The Convictions of John Delahunt

Andrew Hughes Press Reviews

A quite exceptional novel, let alone first novel. Ireland has produced more than its share of fine writers and Mr Hughes is another. The world he creates has echoes of Kafka and Orwell, all the more unsettling because it lies beneath a veneer of early Victorian respectability, and is totally convincing. It draws you in like a trap and the conclusion is unexpected and touching. C. J. SANSOM, author of Dissolution and Winter in Madrid I found this novel unputdownable. The story the narrator tells of his gradual involvement in the shadowy world of perjury and betrayal organised by the Dublin police in the 1840s, is fascinating, and the ruthlessness that gradually emerges is chillingly portrayed. It's a superb evocation of a specific place and time ... the horrible logic of the plot leads to an entirely plausible though surprising twist. This is a highly sophisticated first novel and whets the appetite for the author's next. CHARLES PALLISER, author of The Quincunx This is a compelling and eerily authentic crime story highlighting the very real and brutal moral dilemmas facing those struggling for survival in 1840s Dublin. Read it and be grateful to be alive in our day and age. ROBERT GODDARD A dark, original story wrapped in a wonderful gothic gloom set in a solidly realised and historically plausible version of early Victorian Dublin. And the character of John Delahunt is fascinating - both deeply sinister and at times almost sympathetic: it's a tough act to pull off, but Andrew Hughes manages it with brio. I heard echoes of James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson. ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The American Boy and The Scent of Death Reminiscent of John Banville's The Book of Evidence ... a bracing, lurid tale that is as engrossing as it is chilling, and a fascinating glimpse into one of the darker periods in Dublin's history. -- Declan Burke IRISH INDEPENDENT The Irish spy novel comes in from the cold ... a vivid piece of writing ... brings to mind Andrew Miller's Costa-winning novel, Pure. IRISH TIMES Andrew Hughes does for early Victorian Dublin what Peter Ackroyd has done for mid-19th century London. This is to create an extraordinarily detailed world, impeccably researched to satisfy any student of history, while also being so superbly written that it soars as a masterly work of fiction ... utterly compelling *****. Dermot Bolger, IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY