First published 2023
Tom Kettle has earned his quiet. After decades on the force, he has moved into a small lean-to attached to a Victorian castle on the Irish Sea, and for months he has kept mostly to himself. His landlord is an eccentric he rarely sees. A nervous young mother lives next door. Tom is content to let the days pass, turning over warm memories of his wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe. Then two former colleagues knock on his door. They have questions about an old case, one Tom never fully resolved, and they need his help. He has no good reason to refuse. That decision pulls him back through layers of memory he has worked hard to leave alone. The past and present begin to press against each other. What Tom thought he had survived, what he thought he had set aside, turns out to be still alive and still capable of doing damage. Sebastian Barry, a two-time Booker Prize finalist, builds this story out of love and grief and long-buried secrets. At its center is a man trying to understand what he carries, what he has lost, and what, if anything, remains.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, psychological-thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, contemplative, emotionally-resonant, introspective, melancholic
Tropes: past-returns-to-haunt, reluctant-investigation, unreliable-memory
Setting: Irish Sea, Victorian castle, Ireland
Period: 21st-century
261 pages · Paperback · Faber & Faber
Content warnings: death