Two journalist friends, Woody and Sweetman, are both writing their own biographies of the taoiseach, who has disappeared while on a solo fishing trip near his cottage in Connemara. The speculation is that he has done a runner or been kidnapped by the "New Invincibles" because of his role in the Northern Irish peace process or, more prosaically, that he drowned when his engine ran out of fuel and he tried to swim ashore. While not up to the standard of previous McGinley novels (Foggage or, especially, Bogmail), the book has a lively, readable style, pervaded by dark humour, and with many memorable lines and metaphors; for example, Sweetman considers Woody so cynical that "as a baby, he'd probably had doubts about the milk from his mother's breast". The story is told from the perspective of Woody but he is a somewhat cliched character and what exactly the book's title stands for is ultimately disappointing. The version of Irish politics – and journalism – given here rings disturbingly true.
