Safe Return Doubtful

Here’s a delight – a sharp and affecting snippet of life on the edge in rural County Mayo.

Riddled with anxiety and in and out of depression is Dev Hendricks, in his early 20s, his mother recently dead and his father semi-committed to the local mental institution. He just about gets by with dole payments and by looking after the occasional drug shipment, when he is approached by two notorious local brothers who want to call in a debt on a former accomplice, Cillian English. To hasten the due payment they kidnap his younger teenaged feckless brother Doll. Secured in Dev’s basement things look bad for Doll until his seemingly unsuited girlfriend, Nicky, aspiring to a University education, becomes aware. Despite her losing interest in Dev, she doesn’t want to see him dead.

It all takes place over one fractious weekend with Barrett’s strength being his descriptions of the character involved in this chaos; within no time every action of theirs is captivating, in all their complicated, tragic and yet amusing, glory. Wry illustrations are a highlight..

’He said you’d know him, Nicky said.

‘He called you a cunt, if that helps.’

‘Yeah, it does, Cillian said. ‘What he look like?’

‘I don’t know. He was in his forties, maybe. Tall enough, skinny, browny-red hair.’

‘Did he have an ugly fucking dug-out rat’s face on him?’

‘He was rough enough looking.’

‘And he was on his own? You’re sure?’

‘I didn’t see no one with him. He’d a jacket, said “Tequila Patrol” on the back?’

‘Fuck’s sake. Tequila Patrol; Cillian snarled. ‘That fucking prick. Tell me what he said, exactly?’

or

Work was quiet when Nicky got in.

There were several guests having breakfast in the restaurant. Barry Madigan was behind the bar, on his phone. Madigan was in his late forties. He played keyboards in a band. He was tall, with a massive, protuberant forehead like an alien and a woeful arrangement of hair-thin on top and raked back in wide-spaced furrows, the ratty remnant of a ponytail dangling between his shoulder blades. He was sound. He made little to no effort with the job and had somehow never been fired..

Another strength of Barrett’s is to not be tempted to go too far, it all remains completely credible.
It’s a pile of fun. Also a debut novel, which leaves the reader enthused as to what he will come up with next.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5