmmmm, nice. Quoth the blurb elves:

Sooner or later, everybody pays - and the dead will set the price ...
  Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan is haunted by his victims, twelve souls who shadow his every waking day and scream through every drunken night. Just as he reaches the edge of sanity they reveal their desire: vengeance on those who engineered their deaths. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all must pay the price.
  When Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail Northern Ireland’s peace process and destabilise its fledgling government, old comrades and enemies alike want him gone. David Campbell, a double agent lost between the forces of law and terror, takes the job. But he has his own reasons for eliminating Fegan; the secrets of a dirty war should stay buried, even if its ghosts do not.  Set against the backdrop of a post-conflict Northern Ireland struggling with its past, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST takes the reader from the back streets of the city, where violence and politics go hand-in-hand, to the country’s darkest heart. Often brutal, sometimes tender, the journey will see one man find his humanity while the other loses his.

Colour us intrigued. Meanwhile, there’s quite the Semtex blast of post-Troubles Norn Iron crime fiction coming to light these days. David Park’s THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER, Sam Millar’s BLOODSTORM, Garbhan Downey’s YOURS CONFIDENTIALLY, Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD, John McAllister’s LINE OF FLIGHT and – whisper it – CSNI’s own Gerard Brennan’s PIRHANAS. Will any of them rise to take the crown of El Maestro himself, Colin ‘Master’ Bateman? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell …