The latest releases reviewed.
The Glass Room
Kate Holmquist. Penguin, £6.99
The talk of the town is that there are no novels about contemporary affluent Ireland. Well, here's one. It has a large cast of materialistic hedonists: ladies who live in old houses in Dalkey, care deeply about shoes, snort cocaine in the restaurant loo. That they are superficial and talk a bit like characters in TV dramas simply adds to their credentials as paid-up, affluent Dubliners. This is an entertaining, accomplished novel, which paints a convincing enough portrait of Irish life today. But it is when Kate Holmquist writes about a traumatic summer of love in an American seaside resort that the novel switches gear from the popular plane to something literary and authentic. Then, as Raymond Carver might have said, she is cooking on gas. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Dead Man in Paradise
James MacKinnon. Faber, £8.99
The Caribbean island of Hispaniola comprises the troubled Dominican Republic and the desperate Haiti. History has not been kind to either. Colonial France, Spain and England fought over the fabulous wealth produced when they mixed sun, sugar and brutalised slaves. A bitter seed was sown. The Dominican Republic in the 1960s was a place of repression, revolution and dictatorship, usually dominated by selfish and strategic US interests. "Paradise for Dead Men" might have been a better title for this brilliant investigation into the brutal murder in 1965 of Arthur MacKinnon, a much-loved Irish-Canadian priest, in the fear-filled years that followed the overthrow of the monstrous dictator Rafael "The Goat" Trujillo. This brave piece of reportage by the dead priest's nephew has produced a gripping account of the murder of "Padre Arturo" and the nightmare world in which it took place. John Moran
The Commonwealth of Thieves
Tom Keneally. Vintage, £8.99
Tom Keneally, shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times and a winner in 1982 with Schindler's Ark, here delivers an insightful historical account of modern Australia's birth. He describes first governor of Britain's convict colony in Sydney, Arthur Phillip, as having a "nature so complex and hidden behind official formality . . . it is hard to find the quivering human within". Phillip's motivation is never fully revealed. Conscientious towards convicts under his care, he leaves a legacy of authority and equality in Sydney Cove. Nevertheless he would "not glow with the amiability or deeds of a Washington, a Jefferson, a Lafayette . . . but would forever be a colourless secular saint". Keneally gives colourful descriptions of prisoners, but Phillip's detached persona pervades, his pragmatic spirit rendering Sydney an alluring city of pleasures and vices - detached from censorious morality. Gillian Hamill
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
Edward Luce. Abacus, £8.99
Dipping in and out of nearly every nook and cranny of Indian society - the hierarchy of castes and untouchables, the dangerous re-imagining of history through the sieve of Indian Hindu nationalism, bio-futurology, the "line of control" that divides Kashmir, the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty and the Congress Party, and a judicial system with a backlog of 27 million cases, among many others - Luce puts forward a thorough, enjoyable and credible thesis that posits India as a superpower in waiting and a counterweight to Chinese globalisation in the coming years. Along the way, the narrative, in what is essential reading for an understanding of a modern India, also investigates the sacred cow and studies at the Cow Research Centre where various treatments for obesity, cancer, bronchitis (cow urine) and dandruff (cow dung) have been discovered, to use the vernacular, in spite of the Gods. Holy cow indeed. Paul O'Doherty
The Act of Roger Murgatroyd
Gilbert Adair. Faber, £7.99
It is Boxing Day, 1935, and a Christmas party in the manor of Colonel Roger ffolkes, on the edge of Dartmoor, is snowed in. What is worse, up in the attic lies the body of one Raymond Gentry, shot through the heart. The fact that the door of said attic is locked from the outside, there are iron bars on the only window and no murder weapon is to be found, makes the event more than a little mysterious. Present at the party is the best-selling author of countless whodunits Evadne Mount, and she becomes the presiding sleuth. This novel is a witty homage to Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and anyone who has read it will not be too surprised by how the story turns out here. It also stands on its own right as a classic of the golden age of detective fiction. Vincent Banville
Diamonds and Holes in My Shoes
Deirdre Purcell. Hodder Headline, €10.99
Readers will be familiar with Deirdre Purcell as a bestselling writer, journalist, RTÉ newsreader and perhaps even as an actress. In these engaging memoirs Purcell allows us to meet Deirdre the person. In her familiar concise manner she guides us through her childhood, with some happy memories, and her happy days as a boarder at Gortnor Abbey. It is to her "luck fairy" that Purcell attributes many of her successes and adventures, including the joyful pandemonium of working in Dublin's Aer Lingus office, her experiences with the Abbey Theatre troupe, her time at Chicago University and her sobering visits to Ethiopia as a journalist. Her love and esteem for those with whom she has worked and lived is clear, as is her regard for the people and places that have shaped her as a writer and an Irishwoman of considerable influence. There have been plenty of kisses in Purcell's life, but she's not the type to tell all, just enough. Claire Looby