Saving Siobhán

Yesterday's post was lacking a bit of context, so I thought that today I would post the short synopsis to Saving Siobhán, so you can get a sense of what kind of book fell at the second hurdle.

It is election time in Ireland and a lot more is about to change for Grant and his wheelchair-bound friend, Mary, than their political representatives. Patrick has disappeared and his sister Siobhán abducted. The kidnappers have left behind Siobhan’s little finger, along with a simple instruction – find Pat quickly or receive more fingers. Soon Grant and Mary are caught between a vicious Dublin gangster and an ambitious politician. To make matters worse, when someone they confront is found floating face down in the River Liffey, Inspector McGerrity Black, Dublin’s finest rock-a-billy cop, is hot on their trail. With election day looming and Siobhán fingers turning up on a regular basis they race through County Kildare suburbia, Dublin’s saunas, Manchester’s gay village and rural Mayo, crossing paths with transvestite farmers, gombeen property developers, and sadistic criminals, as they desperately seek a way to save themselves and their friends while all the time staying ahead of the law. As first dates go, it’s one hell of a rollercoaster ride for Grant and Mary.

Saving Siobhán is a very different kind of book to The Rule Book (which was a straight police procedural) being a black comedy, crime caper (with a dash of romance thrown in). It's written in a style that avoids ‘thick’ description, instead using dialogue and action to drive the narrative along. This allows the text to move at a very quick pace, meaning that Saving Siobhán starts quite pacy and then gets faster and faster, maintaining and cranking up the tension without a change in style. While the novel starts as a single thread, it soon splits into a set of interwoven subplots that all converge at the story's climax.

Anyway, that's the bare bones of the story. Not everybody's cup of tea, but the kind of book that appeals to me (riotous escapism)! If anybody has any tips re. the short synposis, they'll be gratefully received.