Critical Mick

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The Ghosts of Belfast
by Stuart Neville
Soho Crime, 2009

Ten Things You Must Know About The Twelve

Ten. C.S. Lewis, like Stuart Neville, was born in Belfast. Both became writers. Both wrote extraordinary popular fiction which used elements of the fantastic to expose deeper themes.

Nine. Can redemption be found in the bottom of a glass? The first paragraph of The Ghosts of Belfast, reads: "Maybe if he had one more drink they'd leave him alone. Gerry Fagan told himself that lie before every swallow. He chased the whiskey's burn with a cool black mouthful of Guinness and placed the glass back on the table. Look up and they'll be gone, he thought.

Eight. The Twelve who torment this former IRA gunman Gerry Fagan are visions of the people he has slain: three British soldiers, two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, two UFF men, an RUC officer, and four civilians (one an infant) as collateral damage. Are these (as Fagan's prison psychologist stated) manifestations of his guilt? Or is their origin supernatural?

Seven. Either way, when the spectres begin demanding bloody vengeance from Fagan, it makes a hell of a good crime novel. The victims that Fagan's phantoms demand may now cloak themselves with respectability and wear politicians' suits, but underneath they remain the same hard schemers. These sharp survivors determine quickly that someone is stacking up bodies across Northern Ireland, and they have not forgotten their very efficient ways of pursuing who is responsible. In this book, Neville very cleverly makes an investigation into the nature of responsibility. Six. The Ghosts of Belfast, also known as The Twelve, merits comparison with the best crime stories of recent decades. If Gerald Seymour (author of Harry's Game and Field of Blood) loved Martin Scorsese's The Departed so much that he somehow had sex with it, the bastard child would be Stuart Neville's The Ghosts of Belfast. Five. Like fellow nominee The Bloomsday Dead, the action in Stuart Neville's The Ghosts of Belfast takes place in today's Northern Ireland. From immigration to economic development to politics to crime to lingering sectarian hatred, Stuart Neville delivers a post-Troubles portrait that is brutal and fascinating.

The Ghosts of Cité Soleil. The Haitian slum of Cité Soleil is officially designated the most dangerous place on earth. Even Gerry Fagan's twelve ghosts would be brutalized there.

Four. The character of Gerry Fagan is more than a loose nut that has worked its way free and gone jamming up the works. Glimpses of his past and budding attachments present him as a complex character. Fagan feels a strong attraction to tall, ash-blonde reporter Marie McKenna: a local outcast for taking up with a traitorous Catholic member of the RUC, seven years past. Can he, who has never known it, find love? What about the more realistic goal: a degree of comfort?

Three. The theme of old loyalties questioned and reversed in today's complex political environment is also explored through deadly Scottish interloper Davy Campbell. A former member of the Black Watch, amazingly serving the Republican movement-? And now thrown in (when introduced) with a splinter group holding up post offices south of the border-? One of the most interesting players in The Ghosts of Belfast, Campbell is as surprising a force as Fagan. Or is there just a violence in both men that needs expression-?

Two. Stuart Neville's writing is fast-paced and character-driven, with more depth, pressure and rapid turns than a submarine battle. Great forces are engaged, and things long buried come exploding to the surface.

Ghosts and zombies oh my!.

One. Critical Mick says: for these reasons, Mr. Neville's absorbing debut novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, is hereby awarded the 2009 award for Best Book Read in 2009.

Critical Mick hates jumping on bandwagons, but when something is good Mick makes up his own mind and doesn't care who else is also singing praises.

Critical Mick's January 2010 interview with Stuart Neville.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 28 December, 2009.