Holding by Graham Norton

Duneen is a small, sleepy town where nothing ever happens.  But it does and it did and the past is going to come back and haunt them.  Set in a modern Ireland it still manages to feel like we are back in the 1950s, with a slower, less connected way of life.  The Church has less of a stranglehold on the residents of the town but it's power is still felt, especially by the older generation.  People are people though so judgment is passed via the eternal medium of gossip and when a body is discovered the old tales of Brid Riordan and Evelyn Ross fighting over Tommy Burke in the village square are resurrected.  PJ, the local Garda, is tasked to find out what happened but this is way beyond his experience so "the boys from Cork" are called in.  Who is the body in the old farmstead? Are there more? Who put it there?  All questions that need (and indeed are) answered but the investigation is really a secondary thread in this book which deals mainly with the foibles of human nature.

It took me almost 60% of the way through the book before I really started to enjoy it.  I couldn't really connect with any of the characters and just as I was starting to get a handle on someone's character we would jump to another person's tale and I would lose the thread again.  It does all start to pull together very neatly but it does all rely on poor old PJ to hold everything together - never have I seen a sadder character in a book that I felt genuine empathy for; usually they just make me want to slap them.  His relationship with the detective from Cork is wonderful and the slow burn of the two men getting to know and like each other (professionally and personally) is wonderfully drawn.

It deals with a lot of divergent themes as well.  From the rather odd Ross sisters, all spinsters and living together in the old family home - even the village thinks there is something just a bit askew with them.  Through weight issues caused by comfort eating, alcoholism, the trauma of assault on a young woman, the black stain of being pregnant out of wedlock and just the difficulties of living.  Each issue is dealt with sympathetically and there is no judgment by the author of any character and why they are where they are in life; indeed many of them are given hope for a brighter future.

There are moments of wonderful insight in to how people tick in the book, unfortunately it is all encased in the back half of the book and I found it a bit of trial getting to the "good bits".  You can actually see Mr Norton's writing style evolve on the page and I can't help but wonder if one additional re-write/edit to tighten up the first half wouldn't have made this a much, much better book.