Vintage Books/Random House N.Y. 2002

“A Mystery by 15 Irish Writers”
That´s quite a special, sometimes even glorious book, put together by the elite of Irish writers, if the cover of the book is to be believed. It took the authors 5 years to collectively write this mystery; the royalties go to Amnesty International, if the cover, again, is to be believed.
Roddy Doyle is the one who starts the story, with a dead body, of course, and lots of complications, so that the other writers have enough material to play with. Almost everyone of them throws in another corpse and the story gets out of hands, naturally, but that doesn´t matter. It´s real fun to follow all the twists and turns of the plot and the very distinct voice of every individual writer. Frank McCourt´s job at the end is to tie up all the loose ends, and he is just great. An interesting aspect is, that he of all emphasizes the Irish element most. Another proof of the fact that the Irish are most Irish if not in Ireland. But that´s true for most expatriates.