Part of Irish Country, book 9.5
First published 2014
Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly practices medicine in the Ulster village of Ballybucklebo during the early 1960s. The former Navy boxing champion and classical scholar encounters a parade of colorful patients and situations that test his medical knowledge and personal patience. O'Reilly educates an innocent clergyman about human nature, manages persistent hypochondriacs who imagine ailments, and battles stubborn medical colleagues who resist his unconventional methods. Between house calls, he retreats to the local pub for a well-earned pint. This crafty and cantankerous widower discovers that his most effective treatments often come from life experience rather than medical textbooks. The stories reveal how a hard-working general practitioner navigates the daily challenges of rural Irish medicine, where human understanding proves as valuable as clinical expertise.
Genres: medical, 20th-century, mystery, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: cozy, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Ballybucklebo, Ulster, Ireland
Period: 1960s
335 pages · Hardcover · Forge Books