Divorcing Jack

Adam Moore's gravelly voice and Irish brogue give listeners an entree into the underbelly of Belfast in a noirish story that moves from disaster to pub and back again. A murder takes place amid the political violence in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, when Protestant-Catholic enmities are still roiling. Moore engages listeners throughout each drunken and misspent moment so that even the most preposterous events are made believable. His voice is so deep that he has some trouble with the female character, but give him a gangster, a shady politician, or an undercover agent, and all is more than well. B.H.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

September 4, 1995
Witty, fast-paced and engaging, Bateman's debut novel deals with the dilemma of a young Belfast columnist who looks beyond his marriage for sexual satisfaction only to get caught up in a search for damaging information about a prominent political candidate. When Dan Starkey returns to the apartment of his new conquest, Margaret McBride, after going out for pizza, he finds the young brunette riddled with bullets; worse, Starkey accidentally kills the woman's mother during a subsequent struggle in the dark. Margaret turns out to have been a politician's daughter, and her dying utterance (``divorce... Jack... divorce'') sends the fugitive Starkey in pursuit of a tape that reveals the sordid past of the leading candidate in the upcoming election for prime minister. As he hunts for the tape, Starkey is pursued by several parties, including an IRA contingent with a reputation for mayhem and violence. With the exception of an unexpected ending turning on double murder, the plot machinations are formulaic, but Bateman rarely lets the action flag. What makes this tale stand out, however, is the wit and charm of its protagonist, a sweet-tempered cynic with a devilish sense of humor. The intricate Irish politics are gracefully rendered, and Bateman's wry take on the gritty Belfast landscape adds an appealingly light touch. The author apparently has another Dan Starkey novel in the works; that's very good news indeed.