A philandering husband turns murderous in the leafy lanes around Portlaoise; an inarticulate farmer kicks his wife in the back and throws her down the stairs; a teenage runner shivers in the freezing rain, caught between the appalling pain in his leg and the brutal threats of his coach. Although there is a generous helping of humour in these stories of contemporary Ireland, Michael Collins's vision is breathtakingly black and his writing so sharp you could cut yourself on it. Collins lives in Chicago, which may account for his pitiless view of our parochial pre-occupations; certainly this is one of the freshest collections I've encountered for a long time.
