Readers of The Tablet may enjoy Ryan’s depiction of an unctuous young priest, eager to give a more strident and uncompromising version of Catholic doctrine than his easy-going predecessor.

I AM A BIG FAN of Donal Ryan. Each of his earlier works has been compelling, and his eighth novel does not disappoint. In Where Are the Kings, he places us in small town Ireland during the late Nineties, and tells a tale from the viewpoint of the adolescent Jack. Jack is an only child, who is 12 years old when a blissful childhood is brought to a juddering halt by his Irish mother drowning herself in a lake, and his Czech father being committed to a psychiatric hospital.

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