Old God's Time [J0174]

2023 - HCDJ Nice clean condition. A hugely moving novel of memory, love, mystery and reckoning, from one of our most soulful living writers. Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children. But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past. Trigger alert: suicide, child sexual abuse..

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A hauntingly sad book. Some incredibly tough themes, and not always easy to understand if you're in the past or present due to the stream of consciousness way it is written. You're not even always sure if what you're reading is real or in Tom's imagination. But the prose is so beautifully written, and Barry is able to capture loss, grief, trauma and ultimately love so wonderfully. There is an element of hope for the reader. A beautiful novel for sure."; "A brilliant in-depth psychological study of a tortured ex-policeman."; "I've been left chewing over the minutiae of this book and plot since finishing it last night (doesn't happen too often for me these days) and have come to the conclusion that it's one of the most beautifully written and most absorbing and devastating examples of the unreliable narrator I've encountered... worth the hype."