The ghosts of buried abuse and other personal tragedies haunt a retired police officer in the elegiac Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry (A Thousand Moons; Days Without End; The Temporary Gentleman). Tom Kettle has been off the police force for nine months, living quietly in his home overlooking the Irish Sea, when two officers arrive asking questions about an unsolved murder case from decades in the past, which has risen to attention in an investigation of abusive priests. The cold case takes Tom back to his honeymoon and the secrets his wife confided to him about the abuse she survived.
Barry's work often deals with Irish immigrants and their roles in the tides of history, but his rich prose works on a more intimate scale. Tom's failing and sporadic memories inhabit a stream of consciousness that, despite its meandering nature, remains accessible to readers; the ride is smooth, even though one is never quite sure what's beyond the next bend. Along with the rampant sexual abuse of children by priests throughout the decades, Tom wrestles with grief over other tragedies that have touched his family; Barry slowly metes these out to readers as Tom assists with the case and navigates the other mysteries of retirement, such as the actress who recently moved in nearby, and the question of her relationship to the older man sometimes seen with her. Lingering on themes of memory, grief and justice, Old God's Time is a lyrical Irish tragedy. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library