Part-time journalist, professional messer and full- time drinker, Myles is in trouble with everybody. He's nearly 40, his wife has thrown him out of the house and he's just got into major trouble with his landlord - and even in post-ceasefire Belfast that is not smart, especially when the landlord has some very dangerous associates. Then he meets Mex, a conceptual artist, who introduces him to his doppelgΣnger, Matt, with catastrophic results.
This is Micky Donnelly's first book and although until now he has been best known as a visual artist, he is a natural writer. His central character, Myles, is so well-drawn he could be any Irish 30-something bar-fly, and the characters he meets on this never ending pub crawl, ring true.
Donnelly's technique of interweaving the locations of the action and shifting timescales gives the book a pacey, thriller feel. The problem is that it is a familiar story and Matt arrives too late in the tale to lift the book out of the ordinary. Despite this, you want to stay with Myles's story until the end.
Bernice Harrison is an Irish Times journalist
