Fiction: Our antique libel laws have hobbled many a good news investigation, but they have also aborted plenty of fine books.
Fear of legal action has deterred all but the brave or the foolhardy. Many a writer with a good tale to tell has decided to keep the pen safely sheathed until the main protagonists are dead, by which time most readers will have completely forgotten who they were.
Fergus Brogan has got over this difficulty by setting his story in an imaginary newspaper, and his rattling yarn will result in many a loud guffaw in journalistic watering holes around Dublin.
His hero, Willie Penwright, is a lowly sub-editor, one of that unfortunate crew who, in Brogan's words, exist to be blamed - and his trials and tribulations will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has ever set foot in a newsroom.
So will his tormentors, the colon inspectors and their assistants - the semi-colon inspectors - who justify their existence and their bloated salaries by finding fault with the work of their subordinates and immediately dashing off a memo to show just how superior they are.
Brogan has a true satirist's eye for the pompous and the hypocritical, and an acid wit to go with it. Take this for example: "The pub used to be called McGovern's but the new owners tore it down and put up an older one." Or this: "His concern for the wretched of the earth was genuine. He was that rare type who would give Christianity a good name." This book teems with such droll observations and is populated with the kind of outrageous characters that used only be found in . . . well, a newspaper office.
Go and read it for yourself.
Sub-Text - Willie Penwright dots an i, By Fergus Brogan, Burrin Books; 215 pp; €9.95
Eugene McEldowney is an author and journalist