Martin Farrell

Set in the borders at the time of the Reivers and family feuding, this compelling novel begins with a murder: 'No one thought much about it. Pathetic.' But the casual brutality is momentous. The consequences of that death spread outwards through the story as the murdered man's stepson, Martin, is teased and led, like the reader, by a fiddler/storyteller into the mysteries of his own family and the magical revenging of his father's death. At 96 pages, this short novel has the feel of a much longer saga; it never loses its hold, charming and chivvying and, in case you're not concentrating: 'Fire! Fire! Get out of the house!... Ah, sit back on your arse bones. It was just an alarm to keep ye awake! ... Are you listening? Then I'm not wasting my breath.' Stunning storytelling which fixes and tricks you as reader, so that you are always two-stepping with the words, enjoying the pleasures of the story and the telling. A book to be heard aloud as the spoken rhythms would ease the complexity of the prose on the page.