Review
Divorcing Jack:
‘A joy from start to finish… Witty, fast-paced and throbbing with menace, Divorcing Jack reads like The Thirty-Nine Steps rewritten for the
‘90s by Roddy Doyle’
Time Out
Cycle of Violence:
‘Bateman’s is the ultimate word on the insanity of the Troubles: no one has done it better’
Scotland on Sunday
Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men:
‘Fast, furious, riotously funny and at the end, never a dry eye in the house’
Mail on Sunday
Empire State:
‘A hugely enjoyable novel… blessed with a beautiful sense of irony… It’s like Carl Hiaasen, Tom Wolfe, and Roddy Doyle at their best’
The Herald
Product Description
Dan Starkey investigates the birth of a new Messiah on a small island off the coast of Ireland.
Back together with his wife Patricia and the baby – Little Stevie – that resulted from her affair, Dan accepts a curious commission from Cardinal Daley to investigate the tiny island of Wrathlin, where the inhabitants appear to believe that the new Messiah has been born.
The child in question turns out to be a girl called Christine, and the local population has become as defensive and generally crazy as the cast of The Crucible.
At first it’s just funny for Dan and Trish, but fairly soon the mood turns very much darker.
Packed with Bateman’s trademarket mixture of jokes, shocks and tenderness, Turbulent Priests is his best novel yet.
From the Back Cover
Dan Starkey and his wife Patricia have decided to make a go of their marriage, which means that Dan must assume responsibility for a baby – Little Stevie – that is not his. The three of them look like having plenty of time together when Dan accepts an unusual commission – to investigate the situation on tiny Wrathlin Island, off the Irish coast.
Dan is supposed to report on the villagers' claim that the Messiah has been born on Wrathlin, in the shape of a little girl called Christine.
At first, the rural idyll is more than a comic interlude, but it seems that wherever Dan goes, murder and mayhem – not to mention religious fundamentalism, adultery and alcoholism – cannot be far behind.
'Turbulent Priests' is Colin Bateman writing at the height of his powers.
Also by Colin Bateman
• Divorcing Jack
• Cycle of Violence
• Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men
• Empire State
• Maid of the Mist
"Bateman has barged fearlessly into the previously unsuspected middle ground between Carl Hiaasen and Irvine Welsh and claimed it for his own"
GQ
About the Author
The author was born in Northern Ireland in 1962 and educated at Bangor Grammar School before joining the County Down Spectator, where he became the deputy editor until 1996. In 1990 he received a Journalist’s Fellowship to Oxford University for his reports from Uganda and has received a Northern Ireland Press Award for his weekly satirical column. He won the Betty Trask Award in 1994.
