Boy: A searing, unflinching debut that announces a major new voice in Irish fiction

When his mother’s death shatters his world, a boy is drawn into Cork’s criminal underbelly — a lyrical, devastating story of family, violence and the inescapable legacy of grief, for fans of Colin Barrett, Donal Ryan and Stuart Neville. 'A very fine debut novel from a future star of Irish crime writing' John Connolly The Boy is a powerful novel of wasted talent, loss, greed and revenge – but also of discovered genius and life-affirming friendship. By turns terrifying, taut, humane and tender it tells the origin story of Ireland’s organised-crime epidemic with a skill and grace which belies a debut novel, and is the calling-card of a ringing new voice in Irish fiction. When the Guards knock on the door The Boy already knows his mother is dead. His father flees to the pub, leaving him to wait alone. Soon his brother Fallon, half-protector and half-outlaw, draws him into a world where grief and crime are rarely separated.