Friday Book Report: The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

Stuart Neville’s debut novel, Ghosts of Belfast is a dark and gritty story about the inner workings of the conflict in Ireland and the innocents who suffered because of it.  It was published in 2009 by Soho Press, Incorporated.

Gerald Fegan, a former IRA hit-man is being haunted night and day by twelve ghosts.  All Fegan wants is peace, and the only way to be rid of his ghostly followers is to kill the men who gave him the orders to kill these twelve innocent people.  As Fegan starts to work down the list, he meets a woman that could offer him some redemption.  Marie McKenna is an outsider in Northern Ireland, and many of the most powerful men in the area want her out of the picture.  Fegan must battle his own demons as well as keep Marie safe from the men that used to employ him.

This is a dark and violent book.  It’s got that edge to it that can make you wince while reading.  I was intrigued by the storyline; a haunted man trying to find absolution for his past crimes, but overall I just couldn’t connect with this story.  I think it was because it was just so dang bleak and it offered such little hope throughout the entire book.  Adding Marie did help some, but overall this book was full of shadows with not much light peeking through. 

This book also deals with the political conflict that has tortured Northern Ireland for decades.  I am not familiar with the whole socio-political workings that have embattled that part of the world, and so a lot of that was lost on me.  I think Neville tried to explain it for a novice like myself, but sometimes I think his Irish roots took over and he left out things that may be common knowledge to him, but not to the general reader.  There’s lots to do with gangsters and politicians and corrupt government officials, and as a whole just about everyone in this book is not a very nice person.  I found it really hard to care about anyone in this book, and so when the final battle at the end came, I wasn’t worried about our protagonists because it didn’t matter to me what happened to anyone.

I give this book a C grade.  While I don’t mind reading dark tales from time to time, I want them to have some glimmer of hope somewhere to balance out all the gloom and doom.  There were too many characters, and most were such terrible beings they were hard to read about.  I found myself torn between wanting to put this book down and take a break from the gloominess and just reading it straight through to get it over with.  To go with all the sad and miserableness in this book, there was way too much swearing for my sensitive eyes.  I understand these are all gangsters and awful, horrible men, but I thought the swearing was excessive and often times just put in because the author couldn’t think of something better to write.  This was not my type of book.  I think it will appeal to a lot of other readers, but it just wasn’t my style.  I try to read a lot of different genres and different authors to have a broader knowledge of the written word; but this time I should’ve stuck to what I like and passed on this book.  Like I said, this will appeal to a lot of readers; but if you’re like me and enjoy books that have a good balance of light and dark, I’d stay away from these ghosts.