This is by anyone's standards a brilliantly written novel. Highly original, with exceptionally well-drawn characters. But is it a crime novel? I notice other reviewers describe it as a psychological thriller, so I will go along with them. Crimes are committed in it, certainly, and there is a killing, but not until almost at the end.
It is the story of a Dublin family, in which there are three brothers, William, Brian and Luke. The boys are children is a famous show band singer, with access to all glitterati show biz personalities. The narrative jumps about in time a great deal, which can be confusing. Their mother, known professionally as Melissa, although by her birth family as Moll.
In the eighties, Bob Dylan held a huge concert in Dublin. Melissa has an entree into all the VIP areas and tells William and Brian she will take them to the concert. Luke, who is 13, will have to go into the creche. William thinks this is totally unfair, but Luke is used to being unfairly treated by his mother and is much closer to his father, who has an ordinary office job and does all the family chores. Luke has many friends in the creche including some young girls who love to hear him sing. He is extremely good at networking himself.
As the years pass, their father dies young of prostate cancer, apparently not greatly mourned by Melissa. William is happily married to Susan and has a much-loved daughter, Daisy, and Luke (to everyone's astonishment), has become a world-famous pop star with more money than the rest of them put together. Brian makes his money by acting as an agent for his famous brothers, in the process swindling them out of a great deal of money. He also tries to take over Daisy's life, making her into a pop star, which ends in her suffering from bulimia. Susan and William part company. Luke becomes mentally ill and has to have prolonged sessions of therapy, eventually losing most of his money. The family is by now living in Liverpool.
The brilliance of this novel lies in the way it is told by each brother in turn leading to the eventual denouement.
