Divorcing Jack: A Dan Starkey Mystery (Dan Starkey Mysteries)

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Northern Irish columnist Dan Starkey and American journalist Charles Parker are sent out to cover the upcoming elections, in which the charismatic, former victim of the war, Michael Brinn seems the obvious winner, campaigning on a platform of disarmament and peace between the warring factions in Northern Ireland. Starkey, however, is not impressed with Brinn's promises, believing he has heard it from politicians before. I’d heard good things about Colin Bateman, and decided to start with his first, a 1998 thriller set during the troubles in Northern Ireland. I guess this movie is about secrets, the truth, and how peace is really only a shallow lie that is used to cover up huge amounts of tension. This movie is a very strong mouthpiece that reports on the violence that is tearing Northern Ireland apart, and Don Starky is the person who controls the mouthpiece. A couple of times he comments of the number of names that Northern Ireland has because of the number of people that are competing over control of this small state: the British and the Irish, the Protestants and the Catholics. The Irish want freedom from the British, but under that there is a huge religious tension that is constantly ripping the country apart - and every time a peace plan comes along, it is only shortlived before something happens which rips the country apart again. It is interesting to note that Scotland and Wales are gaining their own parliaments now.

The action in the novel is intense, the emotions extreme. Dan Starkey finds himself at the epicenter of a vortex propelled by three engines: wife Patricia catching him kissing Margaret, his unwittingly selling a much sought after cassette tape, his involvement as a journalist with an American interviewing the country's future Prime Minister. Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men (1997) is predominantly set in New York after Dan, now re-united with his wife, Patricia (pregnant with another man’s child) accepts an offer to follow Fat Boy McMaster, a Northern Irish boxer, in his efforts to win the Heavyweight belt against Mike Tyson. In the process, Dan hopes to get a book out of it. But along the way, Dan manages to antagonise the IRA, the UVF, an obscure sect called the Sons of Mohammad and Save the Whale campaigners. That experience seeded one of the themes of the play: “Is the cure as bad as the illness in some respects? But can you take the risk of stopping the medication to see if it has gone away? These are terrible choices.”

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Jokes abound, threaded among the plot and delivered deadpan, so listen carefully. Watch out for the armoured mail-van (dismissed as "unrealistic" by one irony-impaired reviewer), and listen to the hoodlums happily reminiscing about a previous murder - far more funny, chilling, and convincing than any Tarantino patter about coffee or fast-food.

The novel was generally well received by critics, with praise going to Bateman's humour and wit and his creation of a likeable " anti-hero" and most criticism concerning the novel's plot.As long ago as the 1990s, Bateman’s trademark of writing comically about horrific subjects brought accusations of inappropriate tone, which can only have increased in a time of “trigger warnings” and prepublication “sensitivity readings”. Does he feel his imagination is more constrained? “I’m not aware of being more careful. I think it’s a dangerous way of writing if you are working within such limits. But there is probably, somewhere in there now, an in-built censorship, in that you know there are just things you can’t say. One of my books is called Mohammed Maguire and that wouldn’t be published now. But I am aware of possibly controversial language in the play, and haven’t been asked to change anything.” So is theatre braver than publishing? “It seems so. But I’m going to find out when the play meets an audience.” What will Northern Ireland do when peace breaks out? Make movies about ordinary life? Colin Bateman's screenplay treats the Troubles as an appendage to The Godfather, except he's determined to see the funny side. Cold-blooded brutality and inebriated humour sit uncomfortably together. Journalist Dan Starkey commences an ill thought out affair with Margaret; a woman he meets on one of his solo binges in the Belfast bars. His wife Patricia finds out and throws him out. As Dan tries to get to grips with what has become of his life, Margaret is murdered whilst he has nipped out for pizza and he becomes the focus of a man hunt, but what do Margaret's last words mean...?