Fugitive: The Michael Lynn Story by Michael O’Farrell (Merrion Press, €19.99) Notwithstanding that we all know how it ends (51⁄2 years’ imprisonment) this tale of theft of €18 million from six financial institutions, still reads like a fictional thriller. Journalist O’Farrell chases Lynn’s shadow all over Europe, catches up with him until Lynn again disappears.
He finally surfaces in a hell-hole prison in Brazil where he languishes for 41⁄2 years. Over the intervening 16 years, Farrell came to know Lynn quite well, and found him full of bonhomie, Irish charm and a shifty man who revelled in childish humour. He was also disillusioned: “Yes, I was a chancer, absolutely — not a thief.
” This is a thoroughly engrossing read of yet another embarrassing Irish financial scandal. — Owen Dawson The Morningside by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20) It was not surprising to learn that this novel was born during disquieting Covid-19 pandemic times. An 11-year-old climate refugee and her mother have fled “Back Home” to move to a decaying metropolis as part of a government “Repopulation Program”.
But if this is climate “dystopia” the resulting feeling is not doom but acceptance. Things will change, we’ll get on with it, the author seems to say; kids will always be kids. With elements of folklore and magic realism, this novel contends with interesting philosophical questions such as the relationship between superstition, guilt and grief.
It is al.