Detainees

By Sean Hughes

Book Overview

John Palmer had never ventured far from the narrow-minded small town near Dublin where he was born and the cracks in his psyche are beginning to show despite his material success. But it is when... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684851784
• ISBN13: 9780684851785
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Touchstone
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.8" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Nice Wee Irish Revenge Thriller

Irish comic Hughes loses the comedy in favor of a fairly clever piece of revenge fulfillment. The jacket blurbs speak of it being "a riveting thriller and blackly comic novel" and being an "urban gothic" a la Welsh, Kelman, Amis, and Self. I don't really see any of that: it's entertaining, though not riveting, and takes a while to get going before it can really be considered as a thriller, and I didn't get any comedy--black or otherwise--from it. It's a pretty decent tale about an antique dealer outside Dublin with a psychologically messed-up wife, and what happens when an old bully moves back into town and into their lives. There is a great twist at the end, but other than that, nothing too memorable.