There is an interesting and varied cast of characters, all with favourable and negative characteristics - so more believable. Although its widely accepted that our ability to gabble on is inherent in our genes, without even setting foot near the fabled county Cork castle. As a murder mystery the book has no problem with providing suspects, but I felt that the book ran out of steam midway through. The only novel by a comedian that I remember as being something other than a cash-in was Steve Martin’s The Pleasure Of My Company, a weird, surrealism-inflected novel about a man who has finally won the “Most Average American” competition.

Ten years previous to this, Dove’s girlfriend Sandra Mohan (only 16 at the time) had gone missing and was never seen again, and an article by a journalist Joanne McCollum pointed to him as responsible, ruining his reputation. I can confirm that he has achieved all of these aims in this off-beat comic satire, and produced a little gem of a book that serves to hold you attention all the way through.Joanne, a local reporter, remains convinced Sandra, with whom she went to school, didn't just disappear. I was therefore over the moon when I started reading and I could actually hear him talking to me in his Irish tang, nuanced language and witty descriptions of real mundane issues in life.

Philip, a drifter and jack of all trades, is mourning the suicide of his childhood friend, Dove Connolly. At its heart, this is a darned good murder mystery and I loved the way the trio of investigators go about tracking down the clues in their own special ways.This has the bones of a cracking literary thriller with heavyweight crime story credentials, but it also has a surreal quality to it in the way the very darkest kind of humour ties everything together. I think it's fair to say that this is not an easy book to pigeonhole, and O'Hanlon's writing style does take a little getting used to, but once you get into the rhythm of it then a curious brilliance starts to reveal itself. This is a crime novel with twists, with the latter pertaining not just to “who did it” but to the genre itself - part humorous, part Irish history around the times of “The Troubles” and part true literary endeavour. So many of the complex threads tug on your heart-strings, and I found myself frequently overwhelmed at the beautifully tender way O'Hanlon describes the myriad of emotionally charged scenes - the moments between Kevin and his baby grandson Paul in particular had me weeping every time.